Painting off Walker Bridge photo - Stage 3

This is Stage 3, and I must specify here that it is actually painted from the photo, rather than the "en plein air" location itself. This DOES affect the final rendition, as the atmosphere is not present in a photo... Susan Sarback says you get only "10% of the real thing" from a photo.



Sooooo what I am doing here is using the photo as a reference and asking it to spark my memory of what was actually happening with the sun and shadows at the time the photo was taken when I was there on the bridge painting.


As I study this stage, I am asking questions to fine tune the next stage.... comparing background, middle ground, foreground, and the actual focal point of this scene (which is the point of the lightest light and the darkest dark). Do you see it? It's where the sun is hitting on that water way in the back. These questions are: lighter/darker?, brighter/duller?, warmer/cooler?

Soooo..... 4th stage ahead.

luv/joB

"All for the love of art."

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Painting off Walker Bridge - Stage 2

This is stage 2.

Here I just define the shapes in a little more detail.



I finished this late in the day. I'll show you tomorrow.

luv/joB
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"Seeing Color" from the Walker Bridge

The art class we are currently taking from Nancy Kilmer is called "Seeing Color". It's the Hawthorne/Hensche style which is a modification of Monet's impressionism.

The first part of this class was the "drawing from the right side of the brain" exercises, and then the blocks still life.... painting the blocks and the shadows they cast. I showed those in previous blogs.

Now we are "en plein air" painting off the Walker Bridge, which is about a mile and a half down river from the community hall where we meet for class.

View down riber from the bridge:










My first attempt:



I am not happy with the way this is working out, as I don't feel I did a good "first stage".

The object of this whole process is to capture the light, color, and atmospheric conditions present at the time scene is being painted. I think I got the greens too bright, and since the oil paint has dried now (2 weeks later) I decided to start over last night.


Stage 1:

I started this last night in class - from the photo, which is not the same as "being there", but I think it's good practice for this first stage, which is the base, and needs to be correct. This is also the part where I have the most difficulty.


So this is where I am this morning.





I'll show you my progress as the day continues.








luv/joB
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Easter with the Red Hats

The week before Easter, my red hat group, The Red Hat Mamas, celebrated friendship, food, and frivolity at Chris Barney's home.


................. showing off our Easter Bonnet creations before the judging.




Lois was the Grand Prize Winner.
Karen (or should I say Carmen Miranda) in the background won second place. She actually had potted plants intertwined with bunnies, umbrellas, and little chicks adorning her hat. She shared the plants with us for our spring planting.

I think Judy (in the foreground would have gotten 3rd place if we had awarded one.) She had the Easter bucket theme going. Miriam and I were the subdued ones in the group. I have an edge over the other gals, as my Easter bonnet is serving a dual purpose as a beautiful spring wreath decoration.

Chris had beautiful decorations all thru her home, and I couldn't resist sharing this one of the bunny, the jelly beans the the little bee buzzing around... reminded me of my alter ego "joBee", and also reminded me that I haven't been painting lately - beyond my "see color" class.


Next blog.... I'll share what we're doing in class.

luv/joBee

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Wow! It's been a long time

I can't believe it was February when I last blogged. I guess not a lot of activity you'd be excited about.

Spring is TRYING to pop in, with some success. The swallows have arrived and are nesting. We have seen the juncos and the morning larks and other migratory birds.




The robins and the quail winter here, so they pop their heads in all year round. These were taken a few days before Christmas.








Feb 4 our Art Class with COS (College of the Syskiyous) spring semester started.

Our instructor Nancy Kilmer

lead us off with "drawing from the right side of the brain" exercises in preparation for "seeing light and color" palette knife technique.



This process of "seeing" starts with painting blocks. We are being taught to distinguish: the color the block actually is in bright light, in shadow, and cast shadow. It's the Henry Hensche method of seeing light and color.

This is a challenging process, mainly because the first color you paint is NOT the color you actually see. It's a base (under color) upon which you build layers. I have been working on mastering this process for a long time. It seems to get clearer as time goes on. We'll see. We will be painting en plein air (outdoors) as the season progresses.

I'll keep you posted.

luv/joB

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My last project - work in progress

I know, I know.... the question? What were you working on in class? so here it is....

I stopped short of finishing this little 5x7 painting....

I started with a pinkish sienna and umber background, and then layered the snow over the top. The bench started taking on the appearance of a couch and that's about when the class ended for the session in mid December. Actually the last class never happened, cause we had a power outage that night, and the roads were too treacherous to travel . I plan to correct this and finish the painting, but for now, I have already put my acrylic paints away and plan to use the oils and alkyds going forward for this next session.

I've had a hard time getting a good photo of this little painting... It's blurry and I'm not sure how to fix that short of taking it outside.... which by the way...

this is what is happening outside at this moment. 2:36 pm, PST, Feb 10, 2008.


Maybe I should go out and paint en plein air.... Right!

It's 32 degrees right now. A bit too cool for this fair weather artist.

And it is a gray winter day.... which we haven't had many of lately, it's been springtime here.... our humming birds are just flitting and fluttering along here at the feeder. They don't care about the snow.

Enjoy your day.

luv/joB

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Happy February

It's been a slow start to the new year.... not much happening. Winter doldrums I guess.

The weather has been mild. It's 20 degrees when we rise in the morning, and it usually gets to between 45 and 55 degrees by midday. And soon we are shaded in and the temp starts to drop. The ducks love these days as you can see from the duck action at the pond.





George went out to throw a couple casts and he spotted this fox in Shirley's trap. He is cute, but these foxes cause a lot of problems here in the park, not to mention bothering those ducks in the pond.






The spring session of our Art class starts this week. Looking forward to that. We almost didn't get enough locals signed up to have it.... always a problem in an area that has so few of us. So here's what we look like painting at the community hall.




Wendy in the orange sweater. She's a skilled water cololrist.






Ron working on those daisies.

This is Rebecca painting upside down, which is a process to paint WHAT YOU SEE and not how you THINK a thing is SUPPOSED to look.





Daisy working on her creation.









Robin working on those mushrooms. Can't see what Rita has going there.




Kathryn sketching a still life and David working on petals and leaves.



Sam, analyzing his fish. Sam paints bee hive boxes. We see them along Hwy 96.... very colorful as you can see here.



My good buddy Karen adding some pizazz to a landscape scene.

Nancy our instructor is the blond facing this way.



So this is the gang, using oil, acrylic, and water color.... which must drive Nancy crazy, trying to teach all those mediums, as well as different skill levels. We are all at different places in our painting experience.

We'll be using palette knife and oils this session. This is always fun.

I'll take pictures and bring them to you.

luv/joB

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