Waiting to set sail

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Waiting to set sail - session 1So I became frustrated with my portrait painting of “boy with red shirt” and I decided it was time to clear my head and paint something else.

That was a good idea, and I am glad I did.

I now am almost finished with my latest painting of a girl looking over a boat railing at the water.

I love this image. The bright yellow life jacket and the red hair “squishy”. What is she thinking about? Is she anticipating the journey out to sea? Is she looking at her reflection in the water? Did she throw her dad’s keys into the water?

I hope to be finished with this painting by next week. It is a small painting and I tried to use a very limited palette. 

  • Titanium White
  • Cadmium Red Light
  • Cadmium Yellow Medium
  • Yellow Ochre
  • Burnt Sienna
  • Burnt Umber
  • Ultramarine Blue

 

Inspiring Impressionism

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I took my mother yesterday to the Denver Art Museum were we went to the Inspiring Impressionism show. My mother is the influence for my artistic background. She is a fine artist in her own right but sacrificed a lot of her own time to raise my sister and me  which did not allow her to do more art. My belated Mother’s day gift was the art show.

I would highly recommend the show. We had a wonderful time seeing Cassatt, Cezanne, Pissarro, Manet, Monet, and Renoir. Such inspiring work and the reality of how far I am from mastering oils. 

Portrait – Boy with red shirt

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Boy with red shirtSo tonight I started on a new painting. This is a son of my friends. I painted a portrait of their other son so now I have to even up the portraits in their house. Good thing they only have two kids…

Colors that I have started with are:

  • Transparent Oxide Brown
  • Terra Rosa
  • Raw Umber
  • Alizarin Crimson
  • French Ultramarine Blue
  • Winsor & Newton Soft Mixing White
  • I also use Winsor & Newton Refined Linseed Oil for thinning

This will be on 11×14 stretched canvas. I have started by sketching out the image from a photo. Since children this age have a hard time staying in one place for more than 3 seconds, a picture will do.

Since I am a techno geek as well, I have a Wacom tablet and Corel Painter. I like to use it with the photo to get an idea how the oil painting could look. Since the photo has a back of a chair and some other things in the image I used Painter to brush them out. Painter is a fun program. I have a few of their “brushes” and I must say it does capture some oil techniques rather well.

Tonight I will be placing just the basic colors and I will call it a night. I probably will not get to this painting for a few days. Maybe tomorrow night if I am lucky.