Collage of January Paintings

Here's the collage I made with Picmonkey of  25 paintings that I painted this month for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.  You can see what others did on her website, here.

Number 23 and 24

 This is the last day of Leslie Saeta's challenge to paint 30 paints in January and post them on my blog.  I acually did paint 30, though some got wiped out and some I don't think anyone would want to see.  I feel I've made progress with my oil painting and am glad that I let myself depend on my memory and sketches.
 

watercolor 3x4.5 inches

watercolor 3x4.5

It has been so good to see some color in the sky again.  For the  last couple of weeks the sky has been mostly solid gray.  I painted the skies on Thursday afternoon from my studio window.

Number 22

watercolor 6x6 inches

 I'm back to painting everyday until I've posted 30 paintings.  I lost some time with my cold, so I'm going to keep working into February.   Actually, I probably will have painted 30 paintings by the end of the month.  I wiped out several and have a few little watercolors that I haven't posted.

I started to paint this tree with oil, drew it out on a gessoed board, then decided to paint it with watercolor.  We had some more snow this morning, enough to cover the branches on the cottonwood tree outside my studio window.  I used frisket on the snow.  Behind the cottonwood are thickets of willow with clumps of snow.  I'm not sure if I captued that or not.

Back in the Studio

oil painting 7x5 inches

I seem to finally be getting over my cold.  It is the first one in over a year and has really gotten me down.  I got back into the studio on Sunday but it took a while to get past the inertia.  I piddled around, spent a morning setting up a still life that I didn't want to paint, and yesterday, finished  two oil paintings that I'd started earlier.

The first one is from this pencil drawing.  I have a partially finished larger piece from the same drawing that I started in a workshop with Deborah Paris and doing this has shown me how I want to finish it.

oil painting 8x8 inches

 This is from another pencil sketch (below.)  I need to work some more on the snow on trees, give it more form.

Though I'm not satisfied with any of the paintings I've done from my pencil sketches, I am quite pleased that I've been able to do as well as I have.  I can see where with just a little more detail and notes in my drawings that I can have enough information to make a decent painting.

I've been hoping for some amount of snow accumulation so I could go out and observe and sketch some.  Last  evening as it was getting dark it was getting there, but in started raining around midnight and now much of the snow is off of the trees.

Sick Day

watercolor 8x8 inches

 My painting today is not one I did today.  I did it last winter, from my car at the end of the dock, looking across to Pleasant Island and Chichigof Island

I caught a bad cold a few days ago and this morning I decided I'd better take it easy at least for today.  I caught the cold from my husband who has been sick for 2 weeks and has developed pneumonia. 

Day 18 and 19

oil painting 5x7 inches

oil painting 8x8 inches

The are my latest paintings  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge 

I've stuck to my resolve for the last few days to not paint from photographs.  It hasn't been easy.  The snow painting  was done from a pencil sketch I did when there wasn't any snow.   The islands was from a little watercolor.   In both of these, I see things I will change now that I see them on the screen.

Day 17

watercolor 5.5x6 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge
 
 Today's painting is one that I did earlier in the month.  Today was catching up day for a lot of things but I did work for about an hour on one of my oil paintings.  I hope to have one of them done by tomorrow.

Day 16

watercolor 4.5x5.5 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge

I have three oil paintings in progress.  I did  this little watercolor on the first day of the month which will have to suffice for today..... yesterday now that I'm posting it.

Day 15

oil painting 8x8 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge
  

I've decided that for the rest of the month, I will not copy anymore photographs.  For this painting, I used the pencil drawing, below, that I sketched last winter. 
 

day 14

oil painting 5x7 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge

 I stopped what I was doing yesterday morning to paint the sky when a little bit more light than usual peeked through the clouds.  I probably exaggerated it.  I added the rest  later, as I think it might have looked like on the flats near the beach, though probably the snow is gone.

Day 13

oil painting 5x7 inches

This is from a photo taken mid summer with lupine and wild celery in bloom.

Besides finding painting a challenge, I've also found it hard to get good photos.  And at times my internet has gotten slower than its usual slow and it times out  while trying to post here.

I was having success with photographing outside, but for the last few days, there hasn't been much light out and it's been raining.  Today I arranged some lights and managed to get this image and am now at the library where there is a faster internet server.  Painting is still a challenge.

Day 12

oil painting 8x8 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. 

Another painting from a photograph taken from the beach.  This one is looking east towards the Chilkats.... the same ridge as in my day 6 painting.   I think my values are off on this... too dark in the sky. 

Day 11

oil painting oil painting

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. 

The weather is dismal and so I'm continuing painting from photographs.  This is down at the beach looking towards Lemesurier Island.

Day 10

oil painting 5.5x6 inches

Another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.


This was painted from memory of the southern sky around 1:30 on Thursday when the sun peaked through the haze for a while.

Day 9

watercolor 6x6.5 inches

 Here's another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

I painted this as the sun was about to pass from behind the tall trees yesterday in the southern sky.  It is good to see the sun get higher in the sky since solstice.  There is a haze from wood smoke from my neighbor's house behind the tall trees.

Day 8

 Here's another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

This is from yet another photo.  The view is from the dock in Gustavus looking south towards the Chilkats with the beach and Icy Passage below.  It is painted on mat board with a gesso ground.  After a lo of painting and wiping, I ended up liking the water and sky after being wiped, added the lines in the water and used my finger to blend.

I really do wish I could paint better without using photos.  The climate here makes it rather hard to spend much time en plein air. Encouraged by Deborah Paris, I swore off  using photos for about a year and  have made some progress in painting from memory and using my sketches, but have found myself painting less and less.  So it's back to the easier way, at least for part of the time.

Day 7

oil painting 5x6 inches

Here's another painting  for Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

This one was from another photo from Excursion Ridge.  Its done on watercolor paper with a black gesso ground. 

Day 6

watercolor 4x6 inxhes

 This is from a photo taken several years ago on Excursion Ridge. I started an oil from the same photo  but it didn't get very far. Watercolor is so much easier for me.

Day 5

Nagoonberry Trail oil painting 6x6

It has been a very frustrating couple of days.  I tried to paint this image twice on gesso board and wiped it out twice.  Then I did an under-painting on this canvas and let it dry overnight and worked most of yesterday on it.  I was almost to wipe it out again.  I think getting the values right has been my main problem.  I'll probably work on it some more.   

For more than a year I have been studying with Deborah Paris, doing indirect painting with a palette of mostly transparent pigments. I love some of the results I've achieved, but like some instant gratification too.  It took me a while to figure out I needed some more opacity. So, I pulled out some older tubes to work with.  I've really been struggling with getting the greens right.  I need to go back and study the color charts that I made a couple of years ago.

I'm a day late getting this on my blog, and hope I can still get it on Leslie's. I really tried to get a good photo after dark yesterday and finally around noon today there was enough light outside.

Day 4

watercolor 6x6 inches

 I'm frustrated that I don't have an oil painting done to put here today.  I started a small one this morning and wiped it out twice.  Then I did an underpainting which I will work on tomorrow or the next day when it drys.  Now I have two works in progress in oil.

I had wanted to go out for a ride and do a watercolor this afternoon, but it was dark by 4 when I finally quit working on my oil painting.   I went through photos I took on my walk yesterday and used a couple of them for this painting.  These weird looking Sitka Spruce are like many on our beach and around town.  The brewery in Juneau used spruce tips(the new growth that comes in the summer) for a special brew and buys them from pickers here.

Day 3

oil painting 8 x 6 inches

I painted this yesterday but couldn't photograph it until today when the sun was shining.  It's from a photo taken last week when the willows and ground were covered with frost.  Now the ground is covered with a little bit of snow and  ice.

Day 2

I painted the sky after watching a spectacular sunrise from my window between 8:30 and 9 this morning.  This is the only time of year that I can see much of the sunsets and rises from my house and there have been lots of beautiful ones this year.

watercolor 4 x 6

I finished an oil painting this afternoon and will wait until tomorrow to photograph it in the daylight

FIRST DAY OF LESLIE SAETA'S CHALLENGE

watercolor 4x5 inches

After ignoring this blog for most of the past year, I'm turning over a new leaf and have taken Leslie Saeta's challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days and post them here.

My intention for the month is to paint most days with oil, but am having some difficulty getting going after hardly picking up a brush for the last two months and the last hurrah of 2014.

This little watercolor is one of three I did this afternoon from memory of the view from my studio window, as it was a few days ago.  We've hardly had any snow this year but it has been cold and the willow have been covered with frost.  But today the view is quite different looking, with melting snow from last night on the ground and on the trees.