ACEO - Pottery 2

I started three small paintings at KAGS during a Still Life class (see posting on 24 October 2013).

The first is a painting of a piece of Blue Mountain pottery shaped like a fawn laying down. The lights shining down on the piece were reflected back off the shiny surface creating interesting patterns.














I will post the other two paintings as they are completed.

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 Windsor & Newton paint on 140lb. Arches 100% rag, acid free watercolour paper. It is priced at $20.00 and sold unframed.

Roses in Vase 1

Today while out shopping they had a vendor outside the grocery store selling roses to raise funds for one of the local hockey teams and I bought half a dozen.

When I returned home I put them in a vase and set it in the middle of the kitchen table where I could enjoy them while having my meals.

As I was walking by the table, the sunlight coming through the window created a beautiful image that I wanted to capture.

I decided to place the vase to one side of the paper to create interest rather than in the centre of the paper.

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

Listening

My Inky kitty has been AWOL for the last 4 days, but she sometimes she does disappear for a week at a time, so I hope she returns soon.

I worked on finishing this 3" x 4" graphite pencil sketch of a Standardbred called Try Me Now for Mr. Leon Stephens of Toronto, Ontario.

Now I am off to the Executive Meeting at KAGS.

Blowing Snow 1

Today I taught the first of four Tuesday afternoon watercolour classes at KAGS. It was called "Basic Painting".

 I wanted my students to learn how mixing one or two colours together could give a wide variety of different colours that would create a different feel to the painting even though they are similar.

Rather than having them be intimidated by having to work on a large blank piece of paper I asked them to work on nothing larger than and 8" x 10" piece of watercolour paper. That way each student would be able to complete at least one painting during the class and would have others to work on at home.

The easiest thing for a class of beginners to work on is a snow scene in a limited palette. For this painting we used French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and raw sienna.

We wet the paper first and then using pure French ultramarine blue brushed in the sky leaving some areas of white for the clouds and worked down into the snow covered ground to put in the shadows with the blue leaving the rest of the snow white.

Adding a little raw sienna to the blue to make a green, we painted in the distant trees on the far side of the open field. To create the illusion of blowing snow we lifted a few streaks in front of the trees with water.













With the light green mixture we marked in the main tree trunks and branches on the closer tress and added the first layer of pine needles.

Next we added a little more raw sienna and a touch of burnt sienna to darken the mixture and painted in the darker closer pine needles onto the foreground trees. A few dead tree trunks were placed among the live trees as well as some bare branches.

Using pure raw sienna a few grasses were painted into the snow at the base of the pine trees and into a few areas on the foreground snow. Then a little burnt sienna was put in among the yellow grasses in a few places and the painting was completed.

We worked on three other combinations of the same three colours and I will post them at a later date.

This original 4" x 6" watercolour painting is available for $30.00 unframed.

If you would like more information about OSWOA please go to my post on 12 March 2010.

Winter Building II

I have a new cat in my barn. It is a very large ginger coloured tom cat that has set himself on the front seat of the demolition derby car that is being worked on in the upper mow.

He is extremely wild at the moment, but I know I will eventually gain his trust.














Today I worked on this sketch of an old building in the winter.

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

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 November.

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

Winter Building I

Today has been a fairly busy day for me; in the morning I worked on finishing the sketch of an old farm building in the winter with the Buckhorn Tuesday Painting Group until noon.












From there I went to the Kawartha Artists' Gallery and Studio to teach a class in basic watercolour painting.