Cast Drawing

The Wait

While strolling the streets in SF, I found this man - sitting on the steps of Union Square, reflecting on the sights of the bright sunny day; and waiting for all the things that would come his way.

Golden Rules and a Giveaway!

I clicked a picture of this happy little fellow, lazing on the lawns opposite the Ferry building in SF. The three things I kept in mind while doing this painting was 'Measure, Draw and Paint', which I have come to think of as the golden rules! One of Carol's recommendations was to have a grid as a reference for the initial drawing. That along with a value printout of the reference picture were quite helpful. Here are the demo pics. I had fun with all of the colors in his face and hair! 

     

As for the giveaway, its another of Leslie's 30 day challenges. I plan to giveaway a magnet of this happy fellow to three followers, drawn at random -> please sign up to follow by email for updates and/or leave a comment on any post. I'll also post the link to the winners blog/website at the end of month. This blog of mine is fairly young and a work in progress, and so is the artist in me! Any comments, views and suggestions are most appreciated and will encourage me to paint and post more often! Thank you!

Pretty in Pink

I missed them last year and vowed to make a trip this time. And so I headed off to the Lover point Park in Pacific Grove. I was right in time to catch the pretty pink ice plants that have taken over most of shoreline here. It was an overcast day; I first walked around and took a multitude of pictures; hoping that I could use some of them as reference photos later. I then settled down and worked on the above painting for about an hour, before I decided that it was a wiper! I am still glad that I got to go out there and absorb it all. Hopefully I'll put in my experience and not to forget the richness of the pink-purple flowers when I make another humble attempt at painting this stunning rarity of a view - The shoreline that was clad in pink. 

Kids & Coffee

This painting was done while at Carol Marine's Workshop at San Francisco (a brief description is at an earlier post - here). I shot the reference photo during our city wandering venture on the previous day. The small shoes next to the mug, cropped out of a bigger picture, was too cute to miss. I was happy with the way the shoes turned out. During the critique, Carol started by saying that she loved them (nothing much else could have made me that ecstatic!) before providing some helpful tips on how to tackle ellipses. I think the shoes by themselves make an interesting enough subject - and I might paint them again.
I enjoy seeing paintings in progress and started to take progress photos for later reference; and that turned out to be perfect for Leslie Saeta's Challenge. I plan on including demo photos in some of the future posts as well.

(click on the pictures to view them bigger). 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blue Band

I learned that just a hint of blue can make a highlight pop when applied over warmer colors (of course the model here is under cool light); and that a palette knife can create interesting variation in paint texture and also a strong hard edge where you need it. I have used this reference picture (and some before) from the instructional video by Artist Jeffery Watts on gesture portraits. I enjoy watching painting demos and videos,  they give a good insight into the painting process.