Changing Seasons Reflections

This is my newest work. I spent a lot of time working on the reflections adding variations of color from yellow to orange to pink to brown and bits of highlights. It's a larger painting based on an earlier piece with a similar composition. It feels very rich to me!

"Changing Seasons Reflections" • Original acrylic • 20" x 20" ready to hang

If interested in purchasing this piece click  HERE.

Queen Anne's Lace

This is my latest piece, a combination of watercolor, ink, gouache and collage. I've had deep rich reds, browns and burgundies in my head for the last few days and just had to make them happen in paint! I built the color beginning with watercolor and ink and then adding glazes of watercolor to deepen the color. The lighter whites and light greens were created with gouache. Washing color over the collage of the flowers in the top left gave a really neat effect because the gel medium acts as a partial resist. There is some iridescent paint in this piece for added sparkle.

"Queen Anne's Lace" • Original mixed watermedia & collage on Arches 140# cold press paper • Sold

All About Reflections

This summer I've been trying to do more 'plein air' painting. It's been FUN! Just observing colors, values and color intensity has been SO informative! Seeing what happens with light and shadow is amazing! Nature creates combinations of shapes and colors that no photo can replicate. An added bonus is painting while listening to the birds, feeling the warmth of the sunshine, and the touch of the breeze. Talk about a COOL classroom!

Below I've included a photo that I took before I started painting. My camera will also photograph in black and white and I've found that useful to really look at values. Next is my value sketch and then the finished painting.

I usually begin on painting on location and then finish in the studio. I start with a value sketch in which I try to very clearly delineate about 5 shapes (sometimes more) and use 3 or 4 values to fill in my shapes. Next I rough in the values and shapes on my canvas and then paint over that. This piece was done in acrylic. I used medium to keep the paint from drying too fast. I can work for about 2 hours this way without having tacky paint.

This is the photo I took before I started. You can see that I really pushed the color in the finished piece!

This is my value sketch. I decided to cut off the top a little. It's helpful to figure out where the sun is! I also date these and note the time and the weather as well as the location.

This is the finished painting! "All About Reflections" •  10" x 10" • Acrylic on 3/4" wrap around canvas, ready to hang

 

If you're interested in purchasing this piece click HERE.

VIEW

 This is a piece I've been looking at for awhile! I started it 'en plein air' and just couldn't quite get to finishing it! So I worked on it today and I think it turned out really well! The placement of the tree is what fascinated me in the field. It's not a placement I would have come up with in the studio. I find that painting on location has so much more compositional variety than painting indoors from photos.

"View" • Original Acrylic on 3/4" wrap around canvas, painting continues on sides, ready to hang

To purchase this piece click HERE.