Green With Envy - Daily Painting #18

"Green with Envy" 6x6 Oil on Panel click here to Purchase

The gray skies have definitely been getting to me.  One thing I sometimes do to overcompensate for the gray, is to paint some thing that I think have really amazing colors in them.  Take this groundcloth, for example.  It was such a pretty blue, I couldn't resist.  Painting the reflected light in the spoon and the cup was just the icing on the cake, really.

My fingers are crossed for more sunshine.  I'm suppose to head out tomorrow for my first day of plein air paintings.  I'm a little intimidated, to say the least.  The first assignment is basically - go forth and paint!  Great.  So I asked if he could give some insight into how he chooses a location.  Does he look for lighting, color?  How does he explore a city that is new to him?  He told me - get out there, and when you see something that grabs you - paint it!  Sigh.  I LIKE structure and direction.  But this will be good for me, I know it.  As much as it is looking like I will start kicking and screaming about the process, I have a feeling I'm going to come out on the far end of this class absolutely loving it and cityscape.

Glass

This was my assignment last week, clear glass.  To be honest, it wasn't my best effort.  I was just having a lot of issues, especially with all the ellipses in that stupid bowl.  The wine glass wound up being just a little bit off, but not too badly.  It was mostly that bowl.  Ungh.  But all in all, I'm okay with that, because this week's assignment went really well.  I'll post that tomorrow :)

Still Life Mania

Here is this week's assignment.  I am working on finishing up the project I talked about last week, and I'm also working on a larger cityscape, so I should have some more things to post this week.  With this painting I really tried to get back to basics and work with color.  This was the first week we were really allowed to use a full palette, which is pretty intimidating when you first try to tackle it.  My critiques about colors were such that I really wanted to stop for a moment and really focus on how colors turn through space.  Basically I had been making the shadows on the objects too harsh, too cool.  So my professor was giving some great tips on how to get the object to turn through space.  

For example, on a red object, say it is bright red, like the apple on the right.  You almost never use bright red straight out of the tube.  Rather, as the apple turns towards the light, you will use some yellow, since the light source is yellow.  You can't use white exclusively, or your apple will turn pink.  So I used a combination of a lighter red paint, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre and a touch of white.  Then as the apple turns away from the light, the shadow will get cooler than the red of the apple.  Because it is a warm colored object, cooler also means that it will be slightly grayer (not as saturated).  To accomplish this, I used some of the cadmium red light, mixed with alizarin crimson (a very bluish red) and a small touch of viridian (cool green).  

I've been having the most problem with yellows.  I was making them entirely too harsh on the shadow side.  In the end, I found a great mixture winds up being a dull yellow from Tera Rosa, Cadmium Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre and a smaaaall touch of Ultramarine.  If you just combine cadmium yellow light and violet (ultramarine and alizarin crimson) it can get too cool too quickly.  You almost have to combine the yellow with a red violet to get (more alizarin than ultramarine) in order to get a good shadow.  

I'm working really hard at mixing colors by using the colors next to each other on the color wheel, so they don't turn muddy.  So much thought and science goes into this.  Who would have thought?

A Pear Dilemma

Yet another school project.  For that, I apologize.  They just aren't quite as much fun, but they are really valuable learning experiences.

Want to know something kind of fun about this painting?  I used no green.  We were only allowed to use five colors - Titanium White, Ivory Black, Terra Rosa (which is a muted red), Yellow Ochre and Cadmium Yellow Light.   The apple is green because cadmium yellow light turns a beautiful green when you darken it with black.

I was kind of unhappy with my last painting, so I redid it.  Both these 11x14 paintings seem to be taking me somewhere around 4-5 hours each, which is about what the class said it would take.  But when I wind up doing more than 1 in a week, it kind of eats into the time I have set aside for my daily paintings.  My biggest problem with the other painting was using a tomato.    Because of using only the five colors, the tomato could have never been brighter than Terra Rosa, which at best can reach a terra cotta kind of red.  There was no way I could have gotten close to the color I was looking for.  I was also trying to paint a pear that was half red, half yellow.  No matter what I tried to do, I couldn't quite get it to look right.  So I changed that out for a fully yellow pear and a green apple.  Much happier with this.

Apple a Day

I continued the theme of apples again today, with varying success.  I was pretty happy with the second painting I did (shown above) because it involved my turpentine container, which is silver.  So it is very shiny, highly reflective, and just generally tough to paint.  I did my best to convey it, and I think I was pretty successful.  The colors got a little muddy, and I would like to do it again, but overall I am happy with it  I've included a picture of the still life setup below.

The first painting I did was of some apples in a bowl.  As per usual, the ellipse screwed me up a bit.  The apples are approaching the end of their useful lives, so it looks like I will be moving on to another type of fruit tomorrow.  I am really hoping to be able to get outside sometime soon again.  Since today was gray that probably means I can get out tomorrow.  One day on, one day off. 

Whew, a little worn out today actually got up at 5am to workout.  Monday and Tuesday I was kind of slack and didn't get around to it until later in the afternoon.  Bad Shelby. 

Weekly Roundup

Another stormy gray day. Told you the weather has been bi-polar. Working hard on my motivation, might just dive into color exercises and sketches this weekend. Overall, not been a bad week, could have been more productive, but I've had a social life *gasp!* Having a couple of glasses of wine and staying out until 11pm tends to significantly decrease the desire to get up at 5am to workout. Here's how this week looked:

1) Exercise: 4 out of 5 days. I am totally going to pat myself on the back for this. Like I said, I've been going out, so to get up and still sweat it out has not been easy. Like Tony Horton says, I'm trying to "Bring It!"

2) 36 Hours of work Sat-Friday: Yeah, I could have done much better on this. Duly noted. Monday and Sunday wound up being totally wasted day

s. Sunday was gorgeous so I spent the day at the pool (sinful!) and Monday was gross, so I wound up going shopping to track down some things for doing still life setups when its rainy.

*** Note on working hours: I only count the hours that I am physically in the studio doing art-oriented work. With to all the office jobs that I've had (or witnessed), you always have an additional 1-2 hours a day of "breaks," "email time," "talk to co-worker time," that goes under your 8-9 hour day. I'm just counting the actual work time, so it'll always be a bit lower. ***

3) Eating right: Soooo much better. It took me about a week to really break the cycle of eating badly and just reaching for the chips, or the awful snack. I prefer eating well, but sometimes it gets really hard to do that. Especially when my husband is in the house - he loooves bad snack food like chips. Hopefully I can keep this up when he gets back. I feel so much better.