THREE NEW PAINTINGS

A view from the hydro road,

a view from somewhere around Berry Island near Sitka,

and a view from Shelikof Beach. Mount Edgecumbe is on the left, the top covered with clouds. Mt Edgecumbe is in the previous painting too.

JEFFERSON MEMORIAL FOR DSFDF

This is my painting for the latest challenge for Karin Janik's Different Strokes from Different
Folks blog.... a timely subject for the happening in Washington now. It's quite different than anything I've ever done and I'm really rather happy with it. A night or two before the photo for the challenge came up, I was taken with the lovely lights from the windows of our house one snowy night and as always when something moves me, I was wondering how I could capture it with paint. The photo seemed a good way to try my first night scene painting. I tried first to do it with gouache with no success (I made a mess of the sky) and then started over with watercolor. I used some gouache in spots towards the end.... splattering the stars and brightening up the lights.

SOME NEW PAINTINGS

I didn't really make a New Years resolution to blog more this year, but so far, I have made the effort to do so.... mostly on my other blog, Watercolor Postcards. So far, I've done a little painting every day this year and have posted them regularly. I've also been unusually busy in the studio most days. Though this blogging thing is quite time consuming, my art and blogging seem to feed on each other. Today, Sunday is my usual day for keeping up on my paper work and I haven't been in the studio today, and perhaps this will be my day for catching up here too.

I scanned a few paintings I did in the last month.

This, as are most all of my landscapes done in the studio, is from a photograph. This was a view from a friends house about 10 years ago. I'd like to go back and do the view on location, and think I'll ask the new owners of the home if I can. Its certainly hard to paint outside this time of year and even with digital photos on the computer screen, I can't see all I want to. Maybe that's a good thing, in some cases, but I had trouble with the nuances in value in the mountains on this one.


This was painted from a photo taken in 06. I did a painting on location of these 2 islands from a different place on the beach and it is here.

And then I did this one of the same 2 islands from yet a different view point. The photo of this was one of my favorite from the trip and has been my screen saver for most of the last 2 years. The photo shows a lot of water and beach in the foreground. I worked for days trying to get it right in the painting, but finally wiped out the water and painted over it with gouache. Maybe I'll try again another year..... or maybe with gouache.



Here's a photo of an old outhouse, taken a couple of weeks ago. Its in the file, all sized to put here, so here it is. It was before the heavy snow we've had since Christmas.... 6 feet or more with an accumulation of over 3 feet. The cold weather finally broke last night and rain started today. What a mess. My photos of the heavy snow are on my other computer which I can't access the internet with.







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PAINTING AGAIN andHAPPY NEW YEAR

The output from my studio has been pretty low in the last few months, but I got a jump start when I found a blog called Different Stokes From Different Folks. A fantastic artist, Karin Jurik posts a photograph and invites anyone who wants to, to paint it and send to her and she posts on the blog. The blog is here.

I came to the challenges late, joining the 13th week and painted this pair of shoes. I did it on a gessoed topo-map with gouache.

The next challenge was to send in a photo of myself and Karin sent me back a photo of someone else and the person in that photo painted me. Here is the painting I did:

It was a humbling experience. I hadn't done a portrait in ages and had forgotten how hard they are to do. Karin said not to try so much for a likeness, but it was hard not to try, and I really stuggled with several starts. The pretty girl in the red dress (she is prettier in the photo) is Simone Ritter and she lives in New Brunswick. Her painting of me is on the blog and she did a very nice job.

There were a few scans here from the last couple of months that I will post.
I did the 2 of fuschia soon after coming home from my trip, back in October. Both are of the same branch of flowers.

I painted this one after a careful pencil drawing.


and this one without drawing first. I kind of surprised myself.



This is Aimee's row boat, from photographs I took in the Beardsleys a couple of summers ago.

Happy New Year to my friends who might stop by. I promise to post more often this year and invite you to post a comment.