Hay bales

The way the myriad of colors play off of the complex shapes in the landscape is very beautiful. Makes simplification and color harmony that much more difficult to achieve! 

 

 

Benediction

Let's just say this is in honor of the character so well reprised! Took me two days and multiple attempts to wrap my head around the tiny details that were going totally amiss. Happy to have completed this simple sketch; I think I've managed to achieve a fair amount of likeness, which was the whole point to say the very least! With such a distinct face, the mistakes seemed elusive but were really quite 'elementary, my dear'! 

Red Rock Country

Diving straight into color without a plan did not work and I had to redo from the start. Have to do more of these to get comfortable with making the light pattern on the mountains read right and refine them to a better finish.

By the pitcher

From the Phil Starke program; the quintessential still life setup. Took a while to bring it to a level of finish. I reached for some much loved comfort food as soon as I was done! 

  

 

Value Planes

Working on indicating the sky, the flat, the slanted and the vertical planes using values. Gets a little tricky because the lightest value in the darkest plane has got to be darker than the lightest plane itself! A bit of a mind bender, but fun nonetheless! 

Enlightened

I decided it was time to tackle the formidable to-paint list I have had for a long time now. I started with the Zorn palette on what was to be a self-portrait, but it turned out to be a complete wiper! I know what did not work though and I plan to be more mindful of it the next time around. After this experiment, I am feeling more confident about painting familiar faces where the likeness becomes more important than just the aesthetics. Btw this being the 50th post, its a mini milestone met! :)

Back Again

An early in the day effort, all while trying to keep myself from biting my nails off during the immense excitement from some amazing tennis this morning! Though most of the work only went in after it ended. I am not very fond of classical realism but it is great for practicing drawing and the subtle value shifts. I changed my hold on the brush a few times and had more control than I had thought was possible. And starting with a black canvas is not something I might repeat. The colors seemed off, was difficult to get a handle on the darks and I couldn't achieve the 'cast' look with the same palette as the one I had used for 'Lady in Grey'.

Lady in Grey

The reference is from the Watts Atelier Program. I kept in mind to break the painting down into and filling in the shadow and light areas before modelling the form with mid-tones and highlights. Taking color out of the equation helps to focus on the values! Though I did use a hint of terra rosa in the reflected lights to add some interest.