Coreopsis

This is a small painting of some ot the beautiful flowers that are blooming this time of year.

Canola Fields

On our Meaford workshop Marina and I found this lovely composition that at eight in the morning was misted over and very atmospheric. As the morning passed we were soon painting a brilliant sunlight day with only a few wispy clouds. Trying to remember the colours and values of the original scene was impossible so I opted to paint the sunlight scene. This is a blocked in exercise using the rectangles that Ian introduced us to.

Fields near Meaford

This sketch was from the second day of Ian's workshop.

Fields

I am just returned from a wonderful five day plien aire workshop with painter Ian Roberts. We spent the week learning from inventive exercises and painting outdoors at many beautiful locations. The above painting was an exercise done in the field simplifing all shapes to appropriate sized rectangles and matching the colours as accurately as possible, much harder than it sounds or looks, but a fabulous way to zone in on the important aspects of a landscape. The group was fantastic, thank you all so much for contributing to such a blissful experience.

Four Plums

These beautiful plums reminded me of a few lines from a poem by Margaret Atwood that went something like this, " I ate the last of the plums from the refrigerator this morning. They were cold and sweet and delicious". My apologies to Margaret, it has been at least thirty years since I have read these lines, but they have always stuck with me. I think it is a part of a very short love poem.

Lemon Lilies

The garden is full of luscious smelling flowers this time of year and lemon lilies are one of my favorites. I spent Wednesday and Thursday at home painting several studies of these lilies in this old jam jar and felt really in the painting groove by Friday, now I'm back to work for the weekend.

Irises - a study

This is a painting of some of the beautiful Irises that are growing in my garden this year. The cool wet spring has produced one of the nicest gardens that I have had, I look forward to painting lots of flower studies this summer. I was working with values again, that is trying to separate the light and the dark values into two families, lit areas and shadow areas.

Farm Road

This painting I did from an outdoor sketch that I painted a couple of weeks ago. I was having some trouble getting the lights light enough. After watching a video by Kevin McPherson I have come to realize that the colours in the lit areas of a painting and the colours in the shadow areas belong to separate value 'families' and that the families should be kept separate in the painting to help define the regions of shadow and the regions of full light. I need to do a lot more work using this principle but I think that this piece of information will help me with some of the problems I have been having in the past.

Between the Showers

This is a small canvas that I worked up from one of the oil sketches that I painted outdoors last autum. My work schedule, a bout of "gastro", and an enormous amount of gardening have kept me from painting much or posting in the past couple of weeks.

Red Pepper

A vegetable for the Daily Paintworks Challenge, last week's challenge actually. I will have to rephotograph this one as I seem to have a lot of glare despite using a polarizing filter

Calla Lily

The simplicity of this lovely white flower drew me to paint it.

Tangerine and Cups

A little piece in which I have been experimenting with the background. It has been several shades and values but I finally decided to stick with a warm dark value to set off the cool shadows.

Tulips - a study

This painting is a sort of follow-up on the challenge entry, my focus was on selecting complimentary colours from the Munsell wheel. The composition is almost exactely the same as the previous painting with the tulips substituting for the geraniums and the vase turquoise instead of blue. I greyed down the turquoise table cloth and darkened and cooled the cloth in the background to provide contrast.

Geranium Sprig

This is this week's entry to the Daily Paintworks Challenge. The challenge was to use the colour wheel and choose a colour scheme using complimentary colours. The most difficult part of this challenge was to find paper or cloth props that were the exact compliment of the subject of the painting. I have a whole new appreciation for painters who consistently produce lovely paintings every day whose colours are harmonious, but look like they were loosely arranged - they wern't! I have learned that it takes a lot of time and effort to consistently make great colour choices.

Chicken on the Run - San Miguel

My entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge this week. Carol Marine posted a photograph of a chicken and the challenge was to either paint her photograph or choose an image of your choice. Marina and I had fun with her pictures of chickens from San Miguel that she took when she was in Mexico with Frank Gardiner on a workshop.

Spring Run-off - sketch

Yesterday was heavenly, the first outdoor painting day with Marina this season. We drove to one of our favorite spots and set up looking over this delightful little 'creek' which only runs in the spring with water from the melting snow. It was one of those gorgeous days in spring, the sun shining on our backs, a bit of coolness in the air, the sounds of the melt water burbling along the ditches - no bugs, and the endearing sounds of the birds singing their hearts out. The coulour of the grasses was difficult as it is a greayish yellow this time of year but I think the painting as whole turned out pretty well.

Spring Afternoon - a study

Yesterday Marina came over to my studio and we painted from the photos that Carol Marine posted this week on the Daily Paintworks Challenge. The challenge is titled "The German Landscape". Carol has a great sense of composition so all we had to do really was copy the design onto our panels and work up the painting.

Teapot - after Kora

This little painting was done at Marina's house last week, the teapot has a lovely highly reflective surface that was challenging to paint. The reference to Kora is because the painting is based on one of her small paintings. The name of her blog is "Small Paintings by Kora Fried", she is an excellent painter and I came across her site by following the links from one of her paintings in the Daily Paintworks Challenge. Check out her blog, she has some wonderful paintings posted.

Teapot - a Study

This piece was one of my earlier attempts at the 'colour of white' challenge on the Daily Paintworks Challenge. I like the teapot but am less happy with the patterened fabric. The fabric does not receed into the background at the top of the painting the way it should, I need to employ both aerial perspective and linear perspective, which I found difficult through such a short distance. Any suggestions?

White Bowl - White Challenge

This is my entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge of last week, a white object on a patterned surface. It took me a few tries at this challenge to finally like one of my attempts. Marina and I did this one together at her studio on Wednesday afternoon.

Clementines in a Blue Glass Bowl

I feel like I havn't been at my blog much lately and have missed it. I'm off shopping tomorrow to buy some painting supplies, always a fun time.

Aby Baby!

This is my attempt at the Lincoln portrait in the DPC. Somehow he looks a little scruffy and contemporary. It was a lot of fun and a very good exercise.

Radishes

I enjoyed painting these radishes very much. I used the technique suggested by Carol Marine on her Daily Paintworks Challenge, that is mixing a new colour for each brush stroke. It takes more time but the results are worth it, I think. The painting is fresh everywhere and the quiet areas are more interesting and lively. Speaking of the challenge, I have gotten so many more people from around the world looking at my art; and I have found blogs from many artists in other countries. This sharing of art across nations is wonderful. Thank all of you who have visited my blog.

Red Pepper

This week's challenge was from Carol Marine again, to paint each stroke with a new mixture of colour with a fairly wide brush. This is super hard as it is a slowish process and the mind wants to quickly charge ahead and proceed with the painting. I had some difficulty with control of the large brush over the tight spots at the head of the pepper but I reminded myself that this is an exercise to improve painting skills and not to be too attached to the result.

Zippo

The painting of the Zippo lighter is my entry into the weekly Daily Paintworks Challenge. This week Michael Naples presented a photograph of a Zippo lighter and instructions to use only two colours, Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine with white for the painting. It was a great process, thank you so much Michael for the challenge!