Sara’s Busy Week

I painted the tree earlier this week-not sure why I felt the need to revisit trees…I painted Quinn & Andrew this morning. Babies are hard - no wrinkles, porcelain skin, no hair. I think I’m going to paint this again on better paper…

 

I revisited some earlier paintings that I like but am not quite satisfied with.  On the daffodils, I lightened the cross on the table, but darkened everything else. I also darkened the wall on the left hand side of the painting - improved is first, before is second. Definitely helped pop the vase and flowers. 

I framed The Madonna but not before I gave her a golden outline halo. I had to do it. In fact I’m going to go in and make the baby’s halo more prominent.

Improved is first, earlier version second on grandma and the baby. I’m just darkening the figures. The colors seem so washed out. Possibly because it’s on hot press. Busy, busy, busy….

Elaine O. — July 31, 2021

These are both based on interim phases of a prior painting. This painting is based on the initial wash. I kept the high key feel and added line to the wash for definition.

Water Lilies VIII        9" x 12"

This painting went a bit further, keeping it light, but focusing on color instead of line. I may touch up some values, but that may be a step too far. I'll let it rest a bit and decide.

Water Lilies VIX        9" x 12"

A Sense of Place: The Navy Pier

 I visited Navy Pier with a nephew, last Tuesday of June. The improvements done during the pandemic closing were tremendous especially with a brand new hotel. This was my first recreational outing in 15 months. The luxuriously breathtaking ferr

is wheel ride hurts @ $18, but the Navy Pier with the panorama of the skyscrapers & the turquoise waters of the lake plus the enthusiastic vibes of tourists, native or imported is a keeper. The walk from the entrance to the end of the Pier was a long walk of comfort & green. The Riverwalk was sheltered by a never ending canopy of trees. I painted an underpainting of Hansa yellow for the canopy of trees on Friday  night. I started the main painting on Saturday morning @ 8 a.m. & was done by 11 a.m. I focused on families of tourists who seemed shock & delighted to be out in the open, after a long hiatus & obviously before this Delta variant started exploding! Thus in this painting, only one young teenager was wearing a mask. I hope I conveyed the sense and scent of summer has just started! Happy Painting to All!

Big maple transition

 Old version

Didn’t like it so I washed the whole thing off with soap and water. One of the good features of Yupo  

The staining colors gave me a guide and allowed me to paint quickly. 

Then I painted some hints of sky and worked on the trunk some more. 

Then worked on the bark. 

I finished putting in the leafy layer. 

It’s a bit more realistic than the other trees but I like the feel of it. 

caterpillar

 Haven't had much time this week and this is as far as I have gotten.  Long way to go yet.

elaine t / Wild horses / July 31

I finished the Pine Nut horses. It was fun doing the dust clouds around their feet. This painting reminds me of the Wesley Dennis illustrations in Marguerite Henry's horse books.

The Riverwalk of Pandemic 2021

 During this pandemic early 2021, I concentrated on doing portraits & impressions of self & people close to me. This change in focus made it difficult for me to start a landscape based on recent visits to tourist spots in Chicago. In a recent outing with my visiting nephew from Colorado, we enjoyed the Architecture boat ride & portions of the Riverwalk during a Misty Thursday afternoon, thus a need for umbrellas. After the boat ride, I saw the theater portion of the Riverwalk with the Summer trees, background of tall buildings & the steps as a potential landscape subject matter & posed for a souvenir photo. During the mini photo session, a family of three appeared with a baby stroller & a huge colorful umbrella while I was doing my artist pose. The resulting photo from these convergence of unrelated tourists became the "money shot"! Happy Painting to All! 

bugs

Blotted out the background and put it back in a little less ordered.  Think I got it right.

And the new subject is going to be insects.  These are studies for a swallowtail caterpillar. 

 

Art Preserve

 

Sara travels….

 

Here’s Joe at Elaine T.’s favorite place.Koehler-Andrae State Park. We went up  to Sheboygan  to see the Art Preserve, the new museum dedicated to outsider art and preserving art environments. It’s crazy, it’s free, it’s 21/2 hours away. You should go. Here’s a few pics.

Except I can’t get the stupid insert picture to show up, so maybe I’ll email them…

Elaine O. — July 24, 2021

It's decision time! I've reached the point below and have to decide how to proceed. Normally, I'm big on value, so my inclination is to drop some dark, rich color in. However, I want to keep the high key look. My next thought is to brush in some dark outlines—loose and partial. While I'm afraid that may look cartoonish and move this out of the realm of painting, I really have the urge. I need to look again and think some more.

Water Lilies VIII    9"x12"

But before that, I realized I hadn't done a portrait in awhile and wondered if I lost the knack. So, I tried a quick 10-15 minute direct watercolor warmup. I realized that I still tend to make people longer and thinner than they really are. So, this either qualifies me as a retoucher for Vogue, or—more likely—I need to do a few more and concentrate on proportion.

Big Maple

 Summer

If we can make the meeting. I’ll show a progression from the old to the new if I can get WiFi later. 

elaine t / for July 24

I decided to just paint pictures from photos that caught my eye. I had a new tube of Vermillion Hue that I was dying to try, hence the cardinal. 

(in progress) The horses are from the Pine Nut Mountains range in Nevada; one of the older stallions, Blue, keeps the younger horses in line.

Sara Experiments…

 Still going from sketch to watercolor to bigger watercolor with watercolor pencils. Still like the sketch best.

Sketch to oil pastel to watercolor. This was instructive as I tried to emulate the oil pastel effect in watercolor.

 Then today I did another version of this double portrait. I never really liked the way the first one was painted (see below). This one (above) is more the style I like —looser but still recognizable as humans….

Lazy Alan

 I didn’t paint anything!

Ken said that I should show an oldie. I don’t know if I ever showed this and I’m too lazy to go back through 10 years of blogs to check. This orchid is a favorite of mine and one of my first attempts on Yupo.  Love the background.

It was Yupo doing the work and me selecting what I liked. 

I’ve decided that Sara was correct in that this should be the spring painting. 

And that I’m going to transform my old spring painting into something like this Waterlogue version for summer. 

Greeta paints a painter

 

From anotherWendy Fischer Hartman street photo. My photo of the painting has clipped the image on the right side. Her upper body is in the painting. 

In reality all that negative space contained arms , legs, purses, etc. of all the people milling around. Regret that I put so much dark in those places.   Fun to paint her!

Elaine O. — July 17, 2021

Here's the finished painting. These water lilies are in a koi pond, so the koi make an appearance, but the blossom itself does not.

Water Lilies VII        9" x 12"

This time, I roughly documented the process. I began in a rather slapdash way, but liked the result, as you recall. Here's the beginning...

 ...from there, I slowly began to add the water and fine tune details. It doesn't photograph too well, but it had a shimmery, pastel feel at this stage.

I kept going to get the water the shade of the actual subject. It's pretty shallow at this point, so you can see the fish clearly and the dark water brings out the warm colors of the lily pads and fish.

And from here, I tweaked the details to get to the final. I may go back and revisit some of the earlier stages. While they aren't exactly what I saw, I rather like the feel. Oh, and as for the experimental paint...this time it was Olive Green by Holbein. Although it is a lovely color, I did adjust it. Would I buy it again once this tube runs out? Probably not, but only because it's easy enough to mix and I don't use this color enough to justify having it as a convenience color.

elaine t / July 17

 I'm finally back! It's going to take a little time to get my brush skills back to snuff.

It's the tail end of Shark Week, so here is my tribute.

Fish in the water

 I'm going to tweak the water