Small Framed Paintings, Birch Tree started

I finally filled the 3 small frames that were Christmas gifts from my sister Paula and bro in law Scott.  I also started that painting of the birch tree.  More on this later.

Warehouse

Warehouse.  Still in progress I guess.

What started out as a relatively simple shadow study ended up a little more tedious than I anticipated.  Having a distinct vision in mind would have helped.  I liked the shadow against this bright yellow warehouse wall.  The color scheme looked pretty simple, but I struggled to get the right colors, and when I went to paint the tree, I found it difficult to portray the light spots.  Still some work to do, but I think it will be worth the effort.  The shadow of the second tree (out of frame) fools you a bit now that I look at it.  Funny thing about shadows.  They are affected by the surrounding objects more than one might think.  The top of the wall was considerably lighter.  And I noticed some lines got out of sync. I don't plan on doing anything drastic, being that the lesson has been learned on this one.

Across the Street

This is a clearer picture of the sketch I originally posted

Woodstock Park Series

Tuesday:I'm not done with this one yet, but I think I need to put it away for a few days so I can figure out where I want to go with it.  When I started it, I had the intention of cropping the painting to make it work, but I think that lack of focus hurt me when I went to paint it.  More about this later....
And it is later: Wed.   So after looking at the painting I knew that I liked the sky, but wasn't sure about the building (school) on the left.  Then something struck me.  I think this painting would really work if more of the sky was featured in the top half.  Too much foreground and not enough back ground. In fact, the more I look at it, the more I realize the sky could have really brought this to life.  Lesson noted

Inspirations in Paint Exhibit.

A great Saturday... to echo Gary Everest.  I finally got to meet Celeste Bergin and David Burbach after months of following their blogs. (Photo by David Burbach)

I live only a mile from Eastmoreland Golf Course.  So when I checked Celeste's blog and discovered that she had an exhibit there with Kat Sowa, Dave McBride, and Anton Pavlenko I had to get over there and see it.   I met the other artists and as an added bonus photographer David Burbach.  I had a chance to talk with Celeste, David, Dave McBride and his wife.   I can say that even with David Burbach's professional touch in photography, there is no substitute for seeing the paintings in person.  The exhibit was appropriately named Inspirations in Paint.  They inspired me to get on the ball and do my daily painting again.  Donations from the show went to CASA benefiting children in the foster care system of  Multnomah and Washington Counties. 

Woodstock Park early evening

Woodstock Evening.  6.5" X 8"  Watercolor . SOLD
Once again it was difficult to photograph this painting without distorting the colors.  It's not this dark, but the other option made it look too washed out and blotchy. One day I will either get a better camera, or learn the proper way to photograph my work.  If you stand back about 30 feet you might get the overall effect.  Anyway, I stopped working on it .  I think it's time to move on. 

As I learn more about representing lights at night with watercolor, I feel confident that I will one day have an approach that isn't as hit and miss.  I had a couple of moments where I thought I had ruined it, then turned it around. Finally, I figured that I should take the lessons learned here and move on. Though you can barely see it I liked how the reddish brown around the foreground lights gave the slight glow needed.  Pulling the tree trunks from the dark background was useful, and adding the texture of the ground in the left foreground was also a positive move.  Letting the trees in the top left form from the drips added one of the elements I was looking for in a night painting.  I couldn't get the foreground to produce the same effect.  I don't mind the tactile look of these types of paintngs, but I know I have to be careful where and how much I allow that to happen.

Watercolor Sketch

Abstract Egg

Water Study

This water "study" has been sitting on my table for weeks.  I finally got it to the point that I thought would be okay to post.  The idea was to generate a believable representation of someone in water.  I got close, though, the actual picture was taken from a brochure for "Aesthetic Medicine", and was more "aesthetic" in presentation.

Sketch for Night Scene at Woodstock Park

First sketch for WNS

I started this sketch weeks ago after I posted the night scene reference photo.  I thought I should post it because I've found that action can give me a little kick start. I used my daughters Oil pastels for this.  I found them to be cumbersome to work with because I have trouble blending them.  I know I'm not using the right paper or technique, but I much prefer traditional pastels.  I plan to pick some up this weekend.  I don't know what happened to the huge stash of pastels I had years ago.I used to keep them in a little brief case.  Must have been tossed out when we moved.  That surprises me because I hate throwing out art supplies more than I hate throwing out old shoes. One might think I grew up in the depression era the way I save old crap....but I digress.

Remnants of the Past.

I couldn't stand to see that last post on my blog anymore.  It reminds me too much of how little I've done lately. so here's something else to look at......This is the only thing left of this painting.  All of the pictures on my computer were deleted when it crashed.  That didn't really bother me too much though. I have some online and backed others up before the crash.  This painting was cut up to use for a gift tag I believe.  Kind of a cliche painting, in fact a sample photo that comes with Windows looks a lot like this.  I've been struggling to make time to paint, but mostly because I am back to my procrastinating ways and it has caught up to me.  Should have more time once the taxes are done. 

Night Light Painting: On the agenda.

Photo: Woodstock Park, Saturday evening.

  It's so difficult to focus on one topic when I'm busy with work.  I've decided to start jotting down some of these ideas in my blog if I don't have time to paint in the morning .
I'm thinking about creating a series of night paintings.   I want to get back to painting scenes that include people, even if I have to add them into a photo.  I took this awhile back and will need to adjust how it is framed up since the focal point is right in the middle.  The thing I enjoy about night paintings is all the ambient light and subtle colors that are there, but cannot necessarily be seen in a photo.  A lot of artistic freedom can be exercised . 

Still Life

Green Apples    approx.  8"X9" August 2010

This is an older painting that is not in my gallery.  I did it for a daily painting last year. Work has me finding it hard to make a schedule for painting since I work most of the day.  I'm also in the middle of concentrating on a commission.  I'm pretty excited to share how that goes when it progresses. Until then I'll be pulling some from the archives, or posting sketches a little more often than in the past. At least until I get a regular schedule worked out.

Daily Painting in progress

Almost done with this dreamscape that appeared in my sleep last night. It was just a flash of a painting that looked like trees in the middle of a forest fire. A powerful image in my mind, and I can't quite get it on paper.
A nice little exercise nonetheless.

Reworked Daily Painting: Side Fence

Jan 21st, Saturday:  The slightly reworked version.  The camera didn't quite capture the same hues as the first, but the handles have been lightened

Jan 19th, Thursday: I thought this would be a good shadow study when I first snapped the photo. My main goal was to make convincing shadows on the fence.  The odd shadow in the middle of the fence is the power wires on the roof.  I thought they added an interesting shape to the painting.  Might have to do further work on the shadows.  Haven't decided yet.

UPDATE: Abstract Turned impressionistic Landscape

 This is pretty much the finished painting I started last week.  I added a few more reds, and removed some of the distracting darks in the top left corner in an effort to balance it out.  It might not ever feel quite finished because I really had no reference other than colors and shapes in my mind.  The second photo is some detail to show how I was letting some of the colors pool to form shapes, hopefully giving it a more loose feel.

   Posting Photos can be tricky.  I tried to add captions to each of these first 3 photos, but they showed up as one, so hopefully this isn't too confusing. The top 2 photos are my final update to the original post.  
The third photo from the top is of the first washes.  I planned on doing a loose abstratct watercolor, but my sketch had me worried that it was going t o be unbalanced
and bland, so I changed it to a landscape.

Forming an idea. I didn't yet know where I was going to go with this . Whether I was going for a snow scene or water scene or put a road in. (Maybe if I grew a large Afro I would know where to put some "happy little trees")... Everything was very loose.  I began to worry about the composition but sallied forth without much hesitation anyway.

After laying in some light red and yellow ochre, the painting began to show a little more depth. I am now at the stage where some finishing touches will be made where necessary. Some things are not making sense, but I am happy with the overall composition.  With this one exception.  This looks like 2 paintings so I have been trying to tie the right side in with the left.

I got up early this morning and decided to paint the abstract painting that was floating around in my head. When I sat down to sketch it I started to worry because  I didnt have a solid idea in place and could feel myself getting impatient. I wanted to get a painting done today, not spend all morning working on the composition. I knew the color scheme I wanted.  Earth tones with cool blues and some reds....

Representational Watercolor Exercise.

December 25, 2011:
Merry Christmas to everyone.  This is the painting I am working on (almost finished) of Mt. Tabor Park in early November when the leaves had begun to fall.  I was inspired by some of the best realist watercolor artists of our time...and of course, Andrew Wyeth.

Mt. Tabor Park 6.5" X 9" Watercolor on Canson 140lb cold pressed paper.

Mt Tabor  (With less contrast in photo)

 As I have mentioned before, I used to shy away from landscapes because I lacked the skill and expertise to feel confident or motivated to do them.  Quite honestly, the idea of painting landscapes gave me a slight sense of foreboding tedium.  That is not to say that I didn't immensely appreciate fine landscape Art.  And that is not to say I didn't enjoy success when I did do landscapes.  The pull to draw and paint people was simply stronger, and because of that I spent much less time doing landscapes.  Sort of the chicken and egg question.

Fall Study

Fall Colors 6.75" X 5.5"  $20.00

Another small landscape. A study of the bright leaves on a sunny fall day.  (kevinspaintings@hotmail.com)

Eastmoreland First Tee

Practice Fairway at Eastmoreland Golf Course

This is where most of my time is spent when I practice golf.  It's a small practice fairway between the first and ninth holes at Eastmoreland Golf Course.  I have become very familiar with these trees.  They have stopped many an errant shot from hitting golfers in the first fairway. Without them I would not have a place to practice.  This is my little tribute to them.

Old Road

The thing about the internet we all love is the immediate availability of great art.  The downside, you can get lost in all the great art.  I need to focus more on painting and posting because I've fallen behind on both.  I have two more little impressionistic watercolors to post.  I liked how this one came out because I left it loose and simple.

Spring Flowers

This was in the middle stages of my reworking...

...and this is the current stage of this painting.

I seem hell bent on tackling subjects that don't really interest me.  I wasn't really excited to try this still life, but forged ahead anyway.  It sat for awhile unfinished before I reworked it.  I'm not really sure if I am done with it yet.