Another late Spring rainy evening on Oak Street, facing West.
Sorry this photo is so crappy, but it's not an easy one to capture. Guess you'll just have to come over to the show to see it. Ahem.
I don't think many folks lean toward rainy day paintings, but we'll see what the public at large have to say.
One of the costumed participants in last year's Bay to Breakers costume mini marathon. Despite the subject matter it feels a little cartoony to me. I can decide if she should stand out more or less from the background. Does the background help set the scene or is it just distracting?
The only part I really like is the gold trim on her costume. Loose, brushy and not a touch of gold paint.
Another random snapshot of the neighborhood. I liked the lighting and the mood, but not entirely sure I captured anything of great interest. So be it.
I did learn a lot in terms of the values of the trees, as the receded and the brightness of the sidewalk, but I don't think I succeeded terribly well in rendering either.
From an old postcard sketch I did, I decided to ramp it up. You can see it differs a bit from the promo image at the top of the page, for many reasons, like my poor photography skills, but mostly from my decision to get more sunlight on the face of the building, and to lighten up the shadows a little.
I had originally done this as a postcard last year, so I thought I'd try it again, bigger. What's missing is the looseness of brush work, which is what I guess I really liked.
May try mixing up some puddles and setting the timer for 30 minutes and attacking this again soon.
In trying to work larger, I'm struggling to resist using the small brushes. I find I'm being stingy with the paint, especially in the puddle I mix up. Just not used to it yet is all. And I'm having a hard time keeping things loose without trying to put every tiny object in place. For this one, I actually went back a few days later and put some looser strokes in place to give it some energy and have it not look too much like an illustration.
I might try this again with a different crop. It's hard to tell what the intended focus is here anyway.
And don't miss the banner (upper right) mentioning the upcoming show at Apollo.
I've had this photo floating around for a while but didn't feel up to painting people just yet. I had such great success sketching it and doing a value study that I went ahead and sketched a larger version too.
However my luck changes beyond this point. I guess the value sketching was just easier because I wasn't trying to hard and there was no color issues to deal with. Because I'm new to painting larger, and I really wanted to make a "masterpiece" out of this, I wound up migrating to small brushes way too soon, and lost sight of "big picture" concepts.
For one, the composition is crap. Why the train? Why the off kilter angle? Why this cropping? These are all good questions to consider before painting all afternoon and obsessing about the curve of an ear lobe. Ugh!
It's a new month, so a new Virtual Paintout event. This time the location is the Czech Republic. An entire nation as a virtual location!
The real challenge was finding spots that had actually been logged by Google's streetview crew. After hunting for a while, I gave in and went straight to the river front in Prague.
I really need to stop painting on the canvas paper, though I seem to have tons of it in supply. It really sucks the moisture out of the paint, and makes it hard to get any "flow" happening. I never really noticed it before, but since I've been painting on panels and postcards, I can really tell the difference.
I guess I could put a heavier base coat on the paper, but at that point, I might as well use something else. Anybody ever experience this phenomenon too?
