…practice

… more metallic surfaces. Adding colors is purely fun.

Wee bowls

My step-mom, Betty, was a potter. People now say ‘ceramicist’, but I will use the term she used. She made many useful items, including all of the dishes we used every day. She also made decorative things, vases, and even a full chess set once! No other potter I had seen the work of carved into their pots the way she did. She made many interesting patterns.

Here are a couple of tiny paintings I did to record my step-mom’s sweet little bowls.

metallic surfaces

Stainless steel-yikes! This one actually metal. I was hesitant to try it, definitely fine over an old painting. ‘You have to start somewhere department’ as my mother might have said.

#allaprima #allaprimapainting #twohourstilllife #paintingpractice

Differences

When the King tides photography project came up, I remembered these rocks painted during a normal high tide. It was a foggy, grey day, but these rocks jumped out strongly while everything else was in the background and soft. I felt a little bit of color would make it feel more “welcoming”. Hey-it’s my painting, I can do whatever I want with it!

#landscape #landscapepainting #waterscape #oilpainting #hightide #contemporarypainting #californiacoast #bayarea #shorebirdpark

Multi-color glass balls

More reflecting surfaces. I looked all over for plain red & green ornaments, found none except some medium red ones in a string. Most are now designer colors, i saw olive greens(!), rose & mauve, gently golds, even some brown ones!

#oilpainting #contemporaryart #season #semiabstract

a portrait series…

This has been turning into a series. Not a series related to each other in any way other than that they are all of children loved by others, who would like to see their dear faces frequently. I feel a bit Beatrix Potter saying “dear faces”, but that is kind of how you feel, especially as a grandparent. While in the midst of parenting, I know it is much more difficult to see the forest for the trees. Sadly, but there it is!

a young lady

While I often paint using a limited palette this young lady required more colors. She is so fair and blonde, her features become just mildly prominent. I like to try to get a feeling for the person while painting, and, to me, her face seems to shine kindness, fairness, even-temperedness, and I’m sure she is all of those things!

Vegetable entertainment

I’ve been pressing my fruits and vegetables into service in the interest of getting frequent painting warm ups. These slim but fiery red peppers are deceptively compact, they deliver a powerful heat, and the white pepper is new to me. The red ones might be Thai peppers. White = sweet pepper, or maybe a bell? I’ll find out how hot is is when I slice it for cooking!

Since I have a light bulb with changing colors, just for fun I thought to try doing one scene with these same vegetables with different color cast shadows. There seems to be no color in my palette which matches either of the cast shadows, or maybe I just don’t know how to do that yet. If you have any insights, please share them!

This pepper painting started out as a 20-minute study. 8×10

the colored lights were overall darker than a plain white. 8×10

Fall tree

The trees on my block turn orange, red, golden yellow at different rates, the tree in front of my house being one of the last to turn—just stubbornly hanging on to summer I guess, so I painted one tree over. I basically got drawn in to playing with color instead of trying to be realistic and following all of the precise colors and shapes.

Elisabeth’s tree

The challenge of capturing children

Finding simple things to do in these days of staying at home a lot. Drawing and painting has been my #1 go-to, since it’s easily done within your home with just a minimum of space. “Simple” may not be an accurate description, maybe “elemental” is more like it. It feels direct, and the outcome is entirely up to you.

A few months ago, I participated in 30faces30days from sktchy art school. One day we were presented with the face of a baby—a difficult subject! You might think it would be easy, but to keep the lines brief and accurate, to show the sweetness is very difficult, at least for me. “There is no growth without pain” they say; this was pretty tolerable in the pain department, though hopefully enough to learn something.

I got through that one, and it inspired me to try some in oil paint as well.

Above is the baby’s face from sktchy. So droll, the old man look for sure.

A baby with fun hair, this one in oils.