Baby Blue and Table for Two

Can't really say I am an avid bird watcher.  But with the weather warming up some the birds are showing up in abundance.  They are busy planning out their hang outs for the season and reminding me that I too should prepare for a busy summer.

Mountain Laurel Study

I have to admit these complex flower groups are hard to paint.  Love the species of flower, hate the time it takes to relay to impression to the canvas.  Each flowerett is different than the one next to it and there are so many....  it takes a little discipline to take a stoke of the brush and not duplicate it over and over in some mechanical, meaningless way.  Richard Schmid said it best when he related flowers to naughty little children, each one competing for our attention.

Rocky Flats

Rainy, damp, cold and muddy days are the best!  No kidding.  It only takes a smidgen' of dreariness in the air to make me want to paint.  A pot of coffee on and I'm zoned out.  Now there was no way I was going to sit out in the cold and paint these guys and just a photo won't be enough reference material, sooooo I spend a little time in my warm car and study the scene for awhile.  What color is the mountain in the background?  No camera could adequately reproduce that violet color so I decide right then and there what I will need to mix the right hues.  Will I remember all of this?  You bet.  Do those guys in the painting wonder what in the world I am up too?  You bet.

Community Bath

There is that crazy lady again.  I saw her screeching to a stop in her jeep, do a 180 and pull up next to a puddle filled with birds.  What is she photographing?  Can't you give her something for this condition?

Now she has gone and used pumice in her gesso!  Wait a minute, see how the texture grabs the "water sparkle"?  Time for bed, I'm speaking to myself in 3rd person...

Winter on the Greenbriar

Back to reality now, it was one of those days when the snow was almost completely melted and emptied into the river, turning it a beautiful pastel teal color.  Where does it come from?  Not sure.  I know that snow also makes a lake blue.  Anybody know why?  Another mystery I ponder...why does snow in the shadows appear purplish blue?  I'm embarrassed I don't know the answer to that.  Just paint it Kathy and stop asking so many questions.  I used my handy artist license and cropped out excess foliage.  Simplify, simplify, simplify!!!

Red Russian

The Russian impressionists enjoyed their own flavor of illustrating light for us and I LIKE IT!  Load up the brush and paint wet into wet.  The apples are American, the artist is American and the pie I put them into was as American as....well... you know...   Below is also my block-in stage.  I basically have three different ways to start a painting.  This one is a local color block in, then work the background and foreground colors together at the same time, thereby "knitting" the image together.  There had to be an excessive amount of sharp edges since the apples are in our face so to speak.  That had to be balanced, I felt, with plenty of lost edges in the leaves and background.

wet paint

OK, so I have left my post you guys.  Forgive me but I find it increasingly necessary to focus more on one thing at a time. Paint and canvas have been my best friends this winter and have done a pretty good job of keeping me sane.  Thank goodness this is MY blog and there are no family members that can disagree with that.  Anyway, hope you enjoy the new attempts.  Trying to loosen up as usual here...