Still painting 4-29-12

I think this is my best figure painting so far. It all just fell together like I new what I was doing. It's fun when that happens.

I slacked off on the daily paintings again this week. I did this one earlier today. I had a great spot in a secret place I know. I didn't see anyone the whole time.

Paintings for the week of April 21

I took a little break from painting this week, so I didn't get quite as many done. I Painted this one from our deck in Coal Creek Canyon. I took my time, and painted it in a couple of sessions.I am pretty happy with it.

This one of course is from the figure drawing session last Wed.

Paintings for the week

I feel I had a really good week painting wise. Last Wed. in figure drawing, my teacher Michelle Philip gave me some pointers and suggested forgetting about chroma for the night and just work on values. This is the result. I was pretty excited it turned out as well as it did.

That set me up for a good week of painting. I'm painting with confidence and feel much less lost in the process. 

This day the sun kept going behind the clouds and coming back out again. I did better than I have ever done before, holding to the light I first saw when beginning to paint.

I found this in the plains at the bottom of coal creek canyon a week ago and planned on coming back to paint it, which I followed through with last Friday afternoon. 

Another thing that Michelle helped me with was to not worry about staying inside the lines of my drawing but to paint right over them having the confidence to know I could find the shapes again as the painting progressed. I still have a ways to improve, but still am quite happy with the progress I've made this week.

plien air and figure painting

Here are a couple of quick paintings I did this weekend.

This one I did over several sittings. I worked from a photo I took while in Utah. Instead of matching the colors on the photo, I really tried to remember what I saw while I was there and put that in the painting to achieve depth and more vibrant color. I'm thinking it turned out pretty good, but would love to here your input, good or bad. 

This is my figure for the week. I've got a long way to go before my figure paintings are on par with my figure drawings. But, I love a good challenge.

trip to the desert

I took a long weekend and went to the desert in Utah last week. The weather was fantastic and I got in some good pleinair painting time. This first one I did the evening before I left town.

My plan was to stop on the way down and do a quick study, but it was too windy. When I got to camp I was frustrated that I was unable to paint, so I decided to try and paint the fire. Sorry about the glare. 

  These next four I did on Thur. in or just outside of Canyon Lands national park, the Needles District

Thur evening some friends showed up, so Fri and Sat I spent with them hiking and carrying on. I was able to find time in the mornings to do these next two paintings from camp.