Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.

Too smooth?

 Too rough?

Two paintings …

 Both of these turned out pretty well. I might try a more careful version of the top one, but being careful might ruin it….

A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;

May just have to go back and make it less frenetic, but I dunno sometimes making corrections kills the spirit of the original.

So I made the tree on the right that just was not fitting in I made it a ghost tree and gave it some ghost buddies.  The best I can do because I have to move on.

And I am going to try to give these fellows the treatment that I wanted to give to that outlier on the previous painting.
 

June 28, 2025 — Elaine O.

Somehow, I feel summer fruit still life paintings should be simple, light and direct. Unlike winter or autumn, where you want a cornucopia of stuff with lots of elements against a deep rich background, summer fruit shines all by itself. Hence these cherries. I only added a classic kitchen towel to give them a feel of summer in a farm kitchen and a crystal coupe to add the touch of elegance they deserve.

Still Life with Cherries        approx. 13" x 9"

Oh, and they were delicious!

My Beautiful Philippines

  I painted the Golden Anniversary of The Celebration of Philippiine Independence from Spain inspired by a downtown flag raising  event  last June 12, 2025 from a Noontime Cultural Show at Daley Center to a Parade with stopover at Millennium park to the final destination at Buckingham fountain. I wore a red dress, one of 3 colors of Philippine flag: red, blue, yellow. I started the scenario with my figure wearing a bright red dress. And then I met a problem of emphasizing the other major figures of the parade instead of me; a past organizer. When I felt that I should relate what I saw and enjoyed at the fervor and majesty of the moment plus the native bamboo and tropical colors, then I knew I got a painting. I included a poem circa 1992 which I wrote when I was a young immigrant professional!

Forgotten painting…

 Totally forgot I did this one in class on Saturday…Needs a little work on rocks and shadows….

A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

 Thought I would do a little touching up with this after class.  But it turned out that it needed a lot more work.  One of those times when I was in tune with the painting and it told me exactly what to do.

Matting math….

So here they are, all matted and framed and hanging on the wall. They look great, just ignore the reflections…cutting mats is not any easier than it used to be. I still do the math three times and get three different answers, even with a calculator. And using a mat cutter after all these years is like trying to remember your high school French. But thanks to Pat, I know how to do it! (Remember those awful mat cutting classes?) Now I’m going to have the girls develop fairy tales to go along with their paintings!
 

June 21, 2025 — Elaine O.

I spent much of the morning drawing, so there's only a little to show. If you can't tell, it's a still life of cherries in a coupe on a cloth. More to come next week!

approx. 13" x 9"

Summer painting…

 This is a small one off I painted directly in class. It’s the Queen of Denmark rose in my yard. Actually I painted it next to Joe…

They do kinda of go together!

Still working on this little princess…someone in class suggested I do her skirt similarly to Nora’s in the painting below. I like that idea.

But the background is troubling me…

I darkened the tree shadows on this and also shaded her skirt. Maybe it’s done now…

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

Finished this one this morning,  I jut don't see where I could fit anything else in. 9x12

 5x7.  Crop of one of the trees I found in the Art Institute.  Likely we start a bigger one afterwards 

June 14, 2025 — Elaine O.

It's been a while but it certainly did feel good to be back painting. I'm calling this still life finished. More bad sizing surprises but they're mostly around the edges, so it's croppable.  I'm not sure I totally succeeded at the crystal bowl, but there are things I like. And, for some reason, the peacock feather amuses me. Actually, upon reflection, I might go back and nestle those lemons in the bowl a little more.

13" x 9"

And, with a little time to kill, I played with my watercolor pencils in my sketchbook. I used three colors and all kinds of techniques on this little orange, and I like it a lot better after stepping away for a day. 

5" x 5"

Interesting observation, though—What's my sudden fascination with citrus fruits and warm colors? I also have a bag of key limes at hand. I already used one bag to make a key lime pie. It was delicious, but now I wish I'd painted it before eating it.

A visit to the Art Institute

 Since nobody else is posting I will post again to fill that vacuum because you know how Mother Nature feels about vacuums.  Had a little visit to the Art Institute this Sunday and wandered into a little nook chock full of John Constable and his ilk.  Trees, trees, trees, magnificent trees, magnificently painted trees, proud and plaintive.  I took photos, came back the next day and took more.  I have about eight of them and I am going to do sketches of them on 5x7 yupo.  I had second thoughts yesterday, won't I be just copying? But of course I don't have the ability to do that.  I will just start out that way and after that I will leave my ship to the tides and the storms like I always do.

I just finished the first one this morning, and of course I think it's great.  Here it is.

 And speaking of the Art Institute, you have to make a trip out there soon and see this:

https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/10569/raqib-shaw-paradise-lost

ce ne sont pas des arbres

This is a larger version of that little bush that I showed last week 9x12

 This is a version of the same thing only in red instead of green.  The first version had  more branches, more yellow, more details but it was well, boring.  I mixed things up a bit and made the brushstrokes more evident, and I hope I have moved it from boring to um, interesting.  5x7

Painting day!

 

Well, since it was unhealthy to go outside and breathe today, I finally found some time to finish this small painting I started a million weeks ago. Ok, maybe it looks more like Henry Kissinger than Joe, but overall I’m pretty pleased with it. I like the sense of light I was able to achieve. I also like the hassock, although those pencil lines are the crop marks for the frame, so it won’t be quite as prominent. 

Mr Eclectic

5x7 just some ordinary vegetation. a cool bush in Lurie Park.

 Added that winter coneflower to give it some depth and to counterbalance the march of the trees on the hill, still 9x12.

5x7 another kitty cat, needs more work, trying to keep it spontaneous. 

Paint Along

 Everyone in class was given the same B&W photo and time to draw it. Then teacher had us all watch as he painted. He’d paint for 10 min then we’d paint for 20, etc. until we finished. 

Still working on mine,  Trying to get my subject to be the correct gender. The luscious shirt color is DS Perylene Maroon. 

I think that I shall never see...

Sepia and Prussian blue.  5x7

More of the same. 9x12

 

Now for something a little different.

May 24, 2025 — Elaine O.

Oh, no! Can you see it? We have sizing issues on the paper edges! I'm still going to finish this still life, but remember, boys and girls—DO NOT SAVE YOUR PAPER "FOR GOOD!" Use it. Use it now. They keep making paper. 

14" x 11"

Just to be clear, I think this block may have been water damaged—I noticed it on the Dave at Versailles painting, stopped using this block and forgot about it. So, it's not totally the fault of the paper sizing, but my advice still stands.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sorry, no cats this week.   

I had thought this one was done, but apparently it was still wet when I put it in the notebook and parts got blotched out when I put it in a notebook so I had to fix it.  I made the tree much lighter and less red and filled in the interstices with those featherly little branches and I think it looks better.  9x12

I was putting paint down and adding water and blotching with a Viva towel, repeat and repeat, and at some point it looked like that, and I thought that looks pretty good, so I stopped.  5x7.

I took a cropping of the previous image meaning to apply the same treatment as above, but you never want to repeat yourself, and I think I have gone astray, but I haven't given up on it yet. 5x7.

Reached The Goal

 Value sketch then drawn directly on watercolor paper then painted. Photo has a turquoise background so holding back on that. 

It’s large ….11x15.   Too large for the paper. 

Then a small one 4x6. My daughter’s friend taken many years ago. 

May 17, 2025 — Elaine O.

I'm back in experimentation mode. I sketched this from an old B&W photo and toyed with using only three colors—with a catch. I mostly used just two of them, saving the third as an accent to define the focus of the painting. I'm not sure this worked. I can't decide if I needed the background to be even less colorful or if that would look gimmick-y. Or maybe the background needs to be lighter in value or less contrasty? I'll have to give it some thought and keep playing.

12" x 9"

Meanwhile, this is for Pat and Ken. Pat, because she wanted to see these side-by-side, and Ken, because he always questions the value of explorations with different media. Here's the same subject in watercolor and oil. The watercolor (left) is on aquaboard and sized 6" x 6". The oil (right) is on canvas board, sized 8" x 8".

My thoughts? Besides the differences in speed (weeks vs. months), the oil feels more formal and the watercolor feels livelier. She looks like she sat for the oil, while the watercolor seems more like a moment in time. On both, I do love that sweater! I don't think I have the inclination or the patience to do it again in oil pastels or colored pencil or even mosaic, so I'm done here.

Sketchy stuff….

 Working on this sketch to figure out values and proportions etc. …otherwise spending my time teaching 2 month old Claire to laugh!

cat and two trees

This is a bigger version,9x12, of Daisy Katt, in her pink cat bed. 

Well this is another one of those dit, dit, dit, texture heavy, sort of a tree.  Not yet done, just an exercise at this point, but I may be able to stitch it together. 9x12

 Here's another, more treelike, on 5x7

Georgia On My Mind

 From a 1918 photo by Alfred Stieglitz.  Proud of this because I actually DREW it.  However, I did not draw it directly onto watercolor paper which is supposed to be my goal  

Ignore other pics….don’t have a discard icon anymore  

1918 

Alan Spring 6

 Still can’t paint sitting down and I don’t like painting standing (but artists have been doing that for hundreds of years) so I did these two sketches sitting back in my recliner and drawing and painting that way. Greeta got me some watercolor pens for my birthday so I put in the color with those and used the wash brush to blend the colors. I just wish they labeled the colors with real labels. Like house paints they invent names like golf green instead of perylene green and even crazier names. 

Here’s a bowl of oranges, grapefruit and bananas that was on our kitchen table. Sketched in graphite. About 6 X 8 on 140# coldpress. 

And this is one of those Trader Joe’s orchids done with ink and watercolor on 5 X 7 140# coldpress. Had a difficult time blending watercolor pen colors on the page. 

  

I think I can draw a larger pic of something even though the backer board is cumbersome. I’ll try that next. Then, when I can sit down like a normal human being again, I’ll have something to paint.