An Online and Ongoing Gallery of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Photography
I painted a small 8" x 10" portrait of my youngest daughter this last week, testing a limited palette of yellow ochre, titanium white, ivory black, alizarin crimson and burnt umber.
Since I was painting with some of my children, I used acrylics instead of oils. I want to try again in oil, as I can get much nicer transitions.
This was a memorable painting excursion. Though it's called a prairie, the location is often more of a swamp than anything else.
I set up my easel by the edge of the swamp in a small clearing surrounded by brush, then started to paint. After starting to block in the landscape, I heard the grunting of a gator, quite close.
There was a lot of vegetation and water around me and I quickly realized I was not in a safe spot in case a gator felt hungry, so I ended up painting my landscape in a bit of a rush while standing on top of a metal folding chair I had brought.
My sister Stephanie now owns this painting. It's not the most polished work I've ever done but I figured it would be better to have a rougher painting than to be missing a limb.
I believe I painted this picture in 2014 or '15.
I was out in the yard today with Rachel and the baby, sitting on a towel and soaking up some sun. It was in the upper 50s but the sun felt good and I brought my sketchbook along.
This evening I finally finished my portrait of Margaret and will post that as soon as I get a good photo.
Some interesting ideas here:
https://craftwhack.com/watercolor-techniques/
I have always liked the look of watercolors but have never done much with them. This makes me want to experiment.
