The Magnificent Seven

Or maybe the pretty good, or the not so bad, or the so so, or maybe just the, seven

 These are the seven crops of this one, which I did not like.

I was going to edit this using what I learned from the magnificent seven, but now I have kind of lost interest in it and I am thinking I may just give all seven 5x7 crops a 9x12 interpretation.

October 25, 2025 — Elaine O.

This is one of those paintings that needs a day away to decide you like where it's going. And now I'm hoping I don't ruin what I have. I also think this is going to be one of those slow-and-steady paintings, so you'll see me working on this for the next couple of weeks or so. Just a warning!

14" x 11"

It's a boy climbing a tree in summer, by the way.

It’s NOT a Pumpkin

 The title here is “Holly’s Harvest”.  My daughter thinks she’s gardening, but she’s really farming.  The orange tomato was huge making it look, against the other veggies, like a pumpkin  I like the composition  

  

Alan Fall 25-4

 11 1/2 X 14 on Yupo. Apples in pottery bowl in front of Ice Bucket. The composition is from Greeta. I thought it would make a good Yupo piece. It was a lot of effort because the background washes didn’t work. I finally just scrubbed the background out in preparation to try it again. As I was trying to think of what to do next, I just gave it another look and thought “Well hell….. I like this.”  So I just cleaned it up a bit and left it alone. 

Garlic bulb on a spoon rest on top of an electric stovetop. I don’t know what the hell happened here. I had an idea that just didn’t work to the point where I wondered what I was thinking in the first place. The reference photo looked good but I used a polypropylene medium that didn’t work as well as Yupo and stained more deeply so I couldn’t just wipe the color off.  I had to put the white back in with white crayon, white acrylic, gesso and Chinese white. Maybe the whole premise was off. Here’s the reference photo. 

And here’s my take. 

It’s amazing to me how badly I can paint. And I really spent some time and effort on this. Well I did like the circles. 

A process

 This is a tree that Constable painted.

This is the tree that Ken painted using Constable's image.  Ken was not very happy with it.  So he cropped seven views of Constable's tree, and painted each one.

These are all 5x7 and only the first two are done.  After I have finished all seven I am going to do more work on my original painting of Constable's work.

Mini landscape of Patagonia Mountains

 

October 18, 2025 — Elaine O.

I've spent many an hour at this bus stop waiting for the #50 bus. But few of those hours were in such fine weather. 

12" x 9"

Class Photo — Fall 1 2025

 Time for another group photo of some of our favorite artists. Looking...and painting...as good as ever! 

Ss: Mi Chica que Limpia

Big Fan

 On every trip back into town I take a pic from the car of this, my favorite building.  Depending on how close you get the size of the building on the right changes  Thus my image is distorted  and it should be much smaller  

Two croppings

Took seven croppings from the image of  the last tree I did and was not happy about.  These are the first two.  Both 5x7.

A little gaudy

A little ascetic


 

Opinions needed…I know you have them…

The pink mat is just for Pat....

Ok, compare this crop to the first crop. This one has more tree, less mountains. Actually I like the stormy one but not sure they would go for it…Thanks Elaine foe solving my posting issues!

October 11, 2025 — Elaine O.

A lovely day waiting for the #50 bus at the Brown Line stop. Loved this tree against the clear blue sky. I just started but I can see I need to up the color saturation to match the actual experience. 

12" x 9"

Ss: Girl Gone 10.10.25

I would be absent on October 11 due to a meeting of my accounting association at the same time in Niles. I would also like to share the start of my painting of our housekeeper who tonight flew home forever after 2 decades in Chicago.I could not express how deep the sadness cuts my heart!

Schadt Retrospective

 Scrolling through and admiring my phone photos, found this. Is it a seascape, a landscape, a triptych….what are those vertical lines?  Sometimes they continue, but not always. And the color…what initially drew me to it continues to please me. I don’t think it was in a Ken show. I must have taken the photo in class  

Again nothing much

This is that tree again.  I will have to revisit this image from the get go. 9x12

It's Halloween, just begun, 5x7

 This started out as one of the puddle girls but now she is a Halloweenie.

October 4, 2025 — Elaine O.

I'm currently between "masterpieces" and waiting for inspiration to strike, so I did a floral study. Yellow is beautiful, but it's hard to get a wide value range.

approx. 12" x 9"

nothing much to see here

This is last week's tree, looked kind of tame and empty.

So I roughened it up a bit.  This was the first session of that and I meant to do more, but when I looked at it the next day I decided it looked pretty good the way it is.  May come back and do a little more on that lower landscape.

 I've been back and forth on this much of the week.  Right now it looks disturbingly like a gum drop, but I have a plan.  Sorta.

Alan Fall 25-3

 OK. I think this one is finished and I’ll continue to show the phases. 

Between step two and three I made some changes that I didn’t like and there were a couple of logic errors (like the tree trunk being behind the building but the leaves in front) that bothered me.  The nice thing about Yupo is the ease of removing something you don’t like. But if you try to fix a wash, just start over. 

Echinacea

 A chance to use my new tube of Pyrrol Orange. Ken may have had influence here making the centers and not the petals the focus. 

September 27, 2025 — Elaine O.

Yes, pears have been on sale lately. Besides being tasty, they have such interesting shapes and colors. I mixed varieties and slightly backlit them. Honestly, I don't think they need much by way of background. They command the stage all by themselves.

approx. 9.5" x 13"

Ss: " Survivor,Towel, Flora"

Please watch " Lumpia Fusion" Art Exhibit @ Catacombs of Epiphany Art Center 201 S.Ashland , corner Adams, Chicago from Sep 19 to Nov 14, 2025 of 24 Filipino American Artists. I submitted 3 18"x24" Watercolor paintings (1) " Survivor,her Towel and Get Well Flowers";(2)"A Quiet Date";(3) "Parade Golden Anniversary".The Welcome reception was on September 19, 2025, 6pm to 9pm. Happy Painting to all!

Alan Fall 25-2

 Spent more time than it looks. Got the compositional parts in but it’s taking a long time to dry between sittings for the parts that I don’t want to blend. 

First pass:

Second pass:

I know what I want now. Now’s the fun part.