Hi All- I have just come back from my busy weekend and am trying to catch up.
Marsha- I like your clothes on lines, they look like they are dancing in the wind. I feel the freshness of the just washed clothes drying under the sun. Good job. Your dahlia is excellent and you are very creative. I am like you in that I like to add little bit of my imagination into the ref. photos so it will keep me working on the painting. The rocks are well done too, clear and bright and lots of depth and shadows. I found Waldo clearly.
Sandi
C&C are welcome and appreciated.
Jen- I typed this for the third time. Don't know what I did wrong, I hit a key and it wiped out the whole paragraph twice. Anyhow here goes:- I like your ducks with your friend feeding them. You developed The Country Lane and the Curly One nicely. I also like your Rocks, they are compacted as rocks should be. I like when you give an impression of something and that something turned into nice paintings. That is called "Abstract". Our (Holly and I and three thousands of other painters) teacher on line keeps telling us to do abstract and melodic lines on mountains, skies and trees. They don't have to be realistic but they have to be entertaining and pleasing to the eyes of viewers. I found it's difficult to do but you do that well.
I will start to do the Challenge soon, probably the ocean waves.
Jen, I like your rocks. They look like rocks to me. They are shaped like rocks and they really stand out against that dark bg. You are going to town with drawing. Good for you!
Ok...keeping up with you folks is a going to be a challenge., and I'm not even talking about the chatter side. Ok, let's try to catch up:
Fred: Like the W/c sea painting. good shapes on those rocks, and the clouds. I like you colors in the sea.
Marsha: Welcome, I had said that yet. Between you and Jen, I'm not sure if I can keep up. :) Great sketch of the curly haired one. I admire those of you who seem to make the figure drawing seem easy. It's not. I like the second sketch, especially the dark BG. Great job. The rocks sketch, also great job. I really like the clothes line cp painting....the colors and shapes are great. Looks airy. The Dahlia is great as well....I like the shadows in the petals and the colr change in the center. You've done a really good job on these. I'm impressed.
Jen: Again, I admire you ability to draw figure. You capture things real well. I like your figure on the wonky wall, ducks and all! ... I agree with Sam on the landscape, the contrast is good, as well as the different lines/strokes to differentiate the foliage. ........Rocks sort of? Rocks definitely...good work...and of course the curl haired one. The smile is awesome, you captured it ...makes me smile every time I see it ..
Ok, hope I didn't miss anyone. If I did , I apologize.
SO, I decided to try the 30 minute challenge. I choose the sea painting for my victim. I laid out my palette, brushes, mineral spirits, and set the canvas up on the easel. Then I started the timer. Here's where I had to stop. The alarm made me jump....you might be able to see where the brush did as well :)
It was a fun go at it. This is oil on 11X14 stretched canvas.
Dave
AKA Grizzly Painter...
C&C Welcome
Dave, you accomplished a lot in half an hour. Your practice with the sky is evident. This one looks real good. Lots of movement in the water. Take a bow!
I'm sorry I have been absent. I will explain in the chatter.
Dave - welcome back, I saw many great things of yours in past challenges. some really beautiful things. Your ocean wave in oil is super reminds me of where I moved here from "Monterey/Carmel" , I'm homesick.. I used to go tide pooling all the time. Thank you for the compliments.
Sam - You asked the size of the "Dalia" it is 9x6. I've been using my tablets of Stonehenge paper, and just dividing the pages in half. saves paper. Thank you so much for your kind encouragement. I did darken the V points in the Dalia. I should let you know I put several of my pencils into the oven at 250 for 4-5 minutes and it worked, I can now sharpen my pencils and I'm using a little hand sharpener by Faber Castel, I got it with my WC pencils. I am using cotton to clean them off after sharpening and I'm using a Q-tip to clean the sharpener so I don't get little grits of wood or build up of wax in it. Thanks for the tip. I read what you said about putting a dandelion growing out of the rocks.. gee, I had a ton of those growing among my rocks last year and I was pulling them up like crazy. This spring I will make sure I take a picture first... "Then pull 'em and toss them"... tee hee
Sandi- Welcome back I am so glad you had a good time. your display was marvelous. Congratulations on your sale. and thank you for the kind compliments. I recently read somewhere that there will be a WC show here in Las Vegas, I will have to find out more about it so I can attend. That sounds like fun.
Jen- Your Stones look great, I like the softness of rounding them as well as the Dark BG. You asked how I kept track of where I was in the picture. I found my way by picking two stones as my reference, put my left finger on a stone while my drew my reference with the right. I named the little rock with the hole "Waldo" and Sandi said she found "Waldo".... Your drawing of the lane is so clean and nice, I can take a walk and hear the birds...
Sheila- again thank you for your encouragement. Your art is wonderful...
MARSHA
C & C Always Welcome
It takes courage to learn about oneself from one’s failures as well as from one’s successes.
Last night at 1am I decided to attempt the ocean. well the lighting isn't real good that time of night. So this morning I looked at it again.... ugh,,, so I found some other pencils that better matched the ocean and added more color to it. So here is my ocean wave no beach. CP on 5.5x 8.8 Cranson Sketch pad 65lb
Marsha, you are a natural with those colored pencils! The water is so well done - both colors and movement.- and so are the rocks. Love the wave. You have a light, touch which is good with colored pencil. Great little painting.
It's so good that baking your pencils melted the core enough so that they are now usable. Good for you for trying it. Has Blick given you any satisfaction?
thank you, Sam and Jen....
Dave- Your Ocean Waves painting is marvelous! I can see and hear the waves coming crashing in. The clouds do have melodic lines. Colors are pleasing. Good job.
Marsha- Your waves are very nice too. Clean and bright and soft painting is your signature. This piece is so pleasant to the eyes. Another well done job.
Here is my try at the"Water Soluble Wax Pastel". I ordered the set of 15 about a month ago so I can see what it is and how it works. I struggled a little
bit at first but took control of it later. Still have to be more comfortable about how much water and when to use it. It colors are quite strong and vivid almost like soft pastels so I can't lay down the chalk too much, a little bit goes a long way when wet. I had trouble when I tried to do detail work on the white water. White is not opaque enough to form shapes so I just used it dry or with little water. I could have added soft pastels on it but I had planned to
leave white paper for the white foam so that helped. I guess all I need is practice it like any other medium.
Sandi, you used your imagination and rearranged the rocks. It's an interesting composition. I agree with Jen that the wave has a lot of motion and that the distant rocks need to be toned down. I like the sky very much. I think you did a good job with a new medium. I wonder if water soluble wax pastels are anything like water soluble crayons by Caran d'Ache.
Copyright (C) 2013 Interweave Press, LLCUse of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms and Privacy Policy, updated March 2007
