Lilies

9" x 12" oil on panel

This is the first in a series that I have been working on for a few weeks. I keep working on them some more, and liking parts of them. I have been learning a lot. But they don't really seem to finish, as much as I would like them to. It is a function of needing to paint more, and needing to spend more time painting.
However, I will post them this week, and see what they look like online. Hope you like them!

Ice Fan

11"x 14" oil on linen panel

A playful moment captured in a spontaneous painting. I think that the limited complementary palette really helps juxtapose the playful character with the cold season. Soon this will all be a memory!

11x14 Oil on linen panel

A winter beach and cliff walk at Beavertail Light, on the southern end of Jamestown, RI. The pattern of dark and light as the waves moved towards shore and the green/ orange range of colors caught me eye. Snow in the shadows reminds me that it is still winter. This was a studio painting. I tried to go out yesterday to paint, and it looks like spring, but is still cold enough to soak into my bones. Soon....

Shooting paintings

untouched photos from Canon G7 on left and Canon EOS D60 on right

Yesterday entailed some experimentation with recording paintings. I am not a professional photographer, and my documentation has only slowly been getting more developed. I am getting together a portfolio to apply for a show for my Japanese paintings at the Providence Art Club, and it occurred to me that perhaps I had gotten better since last year when I first photographed these pieces. I always shoot my paintings with my G7, and lately I have been using GIMP to edit them. But I had access to the EOS, and I decided to use it as well when I was photographing.

The results surprised me. I had been expecting some differences, but not to the degree that I saw above. These are two details from the same painting with the cameras set up to the same pixels and exposures. The pciture on the right is more saturated, with less smoothing. The brush strokes appear more painterly. The tones set next to each other are much clearer. It is obvious to me that the EOS is going to give me a far superior result when I have finished editing them.

NowI will have to shoot as much as possible with the larger camera, because I use the detail in my reference photos a lot for painting as well. Even if that reference is only to finish something in the studio that I started in the field.

Winter sunrise

oil on linen 9" x 12"

A painting of a special time of day. I have photographed this painting several times for the blog, and the blue on the building keeps getting very saturated. The original is a little more purple, and sits back on the linen. I loved the colors in the snow and sky, and the richness of the snow shadow. I like how the colors shift in the penumbra around the sun. I think the painting done larger would need a more careful perspective drawing of the house. As usual, I will put it up on my long shelf to look at for a while, and thus learn to see what it needs. (Updated picture reposted 3/8/09)

Winter View

oil on linen panel - 8" x 16"

This painting was done from a cropped snapshot. I loved the shapes of the hills, the contrast-y colors, and the long vista. I used a limited palette of cad red light, ultramarine, and yellow. Usually I would have used ochers and siennas from the the tube, but this palette pushed me to explore colors more than usual, and rewarded me for the effort!

Watch Hill Winter Morning II

I have been thinking about this painting since I last posted, and have not gotten it out of my head yet. I have changed my usual order of layout, so that you can compare it to the previous entry.
Paintings are always kept out in the studio for studying. In this one, I have kept darkening the forground and adding more layers to the sky.
I have tweaked the colors of the photo in GIMP, but still have more cobalt hue in the foreground that in the actual picture. The rest of the picture is pretty accurate. (It is always a temptation to get the photo as good as it can be as its own image, but I am sticking to the closest I can get to the actual image.
I am doing well, despite the lack of posting. We are the host parents for an international student, and that has thrown my usual routines all awry.

Oil on linen 9" x 12"