Friday, August 31, 2012

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Golden Harvest

I harvested some onions this last weekend!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Colour Study

Colour study from random Flickr photo.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Monday, August 20, 2012

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Life Drawing

Trying to be a bit more construction-y in my drawing.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Life Drawing

From the last life drawing session.


Friday, August 17, 2012

Rainbow Valley WIP

This is almost done.


At this point I opened the photo up in PS and started playing around with making minor changes. The painting is at a point where the more I work, the more likely it is that I'll screw it up, so I don't want to make changes indiscriminately. I added in a car traveling in the other direction and darkened up some of the green areas. Although I like the car, I think it adds additional complications to a painting that already suffers a bit from diffusion of focus. I think I'll leave it out, but I will darken the further hill a bit towards the bottom to add some depth.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Rainbow Valley WIP

Added more stuff. Noticed that the lamp post on the extreme right is supposed to be further back, started the process of changing its position.


What attracted me to the scene in the beginning was the sunset, but as the sky got darker I noticed the bands of colour on the road.  In the watercolour sketch they are very underdeveloped, but when I started looking at the reference photo I decided to bring them out.  I also liked the grass in the foreground, which I didn't really notice when I sitting in it.  (I was too busy swatting at the numerous mosquitoes.  The life of a Canadian plein air painter is itchy.)

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Rainbow Valley WIP

The clouds are basically done and I've started filling in the landscape.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Rainbow Valley WIP

Here I've painted in and blended the sky (which turned out better than expected) and laid in the clouds, as well as adding blue and darkening where the trees are going to go.


Monday, August 13, 2012

Rainbow Valley WIP

This is the watercolour sketch from several posts back of a sunset over Rainbow Valley. I'm doing this up as a large (for me) acrylic painting, about 16x20" or 16x24". 

I applied several coats of gesso to some hardboard and started off with a rough sketch in burnt sienna.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Jonas

The finished painting of Jonas.

We got to meet Jonas this weekend. He is a very handsome cat, if a bit shy. Acrylics on hardboard, 10x15".

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Undead Alchemist WIP


Don't know if this is going anywhere.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Imp vs Golem

For the Daily Sketch Group, which is not-so-daily.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

Food Tent

Another watercolour sketch, this time from the Heritage Festival a few days ago. I believe this was the Congo tent.


I loved those two women, cooking in their hats.

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Sunset

A quick watercolour of a sunset I did a couple weeks ago.


The sky turned out well but the light was really going by the time I got to working on the road.  I decided I really liked the patterns of the lamplight but hadn't left any space for the lamps themselves...

I think I'm going to try redoing this one in acrylics.

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Jonas - WIP 2

After several more hours of work, I'm almost done. I found some better lighting reference, fixed up the skew in the face and ears and made the eyes a good deal less creepy. I glazed the background with phthalo blue for some richer colour.


At this point I took a photo of the painting so that I could mess around digitally and see what could be improved. I ended up making the shadow more diagonal, darkening the light chair a bit, moving the feet down a bit, adding a bit more highlight to the tail and fixing his left ear. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the final painting before it got picked up. I'm going to see if I can grab a photo of it when I visit family in southern Alberta later in the month.

Monday, August 06, 2012

Jonas - WIP 1

This is the stage of the painting process that doesn't look very good.  I've laid in the basic shading and started on the eyes.


Friday, August 03, 2012

Jonas Sketch

A preliminary sketch for a painting commission.