Painting Away

Happy Monday after Thanksgiving!  I hope you all had your fill of Thanksgiving day festivities and Black Friday Sales.  I know I went to Michaels and got a ton of paint and canvases, something I was desperate for.  

This past week, I finished a painting (yay!) of Chinatown, a nighttime street scene which is relatively new to me.   As it's a bit of a cloudy day here in the studio, I'm having some trouble getting the right picture of it, which means I probably need to take it outside to snap.  It's still too wet to do that, so I need to wait a couple days before posting.  

I hope you are having an easy transition into Christmas and are turning up those Christmas carols, and stay tuned for more paintings!!!!

Friday Night on the Waterfront

Happy Monday!  Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?!  In preparation of Turkey Day, I'm working day and night to finish my painting goals for the week as I'm pretty sure I won't get much done during after eating my fill of turkey for the year.

After this blustery weekend, I think we've just about lost all of our leaves in the DC area, but that doesn't mean that I can't still paint them, right?!  Which leads me to the painting above, Friday Night on the Waterfront, an ode to Washington Harbor and the boats that dock there for happy hour and dinner at some of the wonderful restaurants there.  This 12"x36" oil on canvas is a scene of the Potomac waterfront, peeking through the trees onto the Key Bridge all the way to the Harbor, where the first boats of the night are lining up.  I really enjoyed painting this sunset, with its purples and oranges in addition to the colors in the trees.  Lots of bright, happy colors in this one!

I hope you have a most blessed Thanksgiving and find many things to be thankful for this week!

Ode to Sap Green

Last week I mentioned it was my goal to have a new painting up on the blog.  Well.  I can say that I will likely finish said painting today, but as I try to post my blogs in the morning, I don't think that it is going to make it on here today.  It's okay though!  Painting is an art, not a science, and I'm learning to accept that sometimes paintings take longer than expected.  That said, it was during this painting that I finished my very first oil paint tube that I ever bought, Sap Green.  Oil paint lasts for awhile, and a little bit goes a long way, so when I bought this large tube, I had no idea that 7 years later I would be just finishing it.  Crazy, huh?!  So I bid you adieu, Sap Green.  I don't even know if I'm going to replace you, as I've found it's a lot of fun to mix blue and yellow together to make your own greens.  We'll see!

Below is the palette that I have going on right now for my current painting...lots of earth tones as you can see.  Once the painting is done, I will post it...maybe a mid-week blog?!  Stay tuned!

City of Como

Happy Veterans Day everyone!  I'm always happy when I finish a painting, and today is no exception.  A few months ago, I began a painting of the City of Como, which after putting down the first layer, I ended up sticking back in the closet for some time.  Don't ask me why, I have no idea!  But for some reason when I went back to it the other day, I found my inspiration again and decided to go at it.

Last week I blogged about the painting mid-process at that point, so check out the second half below and the finished product!

Putting down the basic reflection. Very simple, not tons of detail

Sweeping a dry brush in a vertical direction across the water

Next, sweeping the dry brush in a horizontal direction across the water

Finally, adding streaks of white to make a ripple effect and filling in the foliage.  Voila!

Next, onto another painting which I had started and put away.  This next one is also from Como, and it's my goal to have it to you by next week's blog!

In the meantime, on a personal note, I visited my dear friend Susan and her new baby out in Texas this past weekend.  We got some great shots and ate a LOT of In-N-Out Burger, my absolute FAVORITE.  We don't have them in the DC area, which makes me pretty sad, although I think my waistline is pretty thankful for that.  As a tribute, though, I ate there three times in three days, so I am most certainly going to be going on a couple runs this week!

Baby Alex, aka Mr. Giggles

Oh, yum.

A very special shout out to all the Veterans out there, thank you for fighting for our freedom and making this nation what it is today!  You are a blessing!

Until next time, hope you have a week as bright as the smile on Alex's face!

Painting Away!

 Background filled in

Onto the middle ground!

Happy Monday!  This past week has been filled with painting, painting, and more painting.  The scene above  is more than halfway done and is of the city of Como, which sits at the Southwest edge of none other than Lake Como.  Como is a beautiful city, just like the rest of the towns that sit on the lake, so I'm excited to be in the process of painting it!  I am hoping I only have a day or two left on it, so I will hopefully have a picture of the finished product soon!

After that, onto another Italian scene!  I'm on a kick recently...not sure if it will be another Como but we will see!  Stay tuned and have a wonderful week!

Back to Bellagio

Hotel Splendide, 8"x10" oil on canvas

I have really been enjoying a change of pace with painting recently, focusing on Italian scenes.  This past May, my husband and I went on a great trip over to Europe, and everywhere we went we had camera in tow, taking more pictures than I can count.  You never know when you are going to get a great shot or not, but I'm happy to say that I got a few that have inspired me to pick up my brush.  That includes the shot above of Hotel Splendide, lcoated in the heart of Bellagio in Lake Como.  Lake Como is one of my favorite places to paint, there is just something magical about the lake region in Italy.  The weather there is temperate, the landscaping lush, and the buildings are beautiful nestled into the mountainside.  

In other news, we have a new "old" art car, a 1992 blue Volvo 240 wagon.  As our last one died, we were on the hunt and have always been fond of old Volvo's.  Since I am usually hauling many pieces of work at a time, I need something with lots of space, and as Volvo's are built like big rectangular bricks, they are a perfect solution for anyone trying to haul lots of stuff.  Yesterday was a bit cold so I took her to the car wash, and I had to laugh when the girl looked at my car like I was crazy to even think about spending $8 on Old Blue.  Ha!  Well, now she's all shiny inside and out and ready to hit the road!  Woo hoo!

Hope you have a wonderful Monday, see you next week!

Loosen Up!

This past weekend, the local arts group I am a member of (Northern Virginia Artists League or NOVAL for short) hosted an oil and watercolor workshop at ArtSpace Herndon.  We were able to get the lovely Vicki Blum, oil painter extraordinaire to teach the morning class and do a painting demonstration for us!  Vicki is a great teacher, very disarming, and just a lot of fun.  

After Vicki showed us how she does what she does, Vicki let us loose to paint our own scene on a small canvas.  The intimidating part?  We only had an hour and a half to finish the piece.  What?!  Listen, for some people, an hour and a half is plenty of time to complete a small piece, but for others (ahem), this is a near impossible task.  As you can see by some previous works, I paint in lots of detail, with very tight strokes.  So this was definitely quite a challenge and forced my brain to flex a little to practice the technique of using larger, looser brush strokes.  The results are quite different from the normal style, but I like it!  I mean, I love some purple with yellow highlights (I went to JMU for undergrad after all), so I guess in a way I couldn't go wrong!

This workshop was especially refreshing because, if I'm being completely honest, I really did not have a great week when it came to painting.  I worked on two paintings, both sketches I shared, and neither, NEITHER worked out at ALL.  How does that happen?  I should have known from the start, but alas, I have two canvases sitting in the trash because they just did not turn out the way I had hoped.  Oh well!  What are you going to do?!  It happens!

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday so far and that you have a great rest of your week!