Spoon

I wanted to do a painting from life rather than a photo. Although the weather outside is unseasonably warm (it should have been averaging around 5degF), it is still not warm enough at 30-40F for me to be comfortable standing outside for a while and painting. So...

I got a shiny, silver tablespoon out of the kitchen, put a strong light on it and started painting.

It was amazing how many colors I saw in that silver. There was the orange and white from the light, yellow reflecting off the wall, and blues reflecting off the cloth napkin.

It was a lot more interesting than I would have thought a plain spoon could be.

French windowbox

French Windowbox,
5x7" oil pastel on canvas (SOLD)

This was painted specifically for a silent auction with a French theme.
It is now framed and ready to give to the committee.

First four “Quick Starts”

I’ve decided to try making some painting “starts”.

In Kevin MacPherson's book, "How to Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light." He says:
"Pledge to do one hundred starts - simple, flat shape studies with no detail. They can be figure studies, still lifes or landscapes. Give yourself thirty minutes to cover a canvas with properly related color shapes; this will exercise your speed skills. Strive for more accurate relationships with each one. The more starts you do, the better you'll become at them. Number your starts to chart your progress."

I’ve decided to do this project so that I can gain confidence to paint on location.
I've gone out a few times to do plein air (outdoor/on location) painting and always hated what I did.
In the studio, I'm used to starting with a nice transferred drawing. And outdoors I start from a simpler, rougher initial drawing. So I'm going to try and approach these starts as if they were plein air (rough initial drawings and done quickly).Then hopefully by Spring I'll be ready and confident to go try plein air again.

QS#1 -French Windowbox (from photo by WetCanvas.com member Olga)
5x7” oil pastel on canvas
This was my first "Start"and I went a bit over time. It felt odd stopping after 30 minutes when the painting still seemed to be going well. So I kept going until it was done.
QS#2 -4x6" oil pastel on paper, 30 minutes, from photo
QS#3 -4x6" oil pastel on paper, I gave up on this after 15 minutes. This one is supposed to be a bike in the shade but there was so much depth in the scene and the bike's color was so dark that I just gave up.
QS#4 -4x7" oil pastel on paper, 25 minutes, from photo

It will be interesting to see how many I want to turn into full paintings.

A Beautiful Farewell to 2005

A Beautiful Farewell

8x10"

oil pastel on paper

Painted on New Year's Day. This was my farewell to 2005.

And since I was painting on New Year's Day, I'm hoping that is indictive of a lot of painting to come in 2006!