Category: Failed Paintings

  • Barn: #1

    December is nuts. Thanksgiving, then three birthdays, then Christmas… it’s busy. And my favorite time of year. But that means I don’t have much time to dedicate to writing these posts. Tonight, I finished a painting I’m pretty proud of, so I figured I would post it. This is my attempt to put into practice […]

  • Bluebirds & Random Drawings

    I honestly don’t feel like writing about these, because I just typed a metric tonne about that Homer drawing. But I also want to publish these paintings, because I want to document my progress. Like I said, I’m really tired after working all day, then painting, then writing a ginormous blog post… I want to […]

  • Bluebird: #1

    Ok. I have excuses. This is a painting of a bluebird. First things first: it’s awful. Ok. Fine. Now that the self defeatism is done with: what can I learn? Well, three big things jump out at me: 1. The composition is flat flat flat. I liked the effect I got with one of the […]

  • Buttermilk Falls: #3

    I hate this painting. No… I loathe this painting. This painting actually made me mad at it when I was finished last night, because I knew it was ruined as soon as I laid down the first wash in the sky. I kept going likes dummy, hoping it would somehow fix itself. It didn’t. I […]

  • Chickadee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee

    I have always enjoyed watching birds. I’m not a “bird watcher” but I really do get a kick out of watching the greedy little bastards slobber at the bird feeder. I remember a field trip I went on as a kid. We went on a hike through the woods with a tour guide from the […]

  • Datura Innoxia: #2

    I have been painting. But I’ve been exceptionally bad at it lately. Out of the dozen or so paintings I have made in the past week or two, I have one that’s not sitting next to the firewood outside. (Watercolor paper makes a great fire starter by the way.) I’ll show you what I mean, […]

  • Nimisilla C-6: #8-9

    I decided to try the painting of the lillies at the C-6 boat ramp at Nimisila Reservoir again today. If you want to see the evolution of this one, the first four paintings are discussed here, and paintings 5-7 are here. Nimisila C-6: #8… Yuck For this painting I wanted to try to focus on […]

  • The Tree You’re Looking For: #2

    I decided that I’m sick of painting the same kind of thing over and over. Or rather, it’s not that I’m sick of it, it’s that I am stagnated because I’m always doing the same thing. So I decided to try something abstract. Ok – what a righteous failure. Yeah. It’s awful. it says nothing, […]

  • Nimisila C-6: #5 – 7

    How? HOW?! How did Monet do water lillies so much justice? And how does Joseph Zbukvic achieve similar perfection in his paintings? I clearly do not know. I tried to paint the scene from Nimisilla Reservoir dock C-6 again today. I think I’m getting closer, but I’m still not entirely sure how to represent that […]

  • Nimisilla C-6: #1-4

    I went out to Nimisilla Reservoir today to try some Plein air painting. I am not happy with any of the results, so I tried again at home, and I’m not happy with that either. I don’t feel like doing a full write up on another failed painting, but I am committed to posting even […]

  • Winter Grape Vine: #4

    I have another photo that’s been sitting in my pile of photos I want to paint for several months. This was taken in Gnaddenhutten Ohio, just after sunrise in November. There was a hint of ice frost covering everything, and it was windless, quiet and still. I took this photo, and really like the geometric […]

  • Ray Hendershot Exercise: Distant Trees

    I purchased a book by Ray Hendershot entitled “Texture Techniques for Winning Watercolors.” I appreciate how Mr. Hendershot manages to achieve the impression of a photorealistic image, but includes just enough Impressionism to give the composition a level of emotion that I feel photorealistic paintings often lack. (Steven Kozar does an excellent job of proving […]

  • Just Keep Swimming

    I’m feeling fairly pessimistic about my ability to paint these days. I know, it’s a journey… if it were easy everyone would do it… you have come so far so fast… you are so much better than my friend’s cousin’s dog’s roommate’s nephew… other platitudes. Save it. My mind keeps saying you’re not good enough. […]

  • Self Portrait: #2

    I spent sine time working on sketching the self portrait photo to learn more about my own face. So… yeah. That’s about how that went. Halfway through drawing, I decided that I had the perspective wrong. Rather than start over, apparently I just decided to change angles, and now my face is all deformed. This […]

  • Self Portrait: #1

    I love the work of Eudes Correia. Check him out if you don’t know about him. The way he manages to capture expression and sincerity in his subjects is just mesmerizing. His portraits are punchy and full of gesture, but even with all the busy colors and expressive brush work, he never seems to take […]

  • Rocks at Wooster Memorial Park

    I took a walk in the Wooster Memorial Park after work one day this past summer looking for something to paint. As I wandered around the creek, I saw a rocky outcrop about twenty feet up a hillside. Just then, my daughters FaceTimed me, and I waved the phone around like an idiot, showing them […]

  • It’s all part of the journey

    I have to remind myself over and over… you are only a year and a half into this. I’m a sophomore in high school… I should expect to paint like I’m sixteen. I have been running into a slew Of failed painting again. I’m not sure why exactly. For some reason I’m no where near […]

  • I can’t

    Ok. This is just me being real for a very long minute. Tonight, I tried painting, and everything I do sucks. I mean, really really sucks. I know I know… push through… keep trying… don’t give up. Sometimes, it’s really hard to do that. I look at everything I create and it all looks like […]

  • Log Bridge: #1

    I wanted to practice figure painting a bit more, so I invented a scene, and tried to paint it. My idea was to try to paint a picture of a guy carefully walking across a log. It’s something I’ve done more than a few times fishing, but I’ve never photographed it, so I had to […]

  • Sometimes, you suck.

    Wow. It’s hard to describe the extent of the feelings of defeat I’m having right now. I drove an hour and a half down to Blackhand Gorge State Park today to try some Plein air painting. Dear God, it didn’t go well. I hiked the trails and found an incredibly serene spot just off one […]

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