Monday Morning Tulips

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 15

I went out again to find tulips and found these. They are the tiniest tulips in the world. Fortunately I had a tiny blue and white pitcher that fit them nicely.
This is painted mainly with a brush but I also decided to have a play around my palette knife.

While painting I almost always listen to a spoken pod cast, usually something to do with art. For some reason I get too distracted listening to music.

Anyway today I was listening to this one about artist Kenny Harris.

The Savvy Painter: Kevin Harris

Afterwards I looked him up and I'm blown away by how good and inspiring his art is.
Love it. He might be my new favorite artist.

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord  

Calla Lilies

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 13

A few things about this daily painting challenge:

• It has sparked a ton of ideas for larger paintings, which I'd really like to be getting on with, but can't really start yet because I feel I have to get to the end of this challenge.
• It opens you up to having to show all your pieces whether you think they are any good or not. 

I actually went out today to buy some white tulips to practice for an idea I have brewing, but couldn't find any so bought these Calla Lilies instead. So this composition isn't really what I initially had in mind. However I'm on a mission to practice painting all varieties of flower, and this turned out well I think.








(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord   

Refracted Light

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 7

Super happy with this painting. I'm drawn to slightly unusual compositions and I'm also happy with how the colours in the light turned out. This daisy was actually set up on a white cloth and a white background but I exaggerated the colours in the light bouncing off the surfaces. I'm also getting to be a fan of 'lost edges' which are easy to do with glass, because the edges do get lost at certain points.
I really made an effort with this one to simplify the gerbera daisy and instead spent a lot of time focussing on mixing the lights and darks.
I cracked open a new tube of paint that I haven't tried before - Napthol red. It has a peachy tone to it already, but I also added a touch of Cadmium orange. Totally love this colour.

I think this set up might work well for a larger painting which I might attempt at some point. 



(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord  

Printers Posy

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 6

Persevering with the Gerberas.
For this one I wanted to try an approach that a lot of artists use (but I don't use often) -which is 'blocking in'; ie you block in all the main colours and then you go back and add highlights and refinements later. The idea is that you start with an impression of the painting, getting the main colour themes right first. Not my comfort zone, but I'm trying to experiment with different techniques. I would not in general take this approach - I'm not generally a fan of working over the top of paint I have already laid down but I decided to give it ago here, just to see.

Here's a progress shot to show what I mean. At this stage I have really just put down three colours on the yellow flower: a bright yellow, a yellow ochre and a slightly darker ochre.
Then I went back in and added some definition. I think this worked really well with the yellow gerbera. It was much harder to do with the pink gerbera as the petals varied in colour from one to the next.

The little bud vase I picked up a couple of weeks ago in Crate and Barrel. I ummed and ahhed for ages as it was priced at $4 (big spend!). When I got to the checkout it was reduced to $2, so now I have 4 of these in different colours!

'Printers Posy' (the title), refers to the colour theme here turned out to be almost Yellow, Magenta and Cyan (process printers colours). I made this connection about half way through the painting.

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord

Pretty in pink

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 3

For this painting I decided to try lighting the vase from slightly behind and to the left, and to simplify things, to stick with one overall colour for the background. You can can't go wrong with aqua as a colour to accompany flowers I think.
In this painting I almost ended up with a few 'lost edges' (term for where the colour of the object and it's background are the same). I like the effect. The vase is almost like a water drop.


I've been taking a look on facebook at some of the work entered by other people so far, for the 'January 31 day #stradaeasel challenge' (same challenge I'm attempting). A lot of people have been painting outside... it's down to -15 degrees Celsius out there! Hat's off to those brave enough to take on the elements but I think I'll stick to painting inside!

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord

Rose Buddies

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 2

Two roses from the same bunch as yesterday. This bunch was picked up from Trader Joes - one of my favorite places to buy flowers as they have such a nice selection at a reasonable price and the flowers always look more natural than some you buy these days. I wish they would state the name of the variety of rose though. These are so pretty - a sort of variegated red, peachy colour.  The glass was a bit of a challenge - I tried not to fuss too much with it. I'm trying to put down a brush stroke, then leaving it alone.

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord

New Year's Rose

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 1

So it's January 1st 2018.

This year I had fully intended to give myself a challenge: starting February 1st, I was going to try to complete a painting-a-day every day for 30 days.
I tried this once before but only managed around 15 paintings.
THEN someone posted this on facebook - a company called Strada are having a competition to win one of their easels - to paint thirty paintings in JANUARY.
So here I am, starting in January instead.

This is my first painting.

My personal aim with this challenge is:
1. To speed up my painting time
2. To loosen my brushstrokes
3. To not worry so much about composition.
4. To get into a habit of painting every day.
5. To stop procrastinating.

I'm not aiming to complete a gallery quality piece with every painting but I'm hoping to learn something in the process and hopefully knock one or two paintings out of the park along the way.

There is always something to do everyday that stops me from painting, so I had a good studio clearout and have resolved to let the washing-up and housework wait (it's going to be a messy month).

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord


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