Saucier

10x8 oil on paper
$125 including shipping
PURCHASE

I'm back to painting. Thank heavens the bookkeeping is done. Yesterday I actually felt tired halfway through a second painting. It was more than I'd done in awhile and while painting is wonderfully meditative and relaxing, it also requires concentration. And when the back aches and my arm feels heavy, my focus flags.

To combat that, its back to the quick sketches. Loosens me up both mentally and physically.

Limited Strokes Notes

I just took a look at this in this small image format and noticed how monotone the painting is. Its a problem I always have when I paint outdoors. Its pretty much all midtones. When you are working under a strong light source (i.e. the Texas sun) you have to really push those values! I converted the image to grayscale in Photoshop to see how well and truly in the middle I was.



I also wanted to mention that the strokes noted on the side note each one I painted in order.

Moses Botkin Monthly Challenge

It was my turn to pick a challenge and I think I might have made some enemies this time around! jk - LOL
I certainly stirred up a lot of questions.
I wanted to practice the idea of limited strokes and decided we should paint something with just 15 strokes. The idea of this is to make you think ahead. You need to plan each stroke, mix enough color, load your brush and make that color last for the length of your stroke. Peggi Kroll Roberts has a video on this specific challenge and my friend V....Vaughan frequently practices this (both with much better results.)
I did a couple this week when I went to paint with some friends at a local farm/market. You will see my scene more fleshed out very soon.


Gardening
12x6 (roughly) oil on canvas
©2011 Robin Cheers



7-stroke to Place
9x13 oil on canvas

©2011 Vicki Ross

7 Stroke Apple

4x 4.5 oil on canvas

©2011 Diana Moses Botkin

Spring
6X4 oil on canvas
©2011 Ruth Andre




One Duck in 15 Strokes
10x10 oil on canvas
©2011 Suzanne Berry

Trail Horse - 30 Minute Study

12x12 oil on paper
nfs

Another quick study to loosen up and get things flowing. Interestingly, the paper canvas pulls the oil out of the paint pretty quickly, making the stroke "stick" fast which makes me get looser with my color and I do more just putting the paint on and leaving it alone and get a little bolder with color. So the paper, and the fact that I set my timer, are creating some fun results for me.