Logan's Birthday

My nephew Logan is 12 today.  I made him a card of a mohawked Goblin with dynamite, which is about right for a 12 year old.  I did this in colored pencil.

Red Chalk and White Chalk

After working at the portrait workshop, I am circling back and working on some sketches with red and white chalk on grey toned paper.  This is a little practice with an eye and a ball in shade.

Snowy Day

This is the start of Snowy Day study, since it is snowing every where but here.  More to follow on this one.

Portrait #3

This is the portrait from today's class.  It is the third painting I have done from a live model.  Many Thanks To Scott Burdick and Susan Lyons for their instruction at the Chesapeake Fine Arts Studio.

2nd Portrait from a live model

This is the vignette I did today.  It is a training technique to improve one's painting and understanding of the face.

First Portrait from a model

This is from my class today, it is the block in of the first portrait I have painted from a live model.  I will continue you fixing things and making adjustments tomorrow.

Oregon Coast - Nocturne study

This is a small night study or Nocturne of the Oregon coast.  I had little time after work today, but I got the basic colors and values in to start this one.  I will refine later and will thicken the paint.

Meadow update

Top is the initial block-in for the meadow study.  I let it be for awhile and then re-visited it today and changed it up some.  I will leave it alone for now and will probably tweak it some later.

Back after a vacation

So the vacation was actually a computer repair enforced vacation and not a real one.  The computer is back and in good repair.  I worked on the lantern study.  You can see the changes I made to improve the sky, detail the horizon with trees.  I began to add in the shine and reflections from the light.  I will need to continue to refine this and improve the depth in the glass globe and details on the lantern.

Progression of progress - Ponderosa Pine and Aspens study

Above you can see the progress in reverse order.  I  blocked in the basic colors and then started refining the spaces and some of the values/"colors."  I have a few tree trunks and some foliage to modify on the right side to finish this up.

Great Falls Virginia

This is the competed Great Falls Plein Air.  Since I added to it after leaving the scene it is not technically still Plein Air but, the fading, changing light meant I had to stop anyway, as I am not fast enough yet to capture the scene quickly.  Though Plein Air is the means to getting better.

Snowy Mountain - Part two

Today, I messed with a couple of different paintings I had blocked in previously.  I will continue to post the before and afters so you can see the progress and how I have tweaked things on the path of getting them to a finished state.  The top photo is today;s work.  I refined the sky, the cliffs and the foreground. It is getting closer to a state I will be happy with and I will probably play some more with it tomorrow evening.

Orchids

Today, I puttered around on a few things, but this is what I did which was the biggest change on things.  I decided to block in the start of these Orchids.  Just the basics color notes and the background.  I will add to the Flowers details and will leave the background dark but textured from the thick application of paint.

Great Falls, Virginia - Plein Air

Today, I braved the cold with artist Armand Cabrera and Plein Air painted at Great Falls Virginia.  It is where the Potomac river passes over a series of rocky shelves.  Plein Air is great for observation of nature and improving your painting skills.  It is also a huge challenge.  I only completed part of my two canvasses.  I will probably work a little more on both tomorrow.   I captured as much as I could before the winter sunshine shifted too much and changed all the colors and shadows.

Sycamore tree study

Sycamore Tree study is what I worked on this evening after the full day at work.  I had done the initial block in early for the background and I added the trunk and some of the branches.  More work will need to be done on this but it has a decent start.

Rooster Finished up

I finished up with some highlights on the rooster as part of my activities this evening.  Now I will ignore it for a while and see if anything bothers me after a few days, but this is probably finished.  I will get a scan of it when it is dry which will be better than this photo.

Snow Day Fun

Today was a snow day in DC.  Not really because there was so much snow, but more through bad drivers, ice and no road prep.  I putted around on a couple of paintings, but this is a small study which I did the most on and which I was most satisfied.

Pentel Pen Brush - Quick Sketches of seagulls

Just a quick post tonight, I went back to the day job today.  I did this quick sketches of seagulls on the last day of the year.  I did three pages but these are probably best.  I tried a new technique with a brush pen.  Imagine a felt tip maker but with a more brush like flexible tip.  It makes interesting lines but it will require a lot of work to get them interesting and better than these.

Hallett's Peak - Pocky Mountain National Park

In keeping with my resolution to paint more, this evenings activities were to block in the initial oil colors for Hallett's Peak from Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

400th Post - Two from the Easel

This is my 400th Posting on this blog.  I started this blog as Art Therapy and a way to discipline myself to improve my abilities.  The Art Therapy was to distract myself from the personal loss of James, my son.  The discipline is to improve my capabilities.  Life is short and I wanted to focus myself and use the blog as a motivation to do something every day.  Today, I messed with the painting from Steamboat lake and I blocked in the initial colors of this tiny canvas Rooster.  This was combined with an art room re-organization and New Years cleaning.  Tomorrow, I will begin the march to 500 postings with more practice.

Jessica Sketch

The other model at the Chesapeake Fine Art Studio was Jessica.  I did not spend as much time sketching her.  She was seated on a bench and wore a ballerina costume.  This was about a 15 minute sketch.

New YearsDay sketching

I spent the afternoon and evening at the Chesapeake Fine Art Studio on Kent Island in Maryland.  It was a New Years Celebration and party.  They had two models and Sarah was one of them.  I sketched her a couple of times in 20 minutes poses.  This was the most successful of the sketches.