Salon Challenge #3 (Part 1)

Painting Challenge #3

Two-inch paint brush 

Human figure

Limited Palette of 4 colors:

Azo Coral

Cadmium Red Light

Burnt Umber

Burnt Sienna

(White)

We've had a good long while to finish this painting

(about 3 months)

 and so we all decided to

reveal them at Barbara's house a few days ago.

Our reveal was so exciting!

Here are my progress shots.

Our palette!

Sketch of my subject. 

The photo I found for my painting (on one of the art blogs I follow) 

was fairly monotone to begin with; 

it felt just right for this limited palette. 

I requested and acquired permission to use the photo 

from the artist/photographer Melanie Kobayashi and this is her website:

Bag and a Beret

Her post where I found the photo is HERE 

... keep scrolling down in her blog 

to see the actual photo that I "stole".

Charcoal and alcohol to set sketch on board.

I drew what her legs might look like under the dress 
to be sure of placement of the dress, etc.

Hazy wanted to check the painting out. 
I wasn't happy with the dress looking so transparent.

Fought Against   oil on wood panel    36 x 24 inches

(There are a couple of final touches I want to make, but this is essentially finished.)

Close-up  -  the lips are Cad Red Light!

Mel's actual photo, flipped by me.

Stay tuned for my next post 

which will be photos of my salon colleagues' challenge paintings!

Thank you SO MUCH Melanie K  💕 for giving me permission to use this photo and 

for taking such fun and crazy photos for your blog. I wish you all the best!

AND

Thank you all for checking in to this crazy irregular blog!

Red Flower Pots

💘

Texture. Texture. Texture.

Say that word enough times 

and it begins to sound just ridiculous.

But - I picked out a canvas that I had gessoed long ago

and either had some thick gesso left over 

or 

a thick acrylic medium of some kind 

that I dripped and dropped on the canvas. 

It left a nice texture. 

I have oodles of "to paint" photos on my computer, 

 so I found a nice flower photo that I thought might work

on this textured canvas. 

The following are a few pics of my painting process.

For the composition, I used a photo I took at my Mom's house.  

(The flower pot b&w on the iPad shows in the photo above.)

Not sure what I had in mind when I put a greenish underpainting with 

some purple and blue smears of paint on the canvas ...

 but along with the texture, it makes a good underpainting now.

You can see the drippy texture 

under those first drawing brushstrokes. 

It doesn't look very nice at this stage.

About a third of the way done.

Red Flower Pots         oil on canvas        8 x 8 inches

The combo of reds, purples and greens are nice - quite a simple palette.

This was a really fun painting to do on a couple of cold February days. 

💗Happy Valentine's Day!💖

Thank you for viewing my blog!

Ilulissat painting

I have been painting away on this little Greenland landscape and having

fun with the quaint houses that are impossibly

placed together on the rocky hillside.

The underpainting was a warm brown tone that still peeks

through in spots on the finished piece. 

I hope the eye moves 

from the bottom left in an "S" shape, 

or maybe it is a "C" shape ... a zigzag?

- winding up to the top left.

Some of the houses mysteriously changed color :)

As you see in these progression shots, 
more and more houses were appearing.

I counted 25 or 27 buildings, or what could be buildings.

I think those are kayaks near the shore up on their racks, 
and there is some kind of antennae on almost every house.

The smooth rocks in the foreground must have been rounded by glaciers.

and

NO TREES

A reminder of what I started with:

photo by Evelyn Hannon of the travel website http://journeywoman.com/

And this is my interpretation of that photo:

Village of Ilulissat, Greenland    10 x 12 inches   oil on panel

I would like to thank Evelyn Hannon again for giving me permission
to use her wonderful photo of this sweet village in Greenland.

I think this was a good exercise.

Thank you so much for following along!

Ilulissat progress

I made the sketch seen on the previous post

 to familiarize myself with the scene of 

the village of Ilulissat, in Greenland,

and made a copy of that pencil sketch 

 so I could add some color with watercolor sticks.

Derwent "Artbar" watercolor sticks - don't think they make them anymore (?).

In the photo below, my colored sketch is to the left of the painting.

I don't know about you,

but to see the photo in black & white and do the sketches

helps me to get the painting set in my mind.

(Even then, things happen when painting that weren't planned -

sometimes good, sometimes ... oops.)

Pretty happy with this start.

Thanks for looking in - and if you are a painter doing 

the February 28 Paintings in 28 Days,

I wish you happy painting!