Follow the Dirt Road

Another painting tonight.  It sure can be a struggle deciding how to simplify sometimes.  Probably tried to capture too much detail tonight, but enjoyed my paint time!  This one is done with a limited palette: viridian, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow pale, and titanium white.  Oh, and the underpainting was burnt sienna with a little alkyd medium.  The actual painting looks so much better than these picks :-(
8"x10" canvas.

Villa - Finished

Well, I'm bachin' it tonight.  Wife and kids are out of town so I'm staying up insanely late...painting.  Did my first value study.  Who would've thought painting with black and white could be so hard.  I'm sure it was just the subject I picked. Yeah, that's it I'm sure.  That one I'll keep to myself ;-)

Tomorrow I plan to get outside and do some plein air around our property.  But for now... 

I think I'm done with this Villa, at least until I find something else to change...no...I'm done....I think.  Yes, done.  Painted from a magazine.  Tossed in a picture of my makeshift picture holder. You like?  Okay, posting the pictures and off to bed.  8"x10" canvas board.

And my picture holder...

Our Barn - Finished

Few tweaks to finish up the barn tonight.  Pictures are horrible, but the painting turned out nice.  I replaced my Thalo Green with Viridian.  Must say I'm enjoying the greens I'm getting with Viridian.  Saw some amazing photo's on a friend's facebook and got permission to paint from the photo's so I've got some good material to work from at night.  Can't wait!!

Chipping Sparrow study

So the object tonight was NOT to produce a "masterpiece", but rather limit my time to force myself to look for the shapes and simplify the shapes.  Per Kevin MacPhersons book "Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color", I was only planning to paint 30 minutes, but I didn't get the canvas completely covered so I went over by about 15 minutes.  I was painting at night so this was based off a photograph from Birds and Blooms. 

Anyhow, I'll be doing lot's more of these small quick studies in preparation for the Thomas Jefferson Kitt's workshop in August.  He got my registration today and the class minimum is eight people...so come on, painters!! 

So here's tonights 45 minute effort.  6"x8" canvas board.

Worked two paintings tonight

Worked on the reflections in the water and some highlights tonight. I think I'm gonna' call this one done!

Also, did some more work on the painting of our barn.  Still gotta' do something about that roof and I'll probably do more touch up on grasses around the barn, post and treeline.  It's late and I don't have many lights on in the living room so this picture sucks or maybe it's the camera, or maybe it's just the photographer ;-)

And finally...I'm so excited! I'm signing up for my first workshop.  The workshop is put on by an amazing Plein Air artist, Thomas Jefferson Kitts.  The workshop is five days of Plein Air instruction in mid August. You can read more about here.

So I'm gonna' try and bust it on some small 6"x8" Plein Air paintings around the place over the next two months so I can be ready to get the most out of this workshop!  Can't wait!

Our Barn - WIP

Started a little painting of the barn in our backyard. Still more work to do like finishing the roof (looks kind of flat) and getting barn doors finished.  Oil on 11x14 canvas board.