Western Scrub Jay

If you are in the Southwest of the United States be on the look out for these cousins to the Blue Jay.  They love the desert scrubland and cottonwood hollows of the streams and rivers.  This is my quick sketch of one I saw.  I think he deserves a painting one of these days.

Clark's Nutcracker - colored pencil and oil

This is as the title states a Clark's Nutcracker in colored pencil and oil painting.  I worked out my colors and paint plan in colored pencil and then translated it to an oil painting.  Prints and cards of the painting are available at my Fine Arts America site.    http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/scott-suitts.html.

Fjord Falls in Alaska

This is the painting I worked on in the second day of my oil painting class with Armand Cabrera.  Up top is the preliminary sketch I did to experiment with the design and values of the scene.  I then worked up the painting.  It is about 3/4 complete.  I will work on the waterfall, refine the snow bank better, and add some backlighting highlights to some on the spruce trees.  I will strengthen the brush and the beach on the right of the falls.

The start of Juneau Welcoming Committee Oil painting

Today, I will talk about part of the process to making art.  I do a lot of sketching.  Sometimes I end up developing some of the sketches into ideas for oil painting. This weekend I attended a two day oil painting class with Armand Cabrera at the Great Falls Foundation of Art in Great Falls, Virginia. I worked on this on Saturday.  I used the preliminary as a bit of a guide.  I then worked in the initial scrub of painting.  The background was too bright and I took Armand's advice and pushed the tones down by greying them into a fairly tight range and then adjusted them to draw in the low tide exposed shoreline.  I added the posts of the channel markers and the number board, then  I developed the water in the channel.  Overall, I am pretty happy with the results.  Late this week I will add the eagles.

Wheel Barrow

This is a quick sketch of an old style Wheel Barrow with pencil.  I spent the day at an Armand Cabrera Studio Painting working on technic and impressionistic painting.  I will post the initiate results in the days to come.  

Chimney Swift

This is a Chimney Swift.  I probably have the best stories on this type of bird.  They use to nest in hollow old trees before the Europeans settled the U.S.  When the Europeans came and built chimney's they moved right in and built in the house hold chimney.  The wife and I have removed a young swift which went down our kitchen chimney and ended up in the furnace.  Our cats notified us of his presence and we were able to remove him with a screwdriver, a loosened flap on the flue, and a hastily emptied plastic large snack jar.  The bird in the jar was safely escorted through the cat obstacle course and out to the yard. Our house has three chimneys so we have had them nest in the spring and another bird flew down and throughout the house.  Its perfect cat entertainment.

Happy Birthday, Barb

Today is my wife, Barbara's birthday.  She loves The Day of the Dead motif.  I always do something in the style of the Mexican Holiday.  So Happy Birthday to my Muse, Best Friend, and companion for the last twenty two years.