Note to self: Acrylic dries darker!
(I’d forgotten this and wondered why a blue I painted with today looked darker than when I mixed it. I want to try oils.)
Note to self: Acrylic dries darker!
(I’d forgotten this and wondered why a blue I painted with today looked darker than when I mixed it. I want to try oils.)
Some really quick tonal sketches I did in preparation for a painting I’m going to do. (I previously did a pencil drawing.) They’re pretty rough, but I found the exercise helpful—and fun. I did them to try to decide on an underpainting colour, but they were also good sketching-with-a-brush and value practice.
I like the ochre one best. Amazing how different colours can produce such different moods. The blue one I stuffed up and didn’t finish. 🙂
I started this back in January or February, before the first New Zealand lockdown. It’s a view from our deck, overlooking our neighbour’s house, in Green Bay, minus a few distracting details (other houses and powerlines, etc.) If the proportions don’t quite seem to match a 24×18 canvas, it’s because the sides of the canvas weren’t totally vertical in the photo I took, so I cropped the sides of the image.
I nearly abandoned this about halfway through, but I’m glad I didn’t. I’m really pleased with the result. I painted it from a photo I took of a sunrise through our dew-covered ranchslider door. I really like the lost edges, the mix of cool and warm reflections on the couch, and, of course, the colours and impression of light that come through the window. It was a real experiment.
If you’re wondering why it looks a bit wonky, that’s partly because the photo wasn’t totally square (I should have just adjusted that in the painting), but also because there were curtains on either side. The reflections in the bottom-left were from books on the arm of the couch and a coffee table sitting beside it.
I painted this from a photo I took of a tree in the Auckland Domain. I was drawn to it not only because of the colour of the leaves (which were actually more of a gold) but also the asymmetrical shape. While I struggled with the colour mixing/matching, and painting a convincing shadow under the tree, I like the overall expressiveness of the painting.