This is the week 27 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s called “Desert Sky” and is based on a reference photo by Joe Cook. 6×6 canvas panel, untoned.
I’ll be working on some of the previous weeks’ mini paintings in the next few days, skipping ones I’m not fired up about.
Last week, the instructor Dianna Shyne led a workshop on the “Colors of Spring”, which included her painting four small studies of flowering trees and spring flowers. I was struck most by her field of daffodils, and this flowering tree. (I’m guessing it’s a cherry tree.) I did my own version of the reference photo, and here is my result. (I took a photo at a distance, because in some ways, the painting looks better from afar.) 8×10 stretched canvas.
Colors used: Titanium White, Quinacridone Magenta (PR122), Naphthol Red (PR112), Cad-Free Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue and Raw Umber. I toned the canvas a few months ago with Raw Umber and Titanium White.
One of the perks of Acrylic University membership is weekly classes/workshops livestreamed on YouTube. Last Friday, the instructor Dianna Shyne led a workshop on the “Colors of Spring”, which included her painting four small studies of flowering trees and spring flowers. One was of a field of daffodils, and since daffs are my favorite flower, I tried my own version of the reference photo she used.
This was done on an 8×10 stretched canvas, and the yellow used is (mostly) Liquitex Cad-Free Yellow Light (Lemon), with some Cad-Free Yellow Medium in the foreground. All the various shades of green were mixed from Cad-Free Yellow Light and Mars Black.
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.
This is the week 12 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. The reference photo 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.
This is the week 10 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. The name is “Golden Vineyard”. I’m not sure where Dorsey got the photo, but he did his painting on a black canvas. I looked at the reference photo, and it seemed more golden to me, so I went with a yellow ochre background.
This is on a 6×6 canvas panel, a brand I haven’t used before (Yes! All Media cotton). I bought it at my local Jerry’s Artarama, and found it to be extraordinarily smooth, more similar to Ampersand’s Gessobord than the typical cotton panel. I’m undecided about it, as I certainly didn’t like Gessobord when I tried it last year. We’ll see.. I have 5 more panels to use.
This is the week 8 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s based on a photo he took near the Tetons in Wyoming. He called it “Late Light Shed”. I enjoyed painting this one. As usual, it’s the 3 primaries, black and white, but I did “cheat” a little by using some of Liquitex Basics Blue Gray Blue “convenience color”.
This is the week 7 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s based on a photo of the Swiss Alps. I painted this on a 6×6 canvas panel, with a toned background of a neutral brown (made with Red Oxide, Cad-free Yellow Medium, and Ultramarine Blue).
Trying to catch up with the series of mini paintings… This is the week 5 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s based on a photo Dorsey took in a local state park in, I believe, Washington. Take that back, while the original photo reference was provided, the lesson was actually based on the painting (called “Dappled Light”) he did based on the reference photo.
This was done on a 6×6 canvas panel, which was painted black. The only colors used were the 3 primaries.
BetterLateThanNeverArt 