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Glitter War: Studies
My Brother asked me to paint a picture for his daughter like the illustrations I did recently. I’m pretty intimidated to paint something for him to be honest, because he is such a talented and accomplished artist. (Did I mention he’s the lead VFX artist for Epic’s Fortnite?) Anyway, I took him up on it […]
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Dairy Farm: #1.1-3.4
Ok, I’m interested in painting the Dairy Farm that I found yesterday. The problem is, I hate the paintings I did yesterday, and the photo I took for future reference is pretty awful – because the fence cuts right through the subject. I try to take photos quickly when I start because I want to […]
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Saturation Notation, Tree Technique, Atmosphere, and Perspective
There are two big things I’m consistently disappointed in when I look at my landscapes: trees and atmosphere. Today, I set out to practice these. I grabbed some scrap paper (A.K.A. the back of a failed painting). I painted a very simple horizon and sky. The goal here was two-fold: practice painting atmosphere, and give […]
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Nimisilla Sunset Recipe
I think a good idea is to think of a painting in terms of a recipe. You need to add the right ingredients at the right time with the right motions in order to get the right end result. With that in mind, I took the lessons I learned from my practice sessions, and tried […]
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Nimisilla Sunset Practice
I played with the Nimisilla painting a lot today. I took a bunch of failed paintings, and quartered them on the back with masking tape. In each quadrant I tried a study of the painting to “solve the problems” as Rick Surowicz puts it. But you can’t solve problems until you identify them. Here are […]
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Nimisilla Sunset: #2
This is a pre-test for a painting I want to do of a scene in my memory from last week when I went fishing with my friend Babs. Babs and I have been good friends for over 20 years now. That’s a weird thing for me to say because in my mind, I’m not much […]
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WAL Hand Plane: #1
I wanted some more practice with glazing and realistic painting. This hand plane seemed like a good subject because it’s a simple shape and allows an opportunity to practice getting a bit of the luminescence that comes with glazing, but it’s still an interesting subject. (And, I love hand planes.) I started by putting three […]
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Pigment Tests: #1
Ron Hazell’s book recommended a pretty simple pigment test, which I have created here. I used the majority of the pigments I own, but did not use Lapis Lazuli Genuine, Titanium White, or Neutral Tint. The idea is to draw one big black vertical line with a marker, then paint horizontal lines of each pigment […]
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Study – Water: #4
Tonight I tried to get a bit closer to the water to try to define the shapes of the ripples a little more. I see a lot here that I like. Primarily the dip in the third wave up on the left. Compositionally, that wave should be more to the right and I should have […]
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Study – Water: #3
Still doing too much on the water. There is something about the composition that I like on this one. I really wanted to try to paint perspective in the clouds, but the shadows aren’t flat enough at the horizon. I think on the next go round, I’ll simplify the shapes and paint them almost like […]
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Study – Water: #2
This is only half of the exercise for this painting. I started adding objects into the water just to test how to paint the reflections. (I should also note, this is painted on the reverse of Study-Water: 1. I like to use both sides of the paper when I’m experimenting/learning in order to save paper.) […]
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Rocks in Stream: #1
For this painting, I wanted to try to capture the shine that can be seen on wet rocks, and the glare on ripples of water. I found a photo online that captured these elements, and tried to paint that photo. I didn’t end up capturing the photo as well as I would have liked, and this […]
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Study – Water: #1
I watched a video by Ron Hazel on how to paint rippled water, and wanted to try it out. I have also wanted to experiment with a cloud technique I saw in a video by Umberto Rossini. The two styles don’t mesh well together, but that’s ok, this is a lesson. (I have already started […]
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Study – Rocks & Trees: #1
I think I learned more tonight doing these little studies than I have in a long time. First, I wanted to test blooms. I found that I need the pigment to be much more dry than I previously thought to get the effect I’m after with blooms. I want the pigment to lift from the […]
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Leaf: #4
I found a nice red leaf in the park yesterday. The snow is starting to fall, so I might have trouble finding leaves soon. I should have a few more tries though before they all turn brown. This one stood at an odd angle on the paper, which made the shadow difficult for me. I […]
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Ryan Zion: #1
So they don’t all end up working out the way I want. I really like the composition in this, which is thanks to Ryan Battles. (I didn’t do this photograph justice here, but I gave it a good shot.) Last night I watched some show about Renoir and Monet. And it got me interested in experimenting […]
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Leaf: #3
So, today I went in search of a leaf with a little more color. Maybe it’s too late, I didn’t find many maple leafs in my front yard with much color left, so I resorted to one that had at least a little bit of green left. Sketching this one was difficult because the […]
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Leaf: #2
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Leaf: #1
I wanted to try something photorealistic tonight. Since it’s fall, I figured I’d try a leaf. I grabbed this one from the driveway because it was the first whole leaf I saw. I started by painting the shadow in moonglow. Then I painted the stem since it was darkest I figured I could mess with color […]
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Pumpkin Spice Water Color
