I decided earlier this year to focus on oil as my primary painting medium. At the suggestion of a great painter - Larry Seiler - this blog is for 100 small and quick paintings that will be done daily (or as close to daily as my schedule allows) in order to loosen up and quickly drive up my experience. These will be 5 x 7 or 6 x 8 panels, and will be done with simple household subjects, with a time limit of an hour - and trying to be economical with brush strokes and use larger brushes. All the paintings will be posted here, whether good or bad, because the point is to improve, not to produce 'finished' pieces. These paintings will be in addition to studio work, which I'll continue to do. The daily paintings are focused practice to build experience and skill level. Tomorrow will be the first painting in the series.
03/01/2012
#17 - Winter Landscape (Watercolor)
This piece was done in about half an hour in watercolor on Arches watercolor paper (in a wirebound notebook) about 10 x 14 inches. I tried to keep things simple and direct, and looser in style than what I usually paint in watercolor.
02/22/2012
# 16 - Still Life with Grapes and Apples
This is another still life from class, done alla prima in about two hours. Oil on panel.
02/10/2012
#15 - Still Life with Velazquez Palette
Obviously I haven't been doing daily paintings - I've been concentrating a lot on drawing at present - but have still been painting at least one piece per week. This is a 12 x 9 inch oil on panel, of a still life set up by the instructor I'm working with. The purpose of this painting was to work with a very limited palette (known in this case as the Velazquez Palette) - Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White and Ivory Black (Ivory Black was not used for this painting - I mixed the blacks from the three 'primaries' in the palette. Obviously only Ultramarine Blue in this palette is truly a primary color - the others are treated as primaries, but since they are significantly neutralized, the result is an understated color look for the painting. The benefits of using this palette are learning color mixing with a very limited palette, and getting good color harmony in the piece almost by definition, since there are so few colors involved. This painting took about three hours and change.
12/02/2011
# 14 - Still Life with Rose
This one is 8 x 10 inches in oil and was done in two hours in class this morning. The rose is not finished, but I ran out of time and the point of these paintings isn't necessarily to completely 'finish' them anyway...so I opted to leave it as it was when I stopped. My 'daily' paintings have been anything but so far, but after the holidays the rate should pick up a bit...and I am working on several commission pieces in the studio right now also.
11/19/2011
# 13 - Drapery, Monochrome Value Study
This one is 8 x 10 inches oil on panel, and is a grayscale (black and white) painting of hanging drapery. A tough subject...! Done in a bit over two hours. This one is not 'finished' but the intent of these paintings is to do them in around two hours or less, not to produce finished pieces. Getting the gradations in value (dark and light) in this type of painting is really difficult in a short amount of time.
11/08/2011
# 12 - Sedona Red Rocks in Gouache
This one is about 7 x 10 inches in gouache. It was painted from a photo reference from the November monthly challenge in the Southwest/Western Art forum on WetCanvas.com.
11/04/2011
# 11 - Teapot, Cup and Rose
This is an 8 x 10 inch oil, started in my Friday weekly class, and then finished up quickly at home tonight. It was done with only three colors (Hansa Yellow Light, Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine Blue) plus Titanium White and Ivory Black. It was a bit tough without the setup in front of me to get shadows and highlights where they should be - painted from memory as I forgot my camera this morning.
11/03/2011
# 10 - Scarlet Honey Eater
Well, I fell off the daily painting wagon for a week due to some class responsibilities. But I got back to it today, this time a gouache piece on a 10 x 7 inch Arches block, using gouache. I have only done a couple of previous gouache pieces - I hope to use it somewhat similarly to oil, although it's water soluble. The bird is a Scarlet Honey Eater from a reference photo.
10/24/2011
# 9 - Raku Bowl and Glass
This one is again a 6 x 8 inch on panel painting. I focused on looser strokes and a (hopefully) more impressionistic look for this one. Suggesting the myriad of color combinations both in the understated raku bowl and the luminous and reflective glass was a challenge.
10/21/2011
# 8 - Still Life with Grapes and Flowers
Today's painting was larger (9 x 12 inches) and took longer (a bit less than 3 hours) than the previous ones. This is because this one was painted in a weekly class I'm taking with an excellent local painter whose work I admire. Today was the first class where the four experienced painters in the class painted this still life during class so the instructor could assess where everybody is at in their development.
I was focusing on making this relatively loose in style. Getting a more painterly style is a long-range target.
There is some glare on the painting.
