ACEO - Shapes 3

It seems as though we have totally by-passed spring and have jumped straight into summer with the temperature today reaching 82F (27.8C) with the humidity making it feel like 89F (31.7C). We were fortunate to have a strong breeze blowing to make it pleasant to be outside.

I thought that today I would work on another abstract painting.

Using a pencil, I marked out a couple of rectangles.

With alizarin crimson, I painted in the long rectangle on the right side.

I moved diagonally to the bottom and used Antwerp blue to paint in the rectangle.

Using a mixture of both colours, I painted in the horizontal bar at the top left side.

Lastly, I used cadmium yellow on the bottom horizontal bar to complete thee painting.

If you would like more information about ACEO please go to my post on 11 March 2010.

The ACEO shown here is an original watercolour painting using Artist quality Winsor & Newton paint on 140lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. 

It is priced at $20.00 and sold unframed.

Sunlit Builidings 1 and Moonlit Buildings 1 - Two Works in Progress

Another bright, sunny day with a nice breeze, which even though the temperature reached 78F (25.6C) it was nice to be outside.

Today is the last day of the Doug Mays workshop and it has been a very enjoyable and learning experience. I look forward to future workshops with him.














For the morning he did a demonstration of a number of sunlit buildings with the only thing being masked was the window on the first building.

Once the painting was completely dried he washed over the entire painting with indigo turning it into a moonlight scene and set it aside to dry.













I will complete the first painting and leave it as a sunlit scene and the second one I will wash over with indigo and turn it into a night scene.

I will post each of these paintings at a later date once they are completed.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and enjoy the artwork.

Snowy Trail - A Work in Progress

Today was day two of Doug Mays' workshop.

This is of a winter forest trail with the background trees in muted shades of green greys and cast shadows in a variety of blue greys throughout the snowy landscape.

The sky was brushed in using Cobalt blue and as it dried the distant trees were painted in using raw sienna which mixed with the blue of the sky.














A little darker mixture of Cobalt blue and raw sienna was added to create a slightly closer layer of background trees.

The main tree trunks were put in using pure burnt sienna on the sunlit side, burnt sienna with a little French ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson was added to the grey mix for a dark on the shadowed side of the tree trunk.

Smaller background tree trunks were added using various shades of the greyed browns. I will post this painting at a later date once more work on the trees has been completed.

Century Barn - A Work in Progress

The weather remains bright, warm and sunny which is a pleasant change from the long cold winter we have experienced.

Today is the first day of a three day workshop with Doug Mays being held at Six Foot Bay in Buckhorn, Ontario.

The theme for the workshop is shades of grey and during the course we are going to create a wide range of greys with various paint colour mixes.

The first painting was of an old barn. The barn board was various mixtures of Prussian blue and alizarin crimson.

Instead of doing his barn, I chose to paint a couple of my barns, in this case the east and north barns. The west barn is behind the east barn and not visible.














The upper part of the paper was wet, leaving the barn and foreground untouched. The sky was a graduated wash of French ultramarine blue, and allowed to dry completely.

Next the foreground was washed with clear water and various mixtures of raw sienna and Quinacridone gold and once again it was set aside to dry.

Once the foreground was completely dry it was time to start with the barn board. To start a pale mix of Antwerp blue and alizarin crimson was put over the barns with a dry brush.

Gradually the pigments were darkened as more layers were added. There is still a lot more to do on the barn.

I will post this painting at a later date after the barn board is completed.

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 May.

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

Laces - A Work in Progress

An exercise we did last month in Abstract painting with Lorraine Staples was to use a shoe with laces and do four line drawings of a small part of the shoe to create an interesting outline.











Each one was different and although some of the line drawings did look as though they were a part of a shoe, others did not.












As each drawing was completed it was turned in every direction to decide which way looked the best.












By the time the last drawing was completed it was time to make a choice as to which one would be used to create an abstract painting.














For me that was a very difficult decision as I liked both the second and third sketch equally well.

After a lot of thought, I decided that I was going to use both of them and simply joined the two of them together with a couple of lines.

I will post this piece at a later date once I have transferred the sketch to a canvas.

Thank you for coming to look at my artwork.

Boxes and Drapery - A Work in Progress

Last month at KAGS we had a very interesting display for the Still Life class where the theme was Scarves, Jewellery and Trinket Boxes.

It was a difficult choice to make as there were so many things that would make beautiful still life paintings.

I found the shadows and folds on the drapery very appealing and because of this decided to work on the one section of the display that had three different sized trinket boxes, a bracelet a couple of necklaces and a pair of earrings.

Each of the trinket boxes was set at a different angle and I will have to work on the perspective to get them correct.

But the most important feature for me will be the shadows and folds on the drapery which I am looking forward to painting.

I will post this piece at a later date once I have completed the drawing.

Thank you for looking at my artwork.