Vases - Two Works in Progress

Today in the Still Life class at KAGS we set up four displays of porcelain, ceramic and glass vases with dried floral arrangements.

To do all four of them in a painting would have been just too busy so instead I decided that I would do a sketch of each vase.

I started with the green ceramic vase which had Chinese lanterns, teasel, silver dollars and dried ornamental onion.

The orange of Chinese lanterns glowed against the silver dollar plants.

Green Vase

The white ceramic vase was the next one I sketched.

The vase was filled with dried ornamental onion and silver dollars.

I liked the way the orange colour of the Chinese lantern resting on the table at the base of the vase were reflected against the bright, shiny whiteness of the vase.

White Vase

I will post each of the pieces as the sketches are completed and colour has been added to the painting.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and look at the artwork. I hope you will return often.

Horse Heads - Three Works in Progress

It seems that Junkyard has gone out on the prowl again and I haven't seen him in the last two days. I hope he isn't going to be gone as long as he was the last time.

I decided to work on some sketches of horse heads today starting with a draft horse.

This first sketch is of a dapple grey Percheron gelding that I saw last year at one of the fairs.

Together with his team mate, they were in the horse pulling competition and did fairly well placing third behind two teams of Belgians.

Billy

Perhaps as I do more work on this sketch I will add his team mate, Bob and put the harness on the pair of them.

This sketch is simply working on the proportions of the head and how each part of the head relates to the other and where the proper placement should be to make it correct.

When I sketch I have a tendency to block the various parts and pieces in with straight lines and rectangles without using a lot of circles.

Hunter Head Study

Many other artists prefer to use circles and connect them together with lines to block in their subject. Either way works well, it just depends on what works best for the artist.

This last sketch of one of Ron's Standardbreds is drawn from a photographic reference and I haven't compensated for the camera distortion.

As I work on refining this sketch into an outline drawing, I will have to make a number of changes to the basic shapes in order to have the head drawn in the proper proportion.

Try Me Now

I will post each of these sketches at a later date once the outline sketch has been completed.

Background 22 and 23 - Two Works in Progress

It is nice to have the temperature finally making it to 40F (4.4C) and to have some of the snow melt; although I am not looking forward to my driveway turning into a skating rink. But eventually all the snow will be gone and my flowers will bloom.
















Background 22

Yesterday in the Lucy Manley class I used the left over paint as background on two canvases.

For the first one I used half of the raw sienna, the cadmium yellow and the lemon yellow.














Background 23

For the second canvas I used the remaining raw sienna, alizarin crimson and cadmium red.

I will post each of these paintings at a later date once I decided what I would like to paint.

Walking the Dog - A Work in Progress

It is getting warmer out 21F (-6C) and even though there is a wind making it feel colder 14F (-10C) the sun is shining and the snow is starting to melt. With the warmer temperature it seems as though overnight most of the snow buntings has left and I only have one small flock of about thirty five birds here today. I will miss them when this flock leaves.














Today in the last Lucy Manley class at KAGS and we are going to do a Peterborough street scene.

As usual we under painted the canvas with raw sienna and the buildings were blocked in using cadmium red.














The shadowed side of the buildings were painted, the shadows under the eaves and the windows. Lastly the trees were indicated as well as a person out walking the dog.

Now it was time to start adding colour to the buildings.














On the first building Titanium white mixed with  lemon yellow was put on the sunlit side, then raw sienna was added to the mix for the shadowed side and a hint of red was added to the shadow colour for the cast shadow on the sunlit side as well as the fence on the left side.

The red brick on the next building was cadmium red with a little lemon yellow added. For the shadowed side alizarin crimson was added to the mix with a touch of French ultramarine blue.














Using a mix of French ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson and raw sienna, the windows of the buildings were blocked in as well as the dark shadows under the eaves. A small amount of cerulean blue was added to the mixture and the shadowed side of the front building and the spaces between the fence, on the left side were painted.

More raw sienna and a touch of Titanium white and cadmium red were added to the dark paint and the sunlit side of the front building and the right side fence were added.














Using pure Titanium white the snow was applied to the foreground, the roofs of the buildings, the front top of the brick building and onto the tops of the fence posts and fence.

Cerulean blue was added to the white with a little alizarin crimson for the snow shadows in the foreground and on the shadowed side of the roofs. A little French ultramarine blue was added to the mix and darker shadows were added to the foreground snow and the shadow from the tree was put onto the roof.















Using the shadow colour I added a roof for a small shed on the left side behind the fence and adding a little cadmium yellow painted the front part of the shed green. I will use this colour later on the coats of both the dog and person.

Using white and lemon yellow I added more colour to the sunlit side of the first building. The tree shadows on the front of the building were put in using the yellow mix and adding raw sienna.

I will post this painting at a later date as more of the buildings have been completed.

Background 21 - A Work in Progress

Spring cannot be too far off with the temperature this morning being 20F (-6.7C) and even with the wind chill making it feel like 8F (-13.3C) and the snow blowing it is warmer and you don't mind when the sun comes out from behind the clouds.

This background is the result of using the leftover paint from a painting I started in Lucy Manley's class at KAGS earlier this month (see post on 02 March 2015).














The colours used to create this background are Titanium white, French ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, raw sienna, burnt sienna and alizarin crimson.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork and I hope you will return often.

Koi 4 - A Work in Progress

Today is a much milder day with the temperature at 14F (-10C), and the wind chill making it feel like 3F (-16C). It is overcast and we are supposed to get some snow flurries this afternoon, hopefully there won't be too much blowing snow.














I had planned on getting this painting that I had started last year (see posts on 18 July 2014 and 09 January 2015) completed while I was at Art on Kent this afternoon, but we had a number of people come through the Gallery that I didn't have very much time to paint.

I will post this painting at a later date once more work has been completed on the Koi.

Buckhorn Artists' Group Blog - Show Updates

I have updated the Buckhorn Artists' Group blog with a listing of shows some of the various artists in the Group are exhibiting their work in during the month of March.

If you get a chance come out and visit them at one or all of the shows.