Category: My Art

I wanted to add a couple photos that I took recently – I added them to the My Photos page as well, but, the one with the reflection I feel very drawn to paint.  So, I think that will be my next big painting (I’m finishing up a couple smaller ones so you’ll probably see those here first).  The other one may be a painting down the line.

Anyway, here they are – enjoy! Continue reading “A couple of photos”

Last weekend I took a 6 hour webinar class with Valerie Collymore:  https://www.valeriecollymore.com/

She’s an oil painter, and the class was for oil painters, but she said it would be fine for me to join (I paint with acrylics)

We spent a majority of class learning about brushstrokes, composition, paint mixing, values (dark, medium, light).  She provided reference photos of some of her paintings for us to paint.  I chose a painting with a teapot and an apple. Continue reading “Another Painting”

A friend of mine bought his first house and asked me to do a painting for him.  He took a photo along a stream that’s near his new place.

I was sort of having “virtual” art classes; that is, I would have about 10 minutes per week with my teacher where I would send her a photo of my progress and she would mark it up or tell me what to do to improve it.  This painting ended up being right at the end of our last session before we stopped for the summer, so I got some input, but finished it up on my own. Continue reading “Commissioned Painting”

For my tenth project in art class, I chose a scene from the Spanish coast, from my trip hiking the El Camino last year.

I wanted to try my hand at painting water, and fog.

First, here’s the photo: Continue reading “Art Class Project #10”

I finally finished my 9th art class project – a painting from a photo I took in Spain, along the El Camino de Santiago.

In order to make sure I had things in the right place, I ‘gridded’ the photo and the paper I was drawing on.  Then I drew outlines on paper.  When the drawing was done, I shaded the back side of the paper with charcoal, and then drew along the outlines so that the charcoal would transfer to my canvas. Continue reading “Art Class Project #9”

So, Project #8 in Art Class is the first project that we get to pick the subject matter and what media we’ll be using to create it.

I decided to paint a flower that I took a photo of at Longwood Gardens. Continue reading “Art Class Project #8”

So, I started my Glass Study on March 28, 2019, and I just finished it this week!  A lot of starts and stops with this – first, I went to Spain, England and Wales.  Second, class stops for summer break.  So, I worked on it March and April and then didn’t pick it back up until Sept 10!

I’m not sure if the break helped or hurt, but you can certainly see a big difference from the beginning to the end. Continue reading “Art Class Project #7”

I still have some photos from California that I need to post, but, I finished Art Class Project #6 this week so I thought I would post that first.  Easier to go through these photos than all the ones from the trip! Continue reading “Art Class Project #6”

OK, I finally finished my fifth art class project – “complex still life.” Continue reading “Art Class Project #5”

This project was fast – done in 2 hours!

Here it is:

The object was to mix colors with lightening or darkening colors to get the range shown in the columns.  The line marked with the dot on the left are the original colors – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Blue Purple (aka Ultramarine Blue), and Purple (well, except for Yellow – the original Yellow is the third one down in that column).  Starting at the top, each color in the column was mixed with various levels of white and as the column goes down, the color is mixed with black.  One exception – the orange was mixed with Burnt Sienna, not black.  Between R & O, O & Y, Y & B and G & B, are mixes of the colors on either horizontal side.  The green I had to create using Blue and Yellow.

Anyway, I learned a lot about color mixing, and it will definitely help me in future paintings!

I start a new project this coming week.  Not sure what it is – may be a ‘complex still life.’  I’ll keep you posted!

We had a two week break from class for the holidays, so it’s been a while since I worked on my latest project.  It is a pencil drawing of an origami bird.  This project took me about 5 hours and 40 minutes, so two full classes, plus and hour 40 of today’s class. Continue reading “Art Class Project #3 (Finally!)”

I just finished the second project in my art class – painting a green apple. Continue reading “Art Class! Project #2”

I signed up for an art class!  I know I’ve been posting my paintings for a while now, but, I found out about a place close by and thought it would be fun to do.  Plus, I haven’t had an art class since high school and I want to improve my art.

The first class was yesterday.  The first task:  draw an apple using pencils.

Here’s the apple:

The teacher looked at what I was doing and said I needed to make it darker, so she suggested I change the photo to black and white to get a better idea of how dark some of the parts are:

Each class is 2 hours long.  I can’t believe I worked on that apple for 2 hours and I’m not even close to being done yet!  And I’ve learned so much already!

So, here is the unfinished apple.  I’m thinking I’ll finish it by the end of next week’s class.  I thought I’d let you follow along with my progress!

I just can’t believe that’s 2 hours worth of work, and it’s not done!

Each session is 7 classes long.  I suspect I’ll sign up for another session when this one is done.  I’m the only ‘new’ person in the current session.  Some are in their 4th session, so there’s a lot of different stuff going on in class, which makes it fun too.

Anyway, until next time …

UPDATE:
Here is the final product.  I’m not 100% happy with it, but I learned a lot.  Total time in was 3.5 hours!