Saturday, January 31, 2015

Cooling Off

With all the photos of snow and cold weather I thought it might me nice to look at something completely different.  I painted this a few years ago and always loved the universal stance people seem to take when they are in the water.  Somehow all that ocean and space in front of you makes you forget that there are lots of people all around you.  Standing in the water makes people seem more relaxed, more natural.


Friday, January 23, 2015

Here kitty

I was going through some of the photos I have taken of my paintings.  I am trying to be better at taking photos of my work and also trying to come up with a better way to take them. 
I came across this photo of a portrait on one of my brother-in-laws cats, Rocky.  He is very sweet and posed so nicely for me when I shot the photos to do his portrait.

Rocky

Friday, January 16, 2015

Another cloudy day

Carol Schiff posted a wonderful sky painting yesterday. Coincidently that is what we did in group on Thursday, clouds and skies. Carmen gave a demonstration explaining her techniques and use of color and tone. She also told us about some other painters she had discovered on YouTube and how they went about their paintings. It was really interesting and so much fun to watch.
After the demo we set to work on creating our own paintings trying to use some of the tips Carmen gave us. I think the best suggestion she had was to experiment. Everyone approaches their canvas differently, depending on their style, what they see and want to convey. Even though I had several photos with me I decided to put them aside and just paint my whole canvas blue and then put in some clouds. I had no other plan. I just wanted to lay down some paint, mix some colors, try different approaches and see what happened.
After awhile the clouds seem to take shape and lead me in a certain direction. Some of the clouds wanted to stay light while other areas called to be darkened. Some of the canvas did not even want to be sky or clouds but ocean.  One little area demanded to be land!! It really was a great exercise in mixing, setting a mood and letting go.


Friday, January 9, 2015

Living in Florida really has sooo much going for it. Today it was a chilly 65 degrees LOL so I made a pot of tea to warm up these poor old bones. While I was sipping my tea I noticed my wonderful little hula lamp so I got one of my teapot paintings and put it next to my lamp and thought this says it all.

Baby it's cold outside