Thursday afternoon/evening was again really, really busy at the farmers market. Had people offering advice on how to paint this and people sneaking photographs, hope it was my good side:) My young friend was there to help setup the still life and it was again a collaboration. David doesn't go for flowers much so he just cropped them out pretty much. He suggested the cherries and I hung the couple off the container. A nice touch if I can say that. David was leaving earlier then me, so I bought the fruit from him so I could finish. I definitely have my style changing of late and I like what is happening to it. My main design element was an oval just off centre and I have remembered to keep a space opening to let the eye travel through to the background and back again. To bid on this painting go to this link at my Daily Paint Works gallery. As always the auctions are a very good price to get these works at a most reasonable price the auction will start tomorrow July 12th. David did a fantastic painting this week and I introduced him to the alla prima techniques to starting a painting and I wouldn't let him use white until he was well into it. He loves his white too much and it has been desaturating all his hues. This has helped maintain rich colours and given him lots of contrasting hues that vibrate against each other. Well done David! David's painting.
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I started this painting a little differently by massing in the dark background then wiped away the areas where I wanted the flowers. These cascading blooms are so full and heavy many were just laying on the moss covered rock below and even on the ground. They were shaded but sun was glinting through as the wind had everything dancing and shimmer.
I just love working on these boards they are very forgiving and the texture adds that pentimento that I like so much. I was able to use transparent staining pigments and still they wiped right off This has been posted to my Daily Paint Works auction and is going fast at a very good price. My local farmer's market has started it's new season. As I am officially still in the last couple of weeks of my portrait residency I figured I'd add the head with the the planes to my still life set up. The market is just outside of where I am located for painting and this week I went out into the market to see more of my neighbours. It was a very busy market and I got a lot of interest. This is a screen shot from the video I tried to take that didn't turn out for me. I need a lot more practice before I show any of them. At the end of the market hours the sun came out for a short while, lovely. You can see some of my portraits on display, plus the still life set up. I purchased an orchid that wasn't going to fit my panel very well, a bit too high but beautiful with lots of buds. I shortened the stem and brought it into the oval design element I chose to work with. I didn't need to move mountains in this plein air painting. I picked up my painting at Opus Langley this weekend and took photos of the piece. After not seeing it for a week I can be a little more objective towards it. I had an interesting response to it as my memory of it was that it was more lively and brighter then I found it. I did however get back to liking it after editing the photo to post here and making sure the photo matched the painting. The day had been grey and I painted it to maintain a subtly of colour and develop the warm and cool aspects to work off each other. This had been my main objective of the painting so when I remembered it as being much brighter this may have been the trick of painting it outdoors then bringing it inside, the paintings never look quite as bright. In this case I didn't try to push the saturation of the hues but tried to capture them and values as I saw them and played with the alternating warm and tool tones. I had thought it wouldn't jump out after I brought it inside and I also didn't think it had a chance of winning anything. The staff had said that there had been a lot of positive feedback so this makes me feel pretty good and I'm still very thrilled to have won. Yesterday, Michael King and I went back to Langley to paint a spot that was outside the boundaries of the Opus challenge we were both on the weekend before. I had found this very cool spot and wanted to go back. The buildings looked to me from another time. Historical corners like this are getting harder to find. I'm not used to painting buildings and the straight lines and perspective kept challenging me. I may have also lost my focus on what I most liked about this spot as I struggled to capture everything as it appeared instead of the shapes, I was painting buildings. I did think though that my drawing skills are getting a little better after working daily on portraits. Thank you Michael for taking me back there. Opus Outdoor Painting Challenge 2014, my third year doing this challenge and 3rd time lucky. I'm very thrilled to have won 1st price in the Langley area challenge.
The day started with some drizzle and I moved back under a tree which changed my original approach to this scene. I wanted to do a portrait of the tree but give the water a lot of interest. Instead the tree and it's subtle mossy colours became my focus. I didn't get a final photo of my painting and it will be at Opus Langley on display for a week. The photos here show the painting about 3/4s done. I was pretty pleased with my piece and felt I had captured this lovely old tree. The fog was thick all morning and didn't start to clear till well past noon.
I've started a new series of plein air paintings along the Pitt River. My first efforts this early spring were at the duck pond in Colony Farm Regional Park just down the road from me now I'll work my way up and down the Pitt River.
Garden Path with Rhodos 8"x10" Oil on Canvas Panel I've just returned from my second Opus Outdoor Challenge. The day started out with rain and I thought I'd try and find a spot with lots of colour and keep my saturation up high. Last year we had been surprised by a larger canvas panel. That took me all of the time available, this year the panel seemed so very small at 8"x10" but even under a tree I had my palette pooling with rain water. I gave myself 1.5 hours to paint this and spent the rest of the time with my friend Michael King. Michael had said he was going to try and paint his piece in an hour but since it was a grey rainy day he was going to give himself a little longer. I took that as a challenge. I very much enjoyed meeting and seeing what others were doing and how they seemed to be handling the weather. I very much enjoyed the day regardless the weather.
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