Painting with a Friend

Yesterday I painted for 6 hours straight with someone who was so eager to learn. Gabby and I painted while my son David played the piano for our background music. What a special day it was! Thank you Gabby and David! You are the best!

Woodland Walk (Part 7-the Finished Product)

And I'm finished with the Woodland Walk!! I've learned so much about painting with acrylics from doing this painting. Thank you to Christine, Jonathan, Bethany, Rich and Barbra Joan for helping me along with great suggestions. I'm about 5 months early with this commission so woohoo, now I can play! Off to paint a watercolor next.

Woodland Walk (part 6)

The Walkers! I made a b&w copy of the original photo and the blew it up 200, 275, and 300%.
I chose the 200% size and taped it to carbon paper and then those to the painting. Then I outlined the figures with pencil on the photo. The carbon comes right off when you paint.

Woodland Walk (part 4)

Here's the Woodland Walk after 2&1/2 more hours of work. I defined more midground trees and then I got brave and started putting in a heavy fog rolling through the whole painting! Once I got started I couldn't stop! It's hard to feel like you're "messing up" all the previous work you took hours getting "just right", but changing the mood to what you want trumps being perfect!
(I cut off the tree on the left in this photo, but I had to show you Cozette begging to go out. She matches the color of the painting too!)

Woodland Walk (part 3)

Its now 11:45pm but really 12:45 with daylight savings. I went back to painting tonight and have been at it for about 4 more hours. I'm happy with the way it's turning out, but it still needs alot of work. I may try to get more of a misty feel again by glazing over it with grayish paint, maybe not. Some of the trees are transparent, so I'll have to give them some more paint. Then I put in the stars of the show, the walkers, and detail it, and then I'm done!

How to have fun procrastinating...

Today I feel the way my dogs look... so I did some creative procrastinating. I brushed the dogs for about 3 hours, I added 33 new art (some food) blog sites as favorites to follow (check them out on bottom of the page, they're great! Thanks Christine!), and I searched on my photos for things to paint (my cat Chino who never minds me taking his photo.) Now I'm watching the rain pouring down and talking about art with my son that came for a visit. Time to get my daughter from school. I enjoyed this parenthesis. See ya next time...

Beach House in Southern California

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of doing a commissioned painting of this beautiful beach house in Southern California. I'm finding I love the challenge of painting architecture and indoor living spaces as much as I love painting rural landscapes.