May 20, 2011

Well here is my painting for the month. In my Painting Friends site that I belong to we are painting a different subject each month and are supposed to be putting a lot of planning into it. I haven't gotten to the point of doing a lot of sketches (not my strong suit) nor thinking too much about changing the photo that is provided. I need to do more of this to make a painting mine and not just a copy. I did change colors on the tablecloth and cropped the photo but that is as far as I got. Need to simplify and not be a slave to a photo. Take the good parts and create something just mine.

I did have fun doing this as it is not a subject that I would normally do. I don't do much in the way of still lifes or it is not my favorite thing to really do.

On to my next project for the month of May/June. Don't have the subject as yet and will not be painting for a couple of weeks. Will photograph instead.

Doing several paintings. This one is basically done for what I wanted to do. It is a demo from a wonderful site I belong to at www.paintingfriends.com and we are having a get together in August in FL for a week of painting. So we needed to practice these berries in order to be able to follow along better in the demo since we are going to have several demos.

I loved doing these. Red is such a happy color but also staining. First you do an undercoat of gamboge which gives the berry a lovely glow. Let it dry thoroughly and then technique is to pick up three colors 2 red, one blue on the brush neat put it on the basic of the berry and then kind of "smush" it around. You clean your brush and use clean water and come from the part of the berry where the leaves are and let it mingle. You do the same with the leaves but obviously with greens.

Well it took me forever with other things going on but here is my first effort of the splash berries. Interesting technique , did struggle with it, like how in the world did your paints in the well not mix up by the time you got to the third color? And I probably had put too much paint (neat) on the brush as I really had a mess a couple of times. Then there was the masking really made a mess of it and didn't realize it until I pulled it off. Will do it differently I think when I do these for the Splash for real. It wouldn't work with a toothpick to put the mask on and my special masking thingie that is so expensive won't work right so I will probably need to purchase another.

It was fun to do in bright colors. I didn't have the perm red I think it was (I have since bought one) so I used a quin in place of it or maybe I replaced that with naphthol red with is a brilliant red and I love it but I also didn't have something else that was listed, can't remember now. Anyway I liked my color of strawberries but wow one of them is really staining.

Anyhow here is the end result. I was fairly pleased with the results but need much more work on the smushing technique and also the seeds. I had masked them and made them too big and then had to back track and try and repair damage. Plan to practice just seeds to figure out a better way to do them.