Daily Painting Practice - out of practice

I feel like I have been getting out of practice with my Daily Practice Paintings. I have been working on larger pieces and I can feel the disconnect with the daily work. I plan on changing that next week and get back to a more regular painting schedule. Here is a simple set up that I thought would be easy. It turned out to be much more difficult than I had thought.

Matching the color was hard enough. But getting the texture of the chive flowers was the real challenge.

click on the image to enlarge the picture

Study - Purple Petunias and Chives
5"x7"
oil on masonite
SOLD

Back to the drawing board and back to the garden to get more material.

daily painting practice - painting flowers

I started trying out new compositions that would highlight this orange azalea flower.


I ended up liking the flower in the pot all by its self. I began with a charcoal sketch for the layout. The panel was toned weeks ago and dry so I could jump right into painting.
I was having so much fun I forgot to take progress photos.

click on the image to enlarge the picture

Azelea Study
8"x10"
oil on masonite

SOLD

I will use this color study to do a final finished piece for the show in September.
I hope you like it.

daily painting practice - more plein air

I ventured outside again last week to try and do some plein air studies for larger studio pieces. I didn't get much accomplished though. I was at the Boyer Chute Nature Wildlife Refuge 12 miles north of Omaha in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. It was a very overcast day that eventually turned dark and rained and rained and rained.


The terrain here makes me think of the Netherlands. One of my favorite blogs on plein air painting is (Rene Plein Air). Rene's work is a great inspiration. There are two other plein air artist/bloggers that I like. (Rob Ijbema) paints in Wales and (Ed Terpening) paints out west and California. I admire these three guys because they have the fortitude to keep painting in any climate and still find and paint the beauty that surrounds us all.

Click on the image to enlarge the picture

Nebraksa Overcast
12"x16"
oil on masonite

The overcast day didn't give the painting a lot of drama. It does reflect the sense I had that day. I was the only one in the 4,000 acre park.

daily painting practice - plein air workshop

I am back after my short break from posting. This past weekend I did a few outdoor paintings.

I signed up for a Plein Air class taught by a wonderful artist (Deb Groesser). Deb is a great teacher and really knows how to break down the process of outdoor painting into simple steps. The class was offered through the Joslyn Art Museum and was at the (Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha.)

Lesson learned. Don't paint in direct sunlight. It washes out all the color . Here is my sketch from the morning. Actually it was between 11AM and noon in bright sunlight. It looked great in the sunlight but looking at it now all the color is muted and grey.

I learned my lesson and in the afternoon stayed in the shade to paint.

The center of interest was one of the other painters. I had a great sketch going until....

... she sat down...

click on the picture to enlarge the image

Plein Air Study
8"x10"
oil on masonite

I gave the final away to the artist in the painting.

I will probably only post 2 or 3 times a week through the summer. Sorry but the studio paintings take priority over the blog.

daily painting practice - Bit of a Break

This is how I feel right now!

So, I'll be taking a bit of a break from posting. I need to concentrate on some larger work. I feel if I don't focus on the quality of the work the work will suffer and I won't be satisfied showing it.

Not to worry, I'll be back posting in two weeks so please stop by again around May 15th.