A Mother's Day Hike.  

The locals are always fun to watch

And a week of painting studies of flowers, composition, value studies and still life

I had a wonderful day...I hope you did too!

Last week, I attended a 3 day painting workshop by Master oil painter Neil Patterson.  I am still digesting all I learned.  Neil paints loose and colourful, something I am trying to achieve with my work.  

  In 3 days, I "produced" 14 painting studies. All were painted with acrylic paint except the last 2 - I decided to try oils again - I'll be sticking with acrylics for the time being!  I'll go into more detail on this and other things in my next post.  Right now I just want to share with you some of my studies! REMEMBER - they are studies...These are ones I'll likely keep for awhile...I've already got 7 of them that are "refuse and recycleables"!

 Most of the paintings were 16X20 or 9X12, much larger than what I normally paint.  To give you an idea of how fast I painted and the size relationship of what I usually paint, look below - 

My apple painting is 6x6 in.  The floral is 16X20.  About 8 or 9 times bigger! I may not paint larger YET, but I will certianly loosen up my brushtrokes.   The other thing I learned is the advantages of painting on a dark surface, rather than a bare white canvas.  The darks are there for you already...you just need to paint the light!  Easier said than done...it still takes practice!

I also have a couple images from the weekend of the Opus Plein Air Challenge.  Its sure was a challenge...trying to find something interesting to paint, setting up outside, composing, painting within the time limit and finishing up.  A great experience, but full of annoyances!.  The canvas we were given was 16X20, too big for my light plein air easel and ME...I had to lug my full size french easel around...so I didn't go far from where I parked.  I wanted to paint an urban cafe scene....I was not very pleased with my result (canvas too big, paints dried too fast, ...Oh I could go on...)  BUT I did enjoy it, will do more of it.  I will NOT paint this large outside ...and I may use oils outside...not acrylics....they dry too fast!

Next post I will highlight a couple important things I learned from both of these painting experiences.  AND I will come up with a new theme for the month of May! Stay tuned!

I have occassionaly been participating in the Daily Paint Works Challenge and this week's challenge was the Up Close Animal Challenge.  Well, who's animal face to I know the best??  Teddy!  I happened to take some funky photos of Teddy the other day and I decided on a close up of his eye!  Check out some of the comments I got here!  Just look for "Seeing Teddy" in amongst all the works and click on it to see the comments!  It's nice to share and participate in something like this!

All my themes so far are sourced from photos.... I've really been antsy to paint from life...so I rummaged  again through the fridge and found an orange.  I'm really learning tons from life painting.  And speaking of life painting....

I could potentially go to 3 - 4 art events this weekend...but I chose one.  I am participating on Saturday in the Opus Plein Air Challenge!  We need to be there by 10, find out where the painting "zone" is, set up and finish a painting outside by 3:00.  Looks like a nice day weather wise.    I'll report how that went in the next blog post!  Have a great weekend!

Okay...I have diverted a bit from my farm animal theme...I HAD to do the Daily Paint Works weekly challenge last week so I sat down one day and painted an apple.  The challenge was to REALLy look at the lights and darks (values) and with minimal brushstrokes, just get it down...Still life is one of THE best ways to really learn to paint...
So a Granny Smith was all the fruit I had as I rummaged through the kitchen..And this was the result.  I used a masonite board primed with white gesso (3 coats) and then I brushed a coat of lamp black acrylic paint all over as a dark ground.  I set up the apple on a small table on my work desk with my light coming from the right.  I like it!

I've had this guy sitting around for awhile and I finally decided to finish him.  He's a much larger version of the 6X6 in. painting I did earlier in March.  

Serendipity struck on Wednesday.  I was volunteering for my monthly shift at the Lake Country Public Art Gallery.  The day before I had read an art marketing article about how important it is for artists to be present in galleries that represent them.  Two gentlemen came in early on and chatted with me while they viewed the artwork.  They wanted to know which painting was mine...the member's juried show was still on and I showed them the painting at the right.  Well they loved it so much they bought it!  They are artists themselves and were visiting from Sedona, AZ!  So my Forgan wagon from Mrs. Sonmor's old place is going to have a home in the states!

If you are in town, don't forget the Junk Yard Joe's Exhibit at New Moon Gallery in West Kelowna.  The opening night is April 21st from 6:30 to 9:00.  Come see the interesting artworks from this challenge.  The exhibit runs from April 21st to May 5th.   My work is one of many and Linda, the gallery owner, used my piece as one of the promo pieces for the opening night poster!