Working On It

I'm making progress on this painting for DSFDF. Was away on holidays so haven't worked on it in about 10 days. But it's coming along. I know Karin said to finish the figure and stay away from the background until the figure was complete but it just felt like he was floating in space and if I put some of the background in I would be able to get more harmony in the painting as far as the way the colours were working together. I was getting too focused on the clothing and needed to get a view of the "big picture" so I stepped back and worked on something else for awhile. Still needs work but I was going to muck it up if I didn't give myself some space. Still have 6 days left so I'm hoping I'll get it done in time.

Not Sure If It's Done Or Not

(Spring Fields in PA, 9x12, watercolour pencil)

This was done for the challenge over at DSFDF. Karin posted a grayscale photo and we were to put it in colour however we wanted to. The idea was to pay attention to the tones.

I've gone over and looked and there are some amazing paintings. I am having all kinds of trouble tonight trying to size this so that she will accept it though. I'm also not sure if i'm through with it yet or not.

I thinkg I got my tones right. I like the barns and silos and house. Not sure I like the field and I think I should have skipped the grasses in the foreground. They seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm not so sure. I may play with this a bit more but for now this is it.

I altered a few things though.

I chanegd the house to something more like stone and I made the barns red. I also altered the roof of each silo because that's how they are around here. I like the candy stripe effect of them around here so I put them in that way. I'm also happy with the sky and they far distance. The only thing I really dislike is the grass and unfortunately I can't get rid of it.

Oh well!

Stop Lights

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here.

That was supposed to be because I was going on vacation and was busy at work before I left but as it turns out I never went anywhere - my basement flooded and the trip got cancelled. But that gave me some time in the last 3 days to work on this picture that I desperately wanted to do.

Karin Jurick, at Different Strokes From Different folks posted an image of New York City the challenge for the last 3 weeks. The work done with this image and that is posted on Karin's blog (see link at side) is terrific.

Karin had made a comment that some people say that they are nervous working outside of their comfort zone and that who wants to always do what they are familiar with. I agree with her. How do you learn unless you try new and unfamiliar things??? I wish I could step outside of my comfort zone more easily in my real life - the way I am willing to do it with my art. All I can say is that I am still a work in progress. I don't think I'll ever be finished.

Anyways... This wasn't something that was out of my comfort zone per se. It was really more like something I had never thought of doing. I try to approach my art with a no fear policy and just go for it.

So I just went for it and this is my interpretation of her image. I did it with Derwent Inktense pencils on Stonehenge paper and used water over top of the pencils which makes the colours incredibl vibrant and alive.

Stop Lights (Inketense pencils on paper, 14x16)

I am happy with how this turned out. It is the second time I've used the Inktense pencils and the only time I have ever done an in-colour picture of a cityscape. I like that it challenged me to get outside of something that I would normally do and I really enjoyed the puzzle of all the buildings.

I had a couple of goals. The first was to make sure the taxis and vehicles were grounded in the picture and that they didn't look like they were just floating on top of the ashphalt. The second was to use the intensity of the colour and the detail of the drawing to help with perspective. The third was to try and paint the buildings loosely so that the cars stayed the focus of the work. And the fourth was to make the stop lights and the tail lights look like they were glowing.

I think that I managed to do that.

The lines of the building edges aren't perfectly straight and I guess the light post on the right is leaning at a bit of an angle but I don't mind. For me this is supposed to be representational and not photorealistic - I want it to look like a painting or drawing and not like I just took a photo.

Next I want to work on my Virtual Paintout paintings of Paris and I'm thinking the old Inktense pencils may be coming out again for those drawings as well.