A new leaf

 Softened those dots I put on in the last fifteen minutes of class, and then put that light stripe in the middle of the lesser veins which I think unifies and strengthened them.  In an earlier painting like this one I went mosaic and the veins became the grout, but here I plan on keeping the veins in the forefront.

Alan Fall 8

 Completed my el and Hancock painting by removing the maskit, darkening the undercarriage, and adding more detail to the train and the buildings. I liked the pastel colors brought out in this.

Continuing on the el track, I did this one entirely in class. There remains some cleanup and detail work, but I like it so far. I like the golds and browns on the skin of the train as opposed to the pastels of the Hancock el  

And then I was fooling around with an image I saw after looking into the sun. An image appeared in the form of a colorful dot then morphed into the second pic and then the third. The fourth one should be how it disappeared but I couldn’t figure that out yet. 

We’ll see what happens. 

Framed again…

 Framing this sort of took away its edginess imo…is it the gray mat that washes it out? A cream colored one didn’t do it much justice either..l do think the white trim needs to be toned down quite a bit, just as Alan suggested.

I’ve been working on this piece a person on at a time, but still a ways to go. I like it so far. But I wish I started on better paper…but really I did start it as a study. As Greeta pointed out in class, it is helpful to work out your issues on a study.

Finished the turtle

 Kind of went by instinct on this one.  In the last fifteen minutes of class I put down hookers dark on the edges and I think it worked well to frame that light yellow center,

Alan Fall 7

 Finished the weird perspective el painting. It’s on 140 coldpress. Took some advice from Pat and went darker at the top to keep the painting from floating off the top of the page. I still like the pole with the street sign and stoplight best.  

A friend sent me a picture of an old plow he found on a trip to Italy.  I had to figure out how it worked in order to paint it.  This is just a little study in my sketchbook but I worked hard on the background.

I decided to paint some more Chicago El pics. This is a value drawing of the next one.  

And then I began the painting on 140 coldpress.  There’s a long way to go to refine details but the basic structure is there.   

October 21, 2023 — Elaine O.

With a touch of fall in the air today, I decided to revisit a moment from my summer vacation. This is a morning walk in Wisconsin. It's very peaceful—the shade of the trees pierced by the bright morning sunlight and the stillness broken only by the crunch of the road underfoot. All in all, a great way to start the day.

Approx. 10" x 8"

Moving along…

 Well, here she is, all framed and ready for their portrait wall.

Here’s the other two paintings I’ve been working on. The vegetable study is done I think.it’s a little busy, but I love the vibrancy of the colors. It says “fall harvest” to me….The one of Ben and Quinn has a sweetness to it that I’m afraid of losing if I mess any more with the faces.I wish I could master the patches of sunlight on their skin and clothes. They need more warmth, but yellow is not the answer I don’t think….

Struggling

 With dark hair and the blog. My tablet is not cooperating. 

Family comments:  “Looks like she’s wearing eye makeup”. “why does she have grey hair.”  I took some dark out of the eye but not much I can do with hair highlights.  The background is viridian  

Greeta Thinks It’s Time to Paint Blondes🙄

 Showing this little boy with and without a background. The background is photographing lighter than it is. 

The turtle

Not sure where this is going.  I kind of liked it, but I wasn't sure where to go so I worked around the edges adding more and more dark color thinking I could sort of sneak up on that light center, but it was really not going anywhere so spent the last half hour in class putting in rose,  I guess I will add still more and see how it goes.  Going out of town for three days so that should give me time to think.
 

October 14, 2023 — Elaine O.

This was intended as a simple color study for a full painting—and it may well be just that—but I quite like it as is.  l like the mood, the energy and the likeness on this. And I especially like that I stopped in time, when I said what I wanted to say but didn't get bogged down with excessive detailing. 

10" x 9"

I may do this again, or not...either way, I'm happy with this.

Alan Fall 6

 Finished my limited alley series. Here they are in directional order. 

West

East

South

And North

The last one is done on canvas treated with Gesso and then adding clumps and swirls of Gesso where the trees and garbage cans are. It’s only 6 X 8 but I can think it packs a punch. 

I finished my non-representational painting by feeling that it was finished. 

I did another one in alcohol ink on Yupo. I love the vibrancy of the colors. Would make an interesting cloud. 

Back to regular cold press, I’m trying to do this city scene that I’m so familiar with having spent 40 years working in the loop. A lot of lines using yardsticks, rulers, and a flowcharting template from my downtown days but now we’re painting (the fun part).

A lot of work to do yet but I think I’m on the right track. 

Greeta Gets It Finished……With Help & Some Luck

 I wish I had taken a picture of it before I worked on the finish. The huge dark building was too big, too dark, too boring. Elaine suggested picking up some of the dark paint …so using my magic chisel brush I indicated windows here and there constantly wiping the picked up paint off the brush.  Lo and behold yellow showed up even though I hadn’t used any.  There must be yellow in burnt umber.  Lucky break.

Then the snowflakes…..after toying with the idea of flicking white goauche, I opted for my white gel pen. And mixed goauche with water and a bit of cerulean to make the larger bluish ones  It’s so much better.

Well not quite. Still have mask on those ceiling lights!  

October 7, 2023 — Elaine O.

Added the thingy in the middle and some touches to the leaf and the sky and I'm done. I'm not sure exactly what that thingy is, but I love the solidity of the bird-of-paradise shapes and the energy of hair-like strands surrounding it. 

8" sq. approx.

Next up is a portrait. I've done a value study in charcoal and a closer study in ink. I've also done a rough sketch, but it's too pale to show up on screen, so you'll have to come back next week to see more.

Alan Fall 5

 Just catching up. Last version of my alley looking South. I cleaned up articles in the garage and several obvious errors and tied the alley surface to the sky and wires. 

I tired of representational painting, being restricted by lines. So …. I tried this nonrepresentational approach on Yupo. I don’t know where it’s going but there are many little things that I enjoyed discovering when I started this. 

I’ll keep working on this trying to find pleasing colors, shapes and connections. 

Flipping the image

 This is a 180 degree flip from the way I was thinking about it until Saturday's session.   When I cleared out the bottom veins they looked like roots to me, and the greenish ones on top looked like plants growing out of the soil.  Not that it matters much because it's really just paint on paper.

Fruit and the creatures that might wanna eat it.

A bee.

I thought the loose, drippy background was a fun idea; I didn’t love how it turned out, but once I was happy with the bee, I didn’t want to fuss with the background.

 

A rhinoceros. 

This one was saved by those of you who came by my table to offer pointers. Learned a lot on this one.  Thanks, all. 

An apple.

The water droplets were maybe a bit gimmicky, but they were  interesting learning opportunity. 

Alan fall 4

 Well, I tried a nontoxic fixative on my latest Yupo. I sprayed too much and got a lot of paint running around as the fixative turned everything wet again. I lost some things that I liked and gained some things that I had not expected.  So I fixed up the alley looking west and here it is in it's new self.

Same thing with the alley looking East.

In homage to Sara I painted the alley looking south at my garage. Got a ways to go yet. Next I’ll look north but that will be a challenge because there’s not much there.  

This is part of downtown Muskegon Michigan, my hometown, done directly on Yupo without any drawing.  I’m really pleased with certain aspects of this and it was fun to do. I would  go much further if I decided to do a larger version on cold press. 

Fiddling Around….

 

I darkened the foreground of the garage scene and added a chair shadow to give it a little more character. Also trying to make the garage a little more gray than blue. I think it has more of a mood now, although not sure what mood that is…

Not sure if the Ruth portrait is done, but I have to step away before I make her hair any bigger. I think her blouse needs a few stronger shadows for a little balance. I just need a little distance from both of these, so I’ll be painting leaves in Door County for a few days!

Doing What The Teacher Tells You

 

My background was a washed out burnt Sienna. Then he looked sallow so I considered a thin wash of Opera to liven up that skin. Then teacher and fellow students said change that background. Certainly more dramatic. Still considering the Opera wash. 

September 30, 2023— Elaine O.

Close to finishing another sheet of the Arches Rough block.  I will say this about Arches--that paper does take a lot of abuse! This has been drawn, erased and sketched over three different times with three different media. It's still going strong and taking paint like a champion.

8" square

One more session should do it, I think.

New methods

 I used a much bigger brush.  I mixed colors in the paintbox rather than on the paper.  And, instead of my usual careful dit dit dit dot method I slashed and splashed the paint down with wild abandon (well wild abandon by my standards).  I'm going to work on the bottom five spots and see if I can make them look like Jupiter's red spot.  Hmmm planets, there is an idea.  Well four more leaves after this one.