Still Making Art

Life Gets Better as I Get Older

Monthly Archives: December 2016


by Leave a comment

Day 12 – Done and Signed

I’ve finished the painting. I’m calling it Fall Day’s Harvest. I sat with it for a while on Saturday, making tiny adjustments here and there, and then on Sunday morning I signed it. It’s done. I did decide in the end that I liked the background as it was.

It will be weeks before it’s dry and ready to varnish.

fall-days-hrvest-finishedThis is photographed at a slight angle to remove the glare from the overhead light. It measures 14″ x 14″. It took me a while to warm up to this photograph, but now I think this is one of my favorite paintings.

What to do next – that is the question.

 

 

Advertisement


by 4 Comments

Day 11 – The End Draws Near

I’ve not photographed recently, so today’s blog shows many days of painting.

moving-right-along-12-18-16

I’ve begun the bottom cloth, and am mostly using a #8 filbert brush. I still resort to my small brush for edges and the like. There’s still a lot to do – shadows need deepening in places etc., but I can see that I’m nearing the end.

Here’s my color checker laminate to date. I still also use my color checker that I built according to Mark Carder’s design at DrawMixPaint. I find the plastic sometimes is too reflective to give me a good view.

my-color-blotches

I’m getting better and better at mixing the correct color and value without having to use the checker.

I expect to finish this this week. While I finish this up I will be thinking of what I will paint next. Usually by this time I would have settled on a subject, and even done the setting up and photographing. Even preparing the canvas. I like to be able to go straight into a new painting without having to do all the prep work. But that won’t happen this time. There’s too much going on this time of year to fit everything I want to do into the time I have.


by Leave a comment

Day 10 – Just Doing The Work

I’m getting up these days full of energy only to bog down when it’s time to paint. But I tell myself that if I just sit down and start painting I’ll find myself engaged. So even though I don’t paint for long stretches at a time, I’m slowly making progress.

progress-12-7

December 7 – progress to date.

I know I’ll have to darken many of the shadows, but I’ve moved on to mapping out the darks and lights of the beet leaves. The more I get on the canvas, the more I can see where adjustments have to be made.

I think the most important thing for me in painting is liking the image. I will occasionally sketch in a whole canvas only to decide I don’t like the subject. With this image I sat with it a long time, even painting a different image, before deciding I really liked this one. I have made a change to the background as it is all black in the photo. I will decide after it’s nearly done whether I’ll leave it this way or choose the deep contrast pitch black. I seem to do so many paintings with black, that I thought it was time for a change.