Yanna

Oh gosh, just another half hour would have been terrific! I need to lower her mouth and chin so her neck isn't that long. And work on the background. But I'll probably just move on to the next painting. This one's FTR (for the record).

P.S. I did do a bit of work on her a while back, and am finally uploading it. The phone pic color is a slightly whack (her hair is not blue!) but whatever.

First Plein Air Painting

...with my new French easel. I set it up hastily and was so excited to get it that I jumped right into painting immediately. I didn't travel far... this is right outside my studio door, in back of the house! Such perfect weather in the past couple of days, I've been chomping at the bit to get outside. But I thought I'd better test drive it first, and make sure I have everything I need packed in it before I hit the road.

Here's the little beauty:

Yippeeeeeee! This is going to be a FUN summer!

Waiting.

Our lovely Friday model was seated in front of a neutral-colored drapery, so I rearranged the room a bit (not literally, just in the painting!) to suit myself. I arrived for the session having just mixed the "Zorn palette" from a YouTube video, so I decided to give it a go. I had the colors all mixed before Tess even arrived.

The palette consists of two colors--yellow ochre and alizarin--plus black and white. So this was an interesting experiment. Surprisingly, I don't feel like I was missing any colors. This has more of a Hopper quality than Zorn, but that's as much because of the subject matter (the "narrative") as the color. But I wonder if Hopper used the same limited palette sometimes... I'll have to take a look. I've got a huge book of Hopper's work checked out of the library, and I'm sure that influenced my decisions in this painting.

Another Fun Friday

Our model Friday, Rico, was just stunning. This doesn't do him justice, but it sure was fun trying!

This is not France!

Of course, as soon as I decide to do a series, the next painting I just have to do is not related at all. This is in my dining room, one evening last summer. I happened to look over to see this splendid sunset lighting coming through the leaded glass windows, falling on some peonies out of the garden (and other randomness that was there on the credenza). I think I want to tone down the plummy purple shadows--bump up the contrast--but I'm still contemplating.
W.I.P., 4/14/13

The first in a France series....

This is the beginning of a series that I'll be working on over the summer. I plan to do twelve 12"x12" panels from photos taken on my trip to Paris and Southern France in March 2010. It's about time I got around to these, right? I'm liking the MDF panels (with a couple of coats of gesso) very much, and the uniform size and surface should help the series achieve coherency.

Day 2 of Eric Bowman workshop

Day two. We continued to focus on color temperature in skin tones. I have exaggerated in these two (morning and afternoon) sessions. Hopefully that will help me remember what I learned... although I should mention, I wasn't totally able to execute on the distinctions. My drawing skills need work. Still. Eric helped with the top one, especially the foreshortening of the legs. It was a terrific workshop, I'm really glad I signed up!

Day 1 of Eric Bowman workshop

These oil sketches are from photos which Eric provided. We worked on vellum, and I found I really liked that surface. Each of these are about 10" h. Good way to warm up for the live model scheduled for the next day.

Fridays are fun!

I'm so grateful to Kat, who provides the studio space, and Za, who arranges for the models and costuming/posing. I always look forward to Fridays... even tho' some of my efforts are less successful than others. Like this one, which is not one of my favorites. But, as someone said this weekend... "you win some, you learn some".