What a Winter!

I love painting outside when there is snow and this winter is driving me to distraction.  All this snow for so long and it is too cold to paint outdoors.  I switched to oils because watercolours froze and this winter it has been so cold that oil paint gets to be about the consistency of play-do.

The up side is that I am spending more time working on portraits.  Last week in class I did a pastel sketch of Kim so this week I took my oils.  I have been struggling with pigment selection and getting the forms correct so I decided to work the same way as I do for landscapes.  I toned the whole panel with yellow ocher and then added some darks and rubbed off the lights until I had a decent value study.  I then started adding colour.  This still has a long way to go but I am excited about the start.  The background, her hair, eyebrows shirt etc. are all still the under painting.

I need to get outside.  I am actually debating painting the view from my studio window.  Yikes!

Another good day

We had a wonderful model for our sketch group today.  Zoe is the granddaughter of an artist friend and she did a great job of posing for us.  She is a talented young lady who writes and sings her own songs.  She posed with her guitar which caused some artists a lot of grief but since I only do head and shoulder portraits is wasn't an issue for me.  There are a couple of problems with this and the digital image isn't great but Zoe was a pleasure to do.

I need to get painting

What a winter.  All this glorious snow and I have either been too sick or it has been too cold to stand at my easel.  We just spent three days in Ottawa and it was -25 almost the whole time.  I was looking forward to painting in the Ottawa area but needless to say I didn't.

I have been struggling with portraits in oils so for Katherine's class today I decided to take my pastel pencils and sketch.  Kim is a great model with wonderful features and it was a treat to just relax and draw.  I am happy with this.  I kept it loose and managed a decent likeness.  Next Tuesday I plan on staying for both the morning and afternoon sessions to do the same pose in oils.  I can't wait.

There is no Rhyme

Nor reason.

 I am still struggling with my muse.  On Monday I played with Anders Zorn's limited palette and did a quick sketch that I was quite pleased with.  Yesterday I excitedly took that same palette to a portrait class and froze up.  It was a horrendous struggle for three hours.  Today I felt a little skittish as I arrived at our sketch group.  Kelly is a wonderful model but I had a terrible start with my pastel pencils. After much erasing and fiddling I managed to turn it around and finished with a sketch that I quite like.

A good start seems to be the kiss of death for me.

Selfie

This is me playing around.  It is a "selfie" my way.  I registered for Brian Smith's workshop in March and I was intrigued by the Anders Zorn palette that he uses for the workshop.  I started with a neutral grey panel and used only three colours plus white for the painting.  I was using a small mirror and I was only fooling around so I didn't draw at all.  I just started painting shapes and I ended up here about twenty minutes later.  I will definitely play with this palette some more.

It isn't perfect but it sure was fun.

Bernie

Bernie was the model for today's sketch group.  I always enjoy painting him because he has a lot of character in his face and he sits dead still.  This first head and shoulder took me a bit over an hour to complete.  I don't seem to be getting much better at these but I am happy with it because I am getting to this stage much more quickly.



This second three quarter view was done in under an hour.  I was already pretty tired from the first drawing so I am pleased with this one too.  My drawing skills are definitely improving with these sessions.

If I am using pastel pencils am I drawing or painting?

Where Does the Muse Go

After painting up north I was really revved up and eager to get painting.  At least I thought that I was.  It has been one long struggle ever since we got home.  Nothing has worked and I am too embarrassed to post any of it.

Yesterday I went out with the Monday painters because I was committed but I didn't expect it to go well.  I think that it did go quite well but I got too cold to finish this painting.  The pathway needs work, the snow is too light and I didn't get to the roofs which are much too dark and flat but I was working loose and free which is a great improvement.

Today was week two in a portrait class.  I am having fun with oils and I
think that this is finished after 5 hours of work. Jeff is a great model and Katherine McDonald is a great instructor.  I need to sort out a portrait palette because I am struggling with flesh tones with my landscape pigments.