First A (ish)

"Make Lemonade" 12x16 Oil on Canvas

This was my first A!  Well, A-, but heck, I'll take it.  I'm still catching up on some posts of paintings that I've done over the past few weeks.  I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We certainly missed all the family, but we had a swell time with our friends.  Two fried turkeys, one roasted, tons of food, pool time, beer, good times were had all around.  

New Toy For Artists

My wonderful, amazing husband happened to find this link:  http://colorschemedesigner.com/.  Basically, this is a wonderful place to check any color scheme that you might have, or want to put into play.  You start out with a monochromatic scheme (screenshot below):

You can then pick other schemes (accented analogic, or complimentary analagous shown below) and it gives you four color swatches showing colors that would support this theme, with some value and saturation variations.  You can also go in and adjust the scheme for value and saturation to get some very sophisticated schemes.  So many pretty colors!

Pattern, oi vey!

Since I promised to show everyone the good, the bad, and the ugly, I decided to go ahead and show you one of my less than stellar performances.  The assignment was patterns.  In the past there were some beautifully done pieces, and a few of them have made it into the spring show (big deal at school).  I really wanted to go at this assignment full throttle, but alas, I just couldn't find an object that I really liked, and I also ran out of time.  So, in the end, I did this.  The ellipses are all kinds of funky and the proportions don't quite work, but I did get the pattern to turn correctly around the objects.  In any case, you can't win them all, so I thought I would let you all know I have bad days too :)

On the Rocks

"On the Rocks" 11x14 Oil on Canvas

I was going to catch up on posting and put up one of my projects, but I got too excited about this painting.  It is literally still wet on the easel, and I just turned in the photos for class.  At the beginning, I was having a really difficult time with this painting.  Often, art work goes through an ugly stage, but if you persevere and just trust yourself, it will have an "ah-ha!" moment when it starts to come to life.  You just have to continue to see the vision in your head and fight through the awkward teenage years.

We had two solid days of rain, and for the life of me, I just couldn't get into this one.  I mean, there aren't ANY blues or greens in this paintings.  No Shelby colors.  Ha!  So I brought the foreground and background fabric to 90% finished, and I was looking at the 3 big objects, which were pretty much just blocked in.  I decided to tackle the glass with the ice cubes.  Ice cubes, and three glass objects, what in the world was I thinking, torturing myself?  Halfway through the glass and cubes, I almost scrapped it, but all of a sudden, I got the colors to start glowing.  I was able to make the ice look like ice.  The ambers started popping and swirling.  That was the ah-ha! moment, and from there on, I knew I would take the challenge.

Not to say there weren't a few more awkward moments, as can be seen from the picture below.  The middle bottle kept trying to fall forward, but with some insight from my classmates, I was able to straighten it out and get it back on track.

So lesson to those of you toiling away, just wait it out, the teenage years pass. :)

Oh, and to my family of Bourbon drinkers, Jack was the only thing in my liquor cabinet.  Next time anyone comes through duty free, feel free to bring some Maker's or Evan... and to Mark, yes, I know I put Jack and a very nice bottle of 8 yr. old Scotch in the same paintings... I apologize to any desecration I may have committed...

Limeaide

"Limeaide" 11x14 Oil on Canvas

I absolutely loved doing this piece.  It has all of my favorite colors, it is shiny, happy and bright.  I can't tell you how long I worked on the ellipses in the bucket to make sure they were correct.  Lots of work, but it was definitely worth it.  Getting the limes to show the glow they get when light is shining through them was a ton of fun as well.  I'm having such a great time with reflective objects!

The Jetlag and Rainy Season Blues...

This is this week's homework.  I had a ton of fun with the oranges, although because the rainy season started, I'm finding that it takes a massive amount of discipline to get through the day, much less paint.  Thank goodness that I have a schedule.  Otherwise I think I would curl up in bed for three months.  Gray days do not get along with me!

I have about three more paintings to post, so you are in luck!  I have finally recovered from massive jetlag (four day turnaround across 24 time zones does NOT do a body good...).  New Orleans was a ton of fun, fall weather was just kicking in, so it was in the 70s (I totally miss that!) with low humidity and blue, blue skies... Still, it is good to be back and see Joe.  He's my buddy.  Okay, off to my artist in residency!