SERENITY sunset on a lake in Croatia

"Serenity"

A Croatian lake at sunset.

Photo credit to Facebook "Painter in You" in the file paint my pic, 

photographer unknown.

Acrylic paint on 11 by 14 staple backed canvas, Gallery wrapped.

$50

Lake Gillette

Lake Gillette, off the Pacific Crest Trail

Just north of the Columbia River

Acrylic on staple backed canvas

Gallery wrapped

$30

My daughter is a constant source of inspiration both personally and artistically. She is an artist as well and an ultra marathon trail runner. She takes beautiful pictures and posts many on her blog site. Run. Mind, Matter. Many of her photos are used a back drops for my paintings.

Help me name this one

Walk by Faith

Acrylic on staple backed canvas

Gallery wrapped

$30




It took me a long time to name this one. Then one day I was thinking about a friend who is facing a very uncertain future. As I was thinking of her I realized that this painting represents a well manicured present, with an unknown future. The path is unknown but we know how holds our future and who has marked the path ahead.

There were two different picture that friends posted on Facebook that struck me. One was from Alaska, the other from Canada. Both were pictures of a wooden path or bridge entering a wooded area where the path disappeared into the forest. This is my loose interpretation of the originals. Credit to photos by Lindsay and Tiffany.



Haceta Head Lighthouse

Haceta Head Lighthouse

Acrylic on staple backed canvas

Gallery Wrapped.

$40

Waves are a challenge for me. this one took about four tries and lots of feed back to get it right. The inspiration for this painting is a marginally okay picture I took many years ago. One of the things I like about painting is that you can adjust the color to make the scene look more like the real thing, whereas old time 35 mm cameras, without a knowledgeable photographer result in washed out photos.

So I used my photo and several other professional photos for color correction to produce this scene that I had unsuccessfully capture on film.

Cape Kawanda, Pacific City Oregon

Cape Kawanda

Acrylic on canvas board

Gallery wrapped

$25 without frame, $30 with simple black frame




My youngest daughter and I spent vacation at Cape Kawanda a few years ago. Of the many photos I took, this is one of my favorites. the only thing missing is my daughter standing on the sand in the foreground. I am not good enough YET to add her to the painting. Maybe in a future version I will add her.


Thanks to some new friends on an amazing Facebook group, I have made some modifications to the Cape Kawanda painting. I am not sure if I am 100% done with it yet, but at least the rock is developing a little character and no longer seems to be floating on the water.

Seascape lessons

Last weekend I started working on the Seascape level 1 course in learn to paint Academy. There are five lessons to create for seascapes. The first week, or at least the first session, is painting the sky for all four paintings. Then each session Builds on the previous by adding the ocean, the beach, the large structures, then finally the detail. The first and second session went so fast that I thought surely I would have it done this weekend. Not so much.

I finally finished the first three and should be able to finish the 4th one this week as well as the final session which is painting a Seascape from beginning to end in one sitting.

Here are the first three.

PS.... So I lied. Okay, not really. I decided to hit it again (instead of doing all the other things I SHOULD be doing).  All four of the lessons are posted below.

painting a human face

SO.... Since I was able to draw an acceptable sketch of my daughter, I decided to try to paint a portrait of her.  It was both successful and unsuccessful and the same time.

It is successful in that it is a decent portrait, but it is clearly not my daughter. I also had trouble with skin tones, blending and so forth so the chin and neck especially have many layers and is the paint is bumpy. Maybe this unknown lady just need some special lotion for crepey skin. (watch late night infomercials if you don't know what that is.)

Sketching? ME? Really?

I am taking a course through Learn to Paint Academy on painting people. Before you can paint them you have to sketch them. OMG, I can't sketch anything! This is gonna be bad!


In honesty, the class project was to sketch simple figures, without detail in the faces. But I jumped in the deep end.

To my astonishment, I was able to do a sketch of my daughter and it really looks like her.

Then I tried to sketch my eldest. I will not show that one because she is looking at of angle, about 1/4 profile and slightly looking down. I can't seem to get the perspective correct. I will continue to look for a good picture of her that I can sketch.

Then I tried sketching a close family member's little girl. She is just over a year and I think I aged her a bit. At one point you could not tell if it was a baby or an old lady.

 

Then.... If I can sketch a face, maybe I can paint a face....

 

Getting more detailed

My daughter had posted a picture of the Eagle Creek Trail just below tunnel falls. I have hiked this area in my younger days and it brought back lots of good memories. So I decided to try to paint it. It took a couple tries but her is the completed painting. (A photo of a painting does not do justice. The colors are fall orange and not as bright as it seems in the picture) over all I am pretty pleased with this one.

I started going through pictures looking for scenes that called out to me. The next one is of Cape Kawanda at Pacific City Oregon. this is one of my favorite get away spots. the only thing missing from this painting is my daughter standing on the sand in the foreground. Maybe some day when I  am more skilled I will add her. I was really pleased with this painting. It was by far my favorite so far. In fact, goofy as it sounds, it brought a tear to my eye to think that I did this. I took paint and brushes and created depth and movement.  Feeling good.

Another origianal from a picture my daughter took

My daughter posted a picture a couple days after I completed the last Moore Art project. I had loved the way my trees and logs had turned out in that painting and when I saw this photo, I wondered if I could do more trees and logs.


There is a lot of artistic liberty taken since most of the logs on the ground were twigs and branches and I did not feel that I was able to do that detailed work yet. So I just made them bigger.


As my own critic, I don't like the foliage on the trees. If I were to repeat this, which I likely will, I would paint them from the background forward (which means a lot more planning of color saturation and graying but allows me to complete background trees and layer on the ones in front. I would also use my new fan brush for the foliage, and make the white flowers in the foreground more recognizable or leave them out entirely. The rest will just come with more experience. (of course I need to complete the sign but my penmanship is awful)

My first request

My youngest showed pictures of my paintings to a friend of hers and she said she was redecorating her bathroom with a flowers theme. She asked if I could do the Gerber Daisy for her.


There is a little more detail in this than any of the ones I have done previously. I am pretty okay with this one.

Orchid

I asked my youngest daughter what her favorite flower was.

She said "Orchid, Why?"

"I  am going to paint you and orchid".

Her response, "Good luck with that" in a not a chance tone of voice.

Challenge accepted!

I went back to Angela Anderson's sight and found this orchid. Should be easy right??


WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! You don't want to know how many layers are under this flower! and I am still not impressed with it.

My first original

I had taken a photo of haystack rock at Pacific City many years ago. The photo has hung in my house for more years than I want to think about. So with a leap, I jumped in and tried to pain the image in the photo. Some have told me that they love it. I think they love me and love the fact that I am trying to paint. I was never satisfied with it but couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Here are my two originals.

A month or so later, I began to see the errors.

 According to Rod Moore, there are a few very common mistakes a new painter makes.

Start with too much color in the sky-- Check


Use too much color, too saturated to be specific -- Check

Failure to show depth. (Warm saturated colors in the foreground and increasingly grayed out less saturated color in the back ground) Failure to put the correct hues, and values in the correct place confuses the eye. I does not make visual sense. --- CHECK

I will re paint this scene within the next month or so and post the result. I am sure it will be much better.

Paintings for family

Okay I have painted something for my niece and nephew, my daughters, my mother, and now a complete stranger.

I saw this picture of an elephant and knew (at least, I hope) my adult niece in who I rarely get to see would love it. She has loved elephants since she was a kid. This one was so quick and easy that it nearly felt like cheating.

Then I asked my mom "what should I paint for my two nephews?" She suggested an oyster for my younger nephew since he is manager of a huge oyster farm. It took me forever to find one I thought I could replicate. (don't know if there is copyright on it. If so, I will take down the post)

Okay, gonna post my failures too. My eldest posted a picture of her sitting at the top of a mountain trail looking out at the mountain tops in the distance. This is classic saturated color in the foreground and desaturated in the background. I can do this! Not so much. Her shoulder is raised because she is looking back over her shoulder. When I tried to draw her profile in such small proportions, well lets just say it was not very good. I decided to just make her hair cover her face. But the problem is that there is now not a reason for her shoulder to be raised. It does not make sense to the eye. Additionally, her left arm looks broken, the plants look awkward, and the mountains in the back ground are not desaturated and grayed out. And the tree kinda sucks too.

My uncle saw some of my painting and asked me paint one of the waterfall on family property. I have a picture I took years ago and used that as my guide. But it was too dark and I couldn't see detail. So I found other pictures on line and combined them. The result is water falls that are not accurate representations but a composite. Add to that the artist does not have the skills, yet, to accomplish this. I don't know how to make water move over rocks without flowing down hill. I don't have the skill, YET, to get the perspective correct. Here are three paintings and the original photos.

Cups

I saw this on Angela Anderson's site and fell in love. I immediately thought of my sister in law and thought she would really appreciate it.

I was surprised how easy this painting was. The only thing is that I would use a little less paint next time. This is so thick it is almost like painting with a palate knife. I also messed up on the shadow and put the highlight and shadow on the wrong side of the cup in one picture.

I had already posted the picture and lots of folks had responded. The I posted, "have you ever had one of those days where you learn, after being out and about all day, that your clothes are on inside out? Well that's what I feel like today."