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52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #14

| cathmary1030

This is the week 14 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s from a reference painting by an artist named Bruno; a large lone pine is silhouetted against an evening sky. Dorsey’s process involved painting the tree and foreground first, and then the sky. I did the opposite, painting the sky in its entirety, and then painting the tree and foreground in a chromatic black (burnt sienna & ultramarine blue).

The reference photo did not really speak to me; I think this is reflected in my painting. Oh, and I started with a 6×6 canvas panel I had already painted in a diarylide yellow.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #13

| cathmary1030

This is the week 13 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. I’m not certain where the reference photo was taken; it’s not one of Dorsey’s. The painting he did in the paint-along is called “Big Clouds” and he uses a magenta red underpainting. To be honest, his version of this painting is one of the reasons I signed up for this challenge. I’m not over-crazy about my own version; it’s just another study of clouds. I need more practice.

My First Nocturne

| cathmary1030

I’ve had an 8×10 canvas lying around for months which I had toned with anthraquinone blue (PB60), and I had seen some nocturnes done by students in Acrylic University. So, inspired, I went through my own photos and found one I took in my backyard early in the Covid lockdown. It’s not the best reference, but it is certainly a nocturne!

I used dioxazine purple for the dark-shadowed house, and Liquitex Basics gray-blue with some black for the lighter wall. The sky is the anthraquinone blue, but also a mix of phthalo blue/ultramarine blue and white in varying shades around the moon.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #12 – Value Adjustment

| cathmary1030

After I completed the week 12 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University, and compared it to a grayscale of the reference image, I realized the values were off. So I’ve lightened the trees and the grass.

Here’s the value comparison between the reference image and the original painting, and then the reference and this updated version. The updated pic is, obviously, on the left. My trees and my grass were much too dark in my first attempt.

Purple Tulips… after Ali Kay – Done!

| cathmary1030

I finally finished the purple tulips. It’s not really my style, but I had to try it. If I could do it all over again, I’d either dilute the gesso with some water and use the biggest brush I could find (to minimize brush strokes / ridges, and I’d probably do it in at least a 10×10 size.

The finished version is on the left. Where it looks black, it’s not. That’s dioxazine purple. Also, I started out with a straight line between the table and the wall, but messed up with my salmon-colored paint. I’ll need to adjust either with the bluish-purple (likely) or the orange/ salmon color.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #12

| cathmary1030

This is the week 12 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. The reference photo [from Mark Hadland] is from somewhere in the Colorado Rockies, I believe, and the painting is called “Let’s Take a Hike”. It’s painted on a 6×6 Claybord panel, toned in black first. I liked the Claybord better than Gessobord; what I read online is folks beefing that is shows the brushstrokes. Which, yeah, it does. But, in my case, so what? I’m just practicing, not doing commissioned work.

One thing, though — I need to do the trees and sky “my way”. (Which is — do the sky FIRST and then paint in the trees.) Doing it Jed’s way is fine for him, but for me it just looks like c–p.

Purple Tulips… after Ali Kay — in progress

| cathmary1030

I haven’t worked on this project in days, because frankly I got a little bored. Too paint-by-numberish. I like this artist’s style — more here — for pet portraits and people, and am thinking about signing up for her “Fresh Paint” school when it reopens. But I wanted to see what “Fresh Paint” might be like by purchasing this lesson. We get the templates (which I like!) and then the color “recipes”. Her style is to use (more or less) complementary-color underpainting in pieces (not just one overall underpainting / toning). She also uses Masonite or wood panels that have to be gessoed first, rather than canvas or paper.

Also, I’m using an 8×8 panel and in all honesty it would be better if I were doing a 12×12 or even 20×20. (Those templates are also available as part of the class.)

Anyway, this is what I have so far, and I’ll try to finish it some time this week.

Red Rose.. After Carol Marine

| cathmary1030

This red rose is from Carol Marine’s works on the Daily PaintWorks website. I wanted more practice with roses. I drew this one out first on a 6×6 birch panel.

I started with alizarin crimson, and then mixed it with either yellow, white, or dark blue to get the different red shades. The olive green leaves and stem were created with yellow and black. There’s one section of teal blue that really should be the purplish shadow color, there right in the center of the painting.