Garden chores

Its still in progress. I am just about done with filling the canvas with the overall colors in the painting. Yet to build it all up and finish it off. I'll be sure to post when its done.  

David

From an open studio costumed figure session at the Community School of Music and Arts. It was a good change to paint from a live model. I plan to do it more often. 

The Exhibit

The subject lends itself well to studies, good for drawing and exercising the value scale. I want to aim for more finesse and varied brushwork the next time around. 

Dressed Up

I started with painting the face and then moved on to the head wrap and the dress. A few tones of color and a hint of a shadow were just about enough to suggest the intricate neck piece. I had initially planned not to include the flower, but did so as an after thought. I think it works well to balance the composition. 

The reference picture is from the Watts Atelier program. 

Poised in Pose

I was a little too excited to render the Silk in the costume that I painted all of it first. I realized that the high value contrast is what makes it shine! I struggled quite a bit when I finally got around to painting the facial features. The scale was too small for comfort. I'll remember to go big the next time I am painting the full figure. This is meant as a gift though and I thought 5x7 would be a good size. 

Budapest

I spent a lot of time trying to complete this painting. Funnily enough, the most appealing part to me is the shadow of the main tower! Transparent red oxide is quickly growing to be my favorite color to have on the palette. The Chain Bridge is what I remember most from the trip to Budapest. We lived on the other side, across from the Parliament Building and we probably walked this bridge a million times before we discovered the convenience of using the metro. Duh! Budapest is beautiful during the day, breathtaking by night, historically significant and home to a great cuisine. Whats not to love? 

Setting limits

Why I haven't been using transparent red oxide is beyond me. It is going to be a constant fixture on my palette henceforth. The depth it adds to the shadows with it's transparency is truly unmatched. For the most part of this painting I used a limited palette consisting of burnt umber, transparent red oxide, terra rosa, yellow ochre and white of course. Color mixing turned out to be much less of a hassle and it was easier to maintain the color harmony.

White Dress

I hadn't thought about what I wanted to paint next; and so decided to rework an unfinished under-painting from earlier using the puddles of dried paints that I had left on the palette. This was an effort to reduce waste and an experiment with inventing color from a black and white reference. An exercise to get better at understanding values. I am happy with how it turned out and hence pretty pleased on many levels! :)

Spectacled

A simple sketch, just to get the paint juices flowing. This is a scene from union square on a bright sunny day and she had comfortably settled in with a book. I added the tree as an after thought and moved it around to add some balance. I am not sure if it was necessary for the composition! Hmm. Btw, can you tell that she is wearing glasses? 

 

 

Ms. Murphy

The one thing I have learnt from trying to paint portraits is to not give up! And it feels like a real achievement when at some point the sketch begins to look like the person you are trying to paint. Every small shape and every little curve is so important to achieve the likeness and to me, painting faces is the most difficult thing yet and that is why I love it so much too! I am also posting a desaturated version of the painting above; gives a good perspective of the value scale. I gave this sketch to E as a Christmas gift, and I am of course elated to know that she is happy with it ! :)

A peek at Queenstown

The other NZ sketch in acrylic, done from inside a cafe which had glass walls looking out to the Wakatipu Lake. It was a windy day and we were glad to be inside shielded from the elements while I painted and my friend settled in with a book and ordered multiple rounds of coffee and cacao to show our gratitude to the staff that let us laze inside. 

The sketch is now proudly owned (i'd like to think!) by a hitchhiker we had offered our help to earlier. He mentioned that he collected art as souvenirs and that he'd like to add this painting to his travel diary. I was more than happy to oblige! :) 

Nuggets by the Sea

Nugget Point at The Catlins, New Zealand

The blog has been very quiet and how time flies! Every time that happens, I wonder why I let time slip given how much I love to paint. This time on my vacation to NZ, I decided to paint and paint I did! This is one of the first nicer sketches en plein air using the acrylics kit that I had picked up in Auckland for the sake of convenience. I did struggle with the medium a few times and the surface used here is meant for water colors and hence the texture. I am back after two incredible weeks of flitting around in the mesmerizing world away from home, unwillingly so of course, and I plan to do some rigorous painting to beat the blues! Here's to the new year and a new beginning! 

   

Vignette in White

The second attempt at painting roses with a slightly different style as compared to the previous one. We had them in all colors. After trying the pinks and the oranges, I decided to work on the white ones where the temperature, I think, becomes imperative. I didn't think this looked like much until I moved a few steps away. Squinting and stepping back is almost becoming second nature now and I know why!

And I am off for a dose of vacation! I have been planning on doing a whole travelogue of paintings. I am not carrying paints this time but am sure I will be back with oodles of ideas! Well.. what they say is true, all roads lead to Rome!! :)

Daniel J. Keys

Rosy endeavors

A day dedicated to roses. The paint consistency, how much and the way the it should go onto the canvas and of course the shape, color, value and temperature; a whole slew of things to think about before putting down every stroke. This had to be the brightest pink rose I have seen, the color was very difficult to match. And building up from a block-in approach completely threw me off track, but had to try the method of the masters! 

Plum peaches

And that's day one with Daniel Keys at the Sadie Valeri Atelier. Getting the still life fix! Daniel is precise in his suggestions & critique. His stark colors & crisp brushwork make his paintings exquisite! Looking forward to working on a large still life painting in the next few days. Hopefully a complex composition. That would be fun, and his forte of course!

Tangled

Reference by Richard Robinson. Painting the portrait of a tree has been on my list and this one with so much character was just perfect. I layered on really thick paint to get some textural contrast in the snow. This was a first and I like the effect! I want to experiment with thin darks with a bit of canvas peeking through the next time around. 

Value Planes II

Landscapes value sketches are difficult! especially when you have to indicate two colors of the same value. I might go over this one with some color to see how it turns out. 

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.