Golden Oats

My favorite time of day to be at the beach is late afternoon ... the sand is cooler, the colors are richer, the shadows offer dramatic contrasts, and the hustle and bustle settles into a quiet peace.  Golden Oats celebrates that time of day.

I started with this image, from a glorious afternoon in Nags Head, NC. 

After sketching basic placements, I squinted my eyes at the photograph and painted an undercoat of cool colors for the shadowed, darker valued areas that I saw.  From this beginning, I felt that it would be a strong composition, leading the viewer's eye in from the bottom left and then moving around to the steps, followed by the dunes on the right, and then  back to the entry point.  At least that's what my eye does :) 

In the first coat of thicker paint, I tried to stay true to my initial dark/light composition while laying in more accurate colors.

This next, and final, step took the most time, with lots of subtleties to show depth, but I feel that it successfully captures my favorite beach time of day.

Golden Oats, 12x16, SOLD

 

Curb Appeal

In honor of the last few days of Spring, today I am featuring one of the many Spring-inspired scenes that have found their way to my easel.  

"Curb Appeal" celebrates my favorite time of year.  The hope of new life is everywhere, the colors are vibrant, the shadows seem to dance with newly emerged leaves, the thick yellow-green pine pollen coats our patio furniture (oh wait, that's the part I try to forget!)

I love walking through my neighborhood, camera in hand, eyes seeing as if for the first time.  This particular scene caught my eye because of the way the foreground shadow spilled across the street and then the gentle curve of the street drew my eye to the distant sunlit azaleas.

The photo doesn't capture the intensity of the purple-red azaleas in the shadow of the foreground trees.  In fact, the color was so intense that it seemed to reflect right in to the shadowed street!  The fun I had as an artist was remembering those colors and bringing them to life.  I also had fun with the composition, making sure that the dark and light values worked to lead the viewers eye around the scene and back again.

Here's my 8x10 version of "Curb Appeal":

Curb Appeal, SOLD

8x10 oil

And here's a larger, 16x20 version:

Curb Appeal, SOLD

16x20 oil

Role Model

Today I'm featuring a painting that I highlighted in my newsletter last year.  I got so many positive responses on how fun it was to see my "step by step process" that I decided to feature it in my blog too.  Enjoy!

 A couple of years ago I came across this scene at a garden center that cried out, "Paint me!"  It had all of my favorite components:  strong light and show contrasts, stonework, flowers, and great reflected light.  Here's the photo I took:

I chose a square canvas and cropped the scene to emphasize the story I wanted to tell -- the little pot standing in the proverbial shadow of the big one, his "role model".

My Studio Set up
Here's what my studio set up looked like.  I put my ipad (a great tool!) on the right to view the photo and prepared my palette with opaque and transparent primary colors.

Step 1  I toned my Ampersand panel with Transparent Oxide Orange and then sketched basic outlines with that color mixed with a little Cadmium Red Light. Then I wiped out the light areas with a paper towel and a paint brush.  This is the most important step because it tells me if my composition is going to work!

Step 2  I laid in some background greens with transparent pigment.  I've found that transparent paints are great for giving a sense of depth.

Step 3  Then I painted the reflected sky color that I saw, knowing that I would tone this down later on.

Step 4  Worked a little on the mid-ground greenery, keeping it soft so that it didn't draw attention away from my center of interest.

Step 5  Finished covering the background and began with the warmer colors of the stonework...

Step 6  Finally got to paint the flowers!  I wasn't happy with the greenery in the small planter though.

Step 7  In this step I decided to replace the big leaf that was in the smaller planter with a more colorful spray of flowers. I also decided to soften the background so that it would look more distant. 

Here's my completed painting, before framing...

and after framing...

Role Model, Available

6x6 oil

Ready for a good home!  Click here to learn more.

Window Box

As the weather warms up I know that my beautiful window box pansies, planted in October, are not long for this world.  In honor of all the pansies ready to give up their spot to make room for summer flowers, I am featuring their smiling, sunny faces this week.  This picture, from last year's bounty, inspired a small painting I call "Window Box".

I chose a 6x6 square panel to paint on because I wanted to echo the shape of the corner of the  window box so that the softly draping blossoms would stand in contrast.  Since I'm the boss of me :), I freely changed colors and rearranged the flowers to encourage the viewer's eye to move through and around the blossoms.

Window Box, SOLD
6x6 Oil

A Time to Begin...

This year, 2013, is the perfect year to begin something I have long avoided doing ... starting an art blog.  Before starting my blog, however, I wanted to make sure that I truly had something to say and I've finally decided that the answer to that is definitely "YES!"  Hopefully you will agree :)  So here it is ... time to begin my Sunday posts by a painter of sunlit moments ...

Something that I love seeing from other artists is the reference image that inspired their painting (especially if it was painted on location). It helps me to understand the choices they had to make in designing their composition and emphasizing what they saw as important.  One thing I've learned as an artist is that we all "see" in very different ways!

So I am beginning my blog by "shedding light" on how I see and why I paint...

First up is a photo I took of a poinsettia peeking around a corner in Mexico. What I loved about this image was the interesting shadow cast by the poinsettia.  But my eye kept being pulled from the shadow to the silhouette of the background tree.

So I cropped the tree from view and found the composition much more relaxing...

In my final composition I cropped the foreground so that the shadow would serve as an "entry point" for the eye, and I joined the two cast shadows so that they wouldn't be competing elements.  My favorite part of painting this scene was playing with the warm light through the red flowers reflected into the cool shadow on the patio.  It was something that I had to see by being there since it definitely doesn't come through in the photograph!

Poinsettia in the Sun, 16x20 Oil, SOLD