Two paintings sold

Two paintings sold at the Chinook Learning Services Christmas student celebration. Art from classes taken, instrument playing, singing etc are highlighted in the adult student exhibition. The picture above is a water colour painted on site at the Leighton Center just outside of Calgary. I was really happy with it and the day spent with painting friends. It was matted to fit a 11 x 14 frame.

The second picture was a water colour of an Italian scene that I painted from a photo reference taken when I was in Italy. It was a lesson for me as I did not take a picture and now do not have a record of it! Art is all about learning. The photo above was taken indoors as a quick reference. I certainly need to improve my picture taking of art now that I am posting in this blog!

More fun with acrylic paint

It has been really hard to take pictures out doors (natural light is the best light to show painted colours). with going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. I have to try to remember to take the pictures on the weekend and then post, hence two different paintings and excercises at once. I wish I had time and energy to paint and post 2 pictures each week!

This is a painting based on a picture from our back country ski weekend last year. We skiied (8 of us) across this lake and had lunch on the other side. The excercise was to paint again with translucent, transparent and opaque paint. I enjoyed the color triad I used on this one, getting away from "reality" but still reading and viewing the painting knowing what the subject still is.

This is a second painting of the same subject matter. Again, another different "unrealistic" color pallete with an underpainting in orange. Being able to cover up the underpainting with opaque and transparent washes was really foreign to me. A chance to play with acrylic versus water colour paints. Both pictures have really different feels, one cool and one warm. I am not sure which one I prefer.  

2nd acrylic adventure, same style

This painting was started with the paint splatters below, the same style as my last post. Once again, it was fun and freeing. I really like this picture, especially how the background turned out. I have made cards from this painting for the group I belong to "Creative Path Artists". We are going to share cards as a Christmas gift (4 cards to each person). There are 6 of us in the group so I will have 20 other artist cards, I can hardly wait!

This is the final painting that I completed for an excersize for the Advanced Water Media Class I am taking with Sharon Lynn Williams. She has an excellent description on her blog, dated Nov 4 on http://sharonlynnwilliams.blogspot.com/. This is a class that is for advanced water colour or acrylic painters. I am just learning what acrylic can do. Go to the bottom of the post and follow it up for the steps taken. I am going to mat this picture for a fund raiser (silent auction) at our MRU Bachelor of Nursing program Christmas Luncheon.

I had to go back in and define the flowers hanging down near the table and put the edge on the vase again on mine. Flowers, leaves and stems were also defined more. I really learnt alot about transparent, translucent and opaque painting with acrylic. This is so different and so much more forgiving than watercolour.



The vase was highlighted with white and the flowers were defined further with transparent and opaque colours, really fun. This is the Sharon's finished picture.

More flowers were "defined/blocked in" on Sharon's picture again.

This was the next step (Sharon's picture). The whole painting is using the same 3 colours plus white. I painted the table using a transparent wash (with water). The blue background was an opaque with white. The "holes" were painted with the blue and the vase with opaque around the edges and transparent green (yellow/blue).

This is how we started this excerise, by splattering a red, blue and yellow, letting it dry and doing it again.The water colour paper was dry and we held our brushes sideways. I loved this part, just playing!