This is My Life

Here is my final painting for my Foundation II class!  I absolutely love to paint digitally, but over the course of this class I have developed an appreciation for traditional paint.  One of the things I used to detest most about acrylics was running out of a certain color and then trying to remix it.  The solution I discovered was to mix a whole lot of the colors I knew I would need. Then I used a pallette knife to slop them into a lidded butter tub.  The container kept the paint usable for more than 2 weeks!  11" x 14" acrylic.  15 hours.

A Lantern of Value

The point of this assignment was to show the importance of how bright the values of different colors are.  Art pieces are stronger when lights, darks and contrasts are used appropriately to direct the attention of the viewer.  The often taught rule is: when working through a piece of art, take a grayscale look at it every once in a while to make sure the values and brightness of the image are still communicating effectively.  11"x17" acrylic on illustration board.  9 hours.

Plein Air Cougar Park Painting 03-Digital

Alright!  Here is my final from-life drawing I'm going to do in cold weather!!!  Despite the chill in the air, I was excited that my teacher let me try working from life digitally.  This is the first life painting I have done on the laptop.  Anyone else have tips on working from life this way?  I put an umbrella behind me and everything to keep the sun from glaring, but man, the screen looked so dim it was tough to tell what colors I was using.  2.5 hours in Photoshop

Plein Air Cougar Park Painting 02

A return to the park and this time I was armed!  Or at least, properly gloved!  My wife was sweet enough to sacrifice some gloves she didn't want any more and they really helped cuz it's still not spring time weather out there yet.  I am much happier with this piece than I was with my first.  I felt much more comfortable this time.  10"x 8" acrylic.  2.5 hours.  I also felt pretty cool (literally and figuratively) because I figured out a fun easel setup.  Last time, I sat in a camping chair and tried leaning my painting against another camp chair.  THIS time I stacked one chair on top of the other, put a dinky little $3.00 easel on top of that, and it was the perfect height for me as I painted.  I'm sure that standing helped me stay a bit warmer too:) Here's the rig:

Plein Air Cougar Park Painting 01

This was my first ever painting from life. I was mostly focusing on getting the right colors and values.  I did this a couple days ago and it was FREEZING outside.  My fingers felt ready to fall off by the end of class.  I was blessed that my nice teacher Rob let me borrow and mess up his new painting gloves.  7"x 5" acrylic.  1.5 hours.