Just foolin around

 As you know before I paint my masterpieces I put down a newspaper which is handy for rubbing off excess paint or water from the brush,  I usually leave that paper down there for oh, maybe a month's worth of masterpieces and it gets pretty beat up.  No, wait I meant to say it becomes a masterpiece itself.  Am I right?  

3 Horizontals

I painted this two weeks ago but when I got home I couldn't find it anywhere and figured well chalk it up to that thing where the monks make these elaborate mandalas out of sand and as soon as they are done they take a broom to it to complete its arc through the cosmos.   When I finished the Christmas tree I pulled up the sheet of yupo and there this was on the other side, so, you know, you know. 

Kind of a Lollapalooza crowd?

 Either a close up of a Christmas tree or a slice of spinach and pepperoni pizza.

Having a great time in the lab.

Alan Fall 25-9

 Thought I would be done, but I don’t like it. Problem with the yellow leaf swath. I’m looking for inspiration about how to fix it. Otherwise I’ll just start over. But I’m not really sure about why it went off the rails in the first place. 

The yellow maple was what I liked most about it. The rest is fluff. 

Chillin’

 

Overall, this winter scene turned out pretty well. Really like the snow and the background. My fall tree paintings were not too successful, so I have to think about them for a while.

Class of Fall 2025

 

Here they are, the intrepid painters of the Fall 2025 Old Masters Class. Unfortunately we are missing two members: one, who had a valid medical excuse, and another, who said it was too cold to come to class.  [Ed.note: Is he a true Chicagoan? It was at least 12 degrees…]

SS: Sop Hee Ya @ 9

Fall into winter…

 Another view of my backyard birch tree, this time thru the window. It had so many interesting colors this year, a dirty yellow, bright orange and red, some purple, all with the white branches peeking thru. This is just a beginning layer; the blue is the mask fluid.

And we jump right into winter! The sun caught a few remaining leaves on my rose bush while most of the scene is in blue shadows. I really like this so far, altho the shadows need to be deeper and I haven’t really painted the leaves yet,just rubbed off the mask.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

working in the lab

 These are three bookmarks (1 1/2x6) as I was painting them I became more interested in that swirly stuff (like on the right side of #2).  I will be in the lab for awhile investigating the path of the swirlys.  

And I guess you know what this is. 9x12

Alan Fall 25-8

Following Sara’s advice, somewhat, I tried to increase the values in this smoke bush and definitely made it better. 

I also painted our hydrangea bush in the late fall. I tried the ink resist technique that I’ve done before but it’s been awhile.   

First I painted the work with gouache using what I felt was a fairly thick layer of gouache with gum Arabic  figuring that it wouldn’t wash off along with the ink.  I thought it was a nice little piece.  I watched several videos about how to do this and they all said don’t be afraid to cover the whole thing with India ink.  So I did. 

And someone said to let it dry overnight and then wash off the ink in the sink. So I did that. This is what I got.

The idea was that the ink would stay where there wasn’t any paint and wash off where there was but that’s not what happened. They all warned me not to scrub too hard, using light strokes with a soft brush, but I still damaged the paper and no color remained on the paper. After watching more videos, I decided that I should have used colder water and maybe I shouldn’t have let it dry so long. Anyway—-this is what I was left with.

So I carefully redrew the composition and painted over it using gouache over the inked coldpress.  It kinda looked interesting but not anything like I planned.

Ss Parade