Underwater Housing I-III - Three Works in Progress

Often when I go diving in the Caribbean you can find all manner of creatures in the making their homes in some of the strangest places. I have found crabs and lobsters in old rusted buckets and in Barrel sponge and while diving in Bonaire a number of fish  had made their home in a crumpled  45 gallon oil drum.














Underwater Housing I

In the Still Life class earlier this month we painted old clay oil jugs and large clay pots (see post on 05 March 2015).

I thought why not turn them on their sides, put a hole in them and then add a few sea creatures.













Underwater Housing II

For the first one I have started painting in some of the colour on the clay oil jug and have to decide where to put the broken part and what sea creature I will put into it.

For the second one I will have it buried a little deeper in the sand and will probably have the opening closer to the front.






Underwater Housing III

For the third one I have indicated where the opening will be and it is just a matter of finding the tenant.

I will post each of these underwater homes as more work is completed on them.

Small Treasures Poster and Art Show

My artwork appears on the poster for the upcoming Small Treasures Show, which is a fundraiser for the Best of High School Art Show held in May.

Art is a very difficult field in which to earn a living; but it is important in that it is a form of expression, it can evoke emotion in the viewer, be thought provoking, make a statement or cause one to see the world in a different way.

It has been with us for thousands of years and should not become something that is lost with time and a lack of encouragement.

I am not the only one at KAGS that feels it is important to encourage the next generation of artists. KAGS supplied up to three canvases to any member artist that was interested in helping with this fund raiser. The response was wonderful with almost 30% of KAGS artists willing to donate their time and talent to create paintings for this show.

The upcoming art show called 'Small Treasures' is a little different than what is normally the way an art exhibit is ran at the Kawartha Artists' Gallery and Studio. Instead of the public buying the art from the artist as they see it at the Gallery both the public and Gallery members will be eligible to purchase tickets at $30.00 each (with all proceeds going for prize money for the Best of High School Art Show) starting on Wednesday, 18 March until the start of the final day on Sunday, 29 March, with no more tickets available than the number of paintings exhibited.

Tickets will be drawn on the final afternoon of the exhibit starting at 2:00pm with the first name drawn having the first choice of one of the paintings on display. This will continue until all the purchased tickets have been drawn.

The Best of High School Art Show was the idea of Cap Leahy who together with Barry Parsons (both of whom are members of the Outdoor Painters' Group) held the first show at KAGS in the mid-1990s and it has been an annual event ever since. We have had students enter our show from the Kawartha Pine Ridge School Region, as well as schools from Norwood, Lakefield, Lindsay, Peterborough and the surrounding area.

Prizes are from many different fund raising events over the course of the year such as the Annual ODPG silent auction for artwork by their members and the KAGS Christmas Silent Auction, last year funds were raised at the show held at the Lockside Trading Post with artists donating 25% of the proceeds from their art sales, private individuals and with generous donations from the Rose Baker Fund and the Retired Teachers Association.

Prizes for this annual event are given to the students in the form of cash and gift certificates from Victory Art Supply.

If you have a chance, please come out and help support our future artists. 

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.