Category: Studies
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Cloudy Sky: #4
I decided to try that painting again. I was going to try some exercises with back runs, and water, but before I knew it I was painting. So… here it is. There are some things that I really like here, and some things I definitely want to do differently. But, I think I’m done with…
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Cloudy Sky: #3
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I think I might need to rename this painting. Now at the third iteration, I think it’s more about the rocks and vegetation than it is about the sky. At any rate, I have volunteered to work part-time during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a very strange time in the world right now, and I don’t…
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Cloudy Sky: #2
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Today I tried painting that barn that’s in my memory again. There are some things that worked better here than in the first one, and some that didn’t work out. I feel better prepared now for number 3. Here is the sketch I made before painting this one. I really tried to increase the visual…
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Cloudy Sky: #1
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On my drive last week to Lutz Lock, where I failed at painting the old lock from the Erie Canal, I saw a barn on the side of the road that I remember thinking looked like a nice one to paint. I didn’t stop though, and only have the scene and in my memory. Today,…
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Tree Study
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I wanted to paint something from my imagination the other day, and this is what I came up with. It’s an attempt to mimic a style that I saw in a painting by Joseph Zbukvic, and now that I look at it again, I feel like it’s close enough to his composition to say that…
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It’s all part of the journey
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in Achitecture, Animal, Failed Paintings, Figure, Landscape, Sky, Studies, Trees, Water Color, Year 2I 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…
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Glitter War Studies: Pegacorn
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My brother asked me to paint a picture for his daughter, with two princess castles caught in a glitter war with flying unicorns and rainbows. I did a few studies on it last week, and over the weekend I painted the Pegacorn as a draft. I want to experiment with how to paint that because…
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Glitter War: Studies
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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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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.)…