If it’s been a long time since I’ve painted, why not use lots of paint!
I enjoyed slopping it on liberally!
6″x6″ Acrylic on canvas panel
Category Archives: Painting
Playing with Paint
And now for something completely different… I realized that I hadn’t painted since last winter, and painting is my mainstay. The project that had consumed me for the past six months was in pastel. This morning I was in the mood! I never use a palette knife, but I wanted to play and experiment. I proceeded without a plan, or an image in my head, just lots of paint on my palette, and a knife. I am reasonably satisfied with the outcome, and I know how I want to proceed tomorrow, with a plan, loads of fresh paint, and a blank canvas.
Book Cover for David’s Journey
This is the cover, not approved yet. Rendered in oil pastel on brown paper 11.5″x14″ scale 127%. One of the most challenging pages, since it had so many people and had to come from my imagination, and from a country I’ve never been. I could have photographed the back cover adjoined to it. I will do that tomorrow.
Herding Cattle Illustration
This is the illustration for the cattle herding boy, I haven’t rendered the boy yet because I am wondering if I want to redo it. I was experimenting with how to do the water and I’m not sure if want to try it another way. I’m also not liking the ribbed paper. I will start the next illustration on Canson paper and see how that goes before I finish this one. I am my own worst critic. 
Apple and Grapes (WIP)
I fine tuned the shapes and put in almost all the details. Now, all that remains to do is the stems. Never again on canvas with pastel, even though it’s coming out okay. It’s just uses up more pastels. I am straying from the reason why I gave oil pastels a shot is because I want to make fluid marks. Still life doesn’t inspired that. Landscapes with energetic strokes was my plan, that will be next, after I have stems on my fruit.
Apple and Grapes (WIP)
I found my subjects in the fridge crisper. I made an underpainting of watercolor crayons, worked in with a brush, on this 5×7″ canvas board. I didn’t really want to use the canvas board because it’s so coarse, but it was the only thing I had that size.
I laid in the first layer of oil pastel. Worked it in with a paper stump, Since the canvas is coarse, it would be faster to paint it, but I’ve done that before. This is an experiment with oil pastel. I will ignore the stems for now.
The holes are filled now, the surface is very smooth. I used Neopastel, a harder oil pastel first. I haven’t gotten to the lights yet. The canvas surface worked better than I expected, it has the look of oil paint in person.
Yellow Rose (Final)
I made some shading adjustments in the bottom petals. Changed the shape of the petal to the far right to be more pleasing, eventhough that’s not how it looked. Adjusted the color in the background to be warmer, and not distract from the rose. Oil Pastels on 8×10″ hardboard.
Valley Fields Painting
Another Postcard painting for the exhibit. I sure don’t like working this small, not to mention, I need reading glass to paint it! Acrylic on Canvas Board 4×6″ I need to rephotograph the painting, the light is it hitting it in a way that makes the canvas show up more.
Thunderheads Painting
I’m making some paintings for a post card exhibit. All of the paintings must be 4×6″. I prefer not to paint that small, but I’ll do it for the exhibit. I enjoy the project anyway. I love thunderheads, I like to watch them grow.
I painted this with Golden Open Acrylics on Canvas Board. Just a couple hours.
Van Gogh Chair for Salvage Art Auction
This is the final on my Van Gogh Chair for the Salvage Art Auction, a charity for Habitat for Humanity. I added the sunflowers as the last. i wasn’t really sure how I wanted to to do that part. I put a tough coat of Urethane Varnish on the chair this morning. It put a nice gloss on it.
