Wayyyyy too long!

It has been so long since I posted here and I apologize for that.  First a really long (long for us) RV trip of 25 days and then trying to get back into the rhythm of painting often.  Although I took a ton of art supplies with me on the trip, I only painted one day.  Too many new and exciting things to see.

I am working on perfecting several aspects of my painting style, which involves a lot of trial and error.  So much to remember and think about as I paint, but I think that's what keeps me interested.  Edges, color temperature, values, transitions, and on and on.  I love the challenge of learning new things.

I am really fond of the work of Jeffery Watts, Daniel Gergartz, Richard Schmid, and many others who use varrying colors, temperatures, values and textures to produce amazing paintings that draw and hold my attention.  I can look at photos of their work again and again and learn something each time.   If you are not familiar with their work, I urge you to google them and treat yourself to viewing their magnificent art.  While I really admire the talent it takes to produce work that is very photo realistic, it is not the style that I want for my own work.  I love lost and found edges, vignettes, and candid poses showing the essence and character of the person.  I have mostly focused on portraits but I am beginning to include more of the figure in my work.  New challenge!  I am also learning to add areas of light and spark to my work, which produces lovely effects.

I try to paint several times per week.  Sometimes ending up with pleasing work and at other times, prompting me to grab a rag with OMS and wipe the entire thing off!  I have no desire to keep wasting paint on a piece of work that I hate!  I have also returned to previous pieces to enhance them with techniques I am learning to employ.  I have a wonderful artist friend, Gini Bosco, who is so generous with her time and gives me honest critiques as well as tips on how to improve my work.  I greatly appreciate her expertise and help.

Here are a few recent pieces:

Above is Blake, a recent model at the Monday portrait group I participate in.  This is from a photo I took during the session.  I'm actually pretty pleased with it.  I particulary like the various color temperatures that I used and the fact that I blended less.  Such a hard thing for me to do!

During our camping time at the north rim of the grand canyon, I took a mule ride down into the canyon. This fellow was in our group and I took this photo of him when we stopped to rest the mules and our butts!  Again, i really like my lack of so much blending here.

i revisited this painting of Mark Davis.  It just looked too bland to me so i added more color to his face and to the background.  I think I like it better now.  

The next two are of a couple of my favorite subjects to paint.  Both members of the Texas Legends re-enactment group.  Always so generous with their time.

Ooops! Excuse the shadow on the upper right corner of the above painting.  It is not there in real life.

On our long trip

We are on our longest RV trip to date.  We will be gone for almost a month.  Stops include Colorado, Mt Rushmore, Deadwood, Cody, Wyoming, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Zion and Bryce Canyon and finishing up with four days at the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  Right now we are visiting friends in Colorado and I decided to pull out my journal and watercolors and do a little sketch of the view from their front porch.  Ahhhh!  So beautiful to wake up to the mountains and cool air.  I am seriously out of practice with watercolors but I'm posting this anyway.  Fun to experiment with a different medium but my heart still belongs to oils!

James and Joel

This painting is of two longhorn brothers who are members of the Fort Worth Herd.  The Herd is driven down Exchange Avenue in the historic Fort Worth stockyard area twice each day and is a huge tourist attraction.  I donated this painting to the silent auction which will benefit the herd.  The auction is a part of the American Cowboy Gala on July 24, this week.  The reference photo is by Lavender Pathways photography's Lola Hardisty.  22 x 28, oil on canvas.

The Cattle are This Way

The newest painting of one of the drovers in our historic stockyards area, David Mangold.  Many thanks to David for permission to use his photo as the reference.  

I can finally unveil this one!

This is a commissioned painting of a special horse, Dancer.  My friend, Pati, had me do it as a Father's Day gift for her husband.  I'm so proud of how it turned out!

Drover paintings

Here are two paintings, almost finished, of two of the drovers in our historic Fort Worth Stockyard area. 

More oil sketches

These are more of the sketches from the photos I took back in March at the photo session at the  home of my sister-in-law.

New work

Here is a recent piece, still in progress. I'm working on paintings to maybe include in the January 2015 show unless they sell before that.

Exciting news!

Exciting news! I have reserved gallery #3 at the Fort Worth Community Art Center for the month of January, 2015. I will have a joint show with my good friend and fellow artist, Mahto Hogue. I will be showing some of my watercolors as well as new works in oil. Lots to do between now and then, especially deciding on new subjects to paint. Thank you, Mahto, for sharing this exciting "first" with me.

New portrait sketches

My sweet sister-in-law invited some friends recently to a photo shoot for me. I photographed 10 individuals in various poses and lighting.  I wanted these shots to use for practice in my portrait painting adventure. 

I am still working on the others but these are the ones I have finished thus far. Each represents about two hours of work. Some of the paintings I really like and in some of the others I see improvements that could be made. I have to keep reminding myself that I am still learning.  Each time I do a painting, I can see improvements in my skill and that is really what goal is, right?

Woman drover

I have painted this woman in watercolor in the past. She is one of the drovers in the historic Fort Worth stockyards, where we have a longhorn cattle drive twice daily.  I started this a few weeks ago and then abandoned it.  I let it sit and dry and then decided to re-visit it and see what I could do to improve it.  I'm not entirely happy with it because it seems to be too smooth and blended. I am really trying to develop a style that is much looser and less blended. That is not the case with this piece but it is what it is.  

Brian

As you know, I am fortunate to have neighbors and friends of neighbors to occasionally come to my studio and sit for me. These sessions are normally 1 1/2 to 2 hours, during which I take lots of photos and also paint from life. Brian came over a couple weeks ago.  This is his painting, which I will give to him once it is dry.  

Ashley, work in progress

I started this yesterday and have pretty much finished the face but need to finish her hair.  It is basically at the block in stage here. I stopped so that the paint could dry a bit before I add more paint.  I want to be able to show the different shades of hair color without it looking too blended. 

Some recent work

I participate in a portrait group every Monday in a small town near Fort Worth. I am the only artist there who paints during our session with a live volunteer model. Others use charcoal or pastel. They give their completed work to the model at the end of our session. Since I am using oil paint, I complete the painting from photos taken during the session and give it to the model once it is complete and dry.  The following are two recents.

This is Dan, one of our fellow artists. I think he has a great face and presence.  A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure to be able to take several photos of him to use as reference material.  This was painted from one of those photos. 

This is Robert, a favorite model of the group.  He is able to hold a pose so perfectly and has a wonderful face and sweet attitude.  This was my first time to paint him and I enjoyed it so much.  This was about 90 minutes from life and finished in another hour or so in the studio from my photo of him.  

The next photo was taken during a break.  It shows Robert sitting and chatting with two of our other artists, Jerry on the left and Dan on the right.

Although I really love doing all these face studies, I have the desire to do a larger figurative piece.  Just have to find the correct reference that "grabs" me.  

New self portrait

Did a self portrait in Anna's class last week from a photo of myself. It turned out really well but there were a few brush strokes of Anna's so I didn't want to publish it here, although I really love it. So I decided to do another one on my own and here it is. 11 x 14, oil on canvas panel.

Copy of a Stephan Cefallo

I love the work of Stephan Cefallo and decided to copy this painting of his as practice of his loose style 

Another one of Chandler

In Anna's class a couple weeks ago, we worked from photos. Now understand that I have discovered that painting from life is SO much easier, but having a live model is not always convenient. This is a photo I took of my granddaughter, Chandler, over the Thanksgiving holidays. I liked the shadows on the side of her face and decided to use it for the class. I think it is some of my best work because I did not over blend (a really bad habit of mine).

Thanks, Josh!

A friend in Seattle is a professional photographer and gave me permission to use his photo of Justin Timberlake. This was fun to do.  Josh covered one of his concerts and did lots of photos. I really liked this pose and shadows.  Oil on canvas, 11 X 14