Last still life in class

This was started in our last class. These beautiful treasures are Leila's and we both worked from them. I used sepia ink for the first time to paint the underpainting. The underpainting was painted with a decrepid oriental brush that had bristles going every direction! It is painted in acrylic on water colour paper 7 1/2 x 10 1/2

This is my second painting using the same still life, but with my camera as the resource. I really enjoyed this one as well. After the class critique, I added more colour into the white flowers as well as a transparent wash on the dark background. The background looks flat in this picture, but it has reds, blues and purples in the actual painting.

Still Life - completed paintings

We have been working on Still Life in my art class. These pictures are ones that I did at home. I just used 2 items, a metal ladybug (a gift) and a small vase. I played with these items mainly to look at their shadow shapes and the variety of colours in the shadows (who knew?). They are all painted in acylic and roughly 8" x 8" unframed. I am going to frame 1 (or all 3) if I can't decide which one I like best and put them in my office. I also use the lunch room as a gallery so they might end up in there together for a fun trio.The blue one also had a shadow of a wooden flower that I just had to add in! It was fun to play with different angles and colours with the same subject.

 

 

 

This last one was a completed painting, but when I peeled off the dried paint on my pallette, I loved the design and colours so I incorporated it right into the painting! I love the textural effect when you look up close!

Still life - studies in colour

These are studies that I did in my class. The goal was to look at the shadow shape and the colours in the shadow. I worked in acrylic again and really enjoyed working on these without trying to design a picture.

The one below is my favorite. I spilled my coffee on it and it made the perfect design. I couldn't of made up that design if I was trying. It looks like a table cloth to me. It is titled "Coffee break" as it did give me a break from painting and I realized I was done with it when I stepped away.

Still life in black and white

These 8" x 8" pictures were live studies painted in black and white acrylic. The pepper and small pear are done on watercolour paper with the under painting a bright red. The idea was to  cover the whole picture using only black and white values. I enjoyed how the bright red still added to the overall tone of the painting without seeing it.

This study was done with a bright green undercoating. It really makes you study an object when you don't have colour to describe it.

Early morning lilies

Painting inspiration comes from everywhere! There are day lilies on our shower curtain and I look at them every morning thinking one day I am going to paint them. Of course there is no window behind them and I really had fun with the shadows. This is painted in acrylic and roughly 11 x 14. I was really pleased with how this turned out. The background of our shower curtain is cream with sand coloured squares.

Ingrid Christensen workshop

This is an oil painting I did at Ingrid Christensen's one day workshop at Calgary School of Art. It was a really fun day and I was happy with the results. Ingrid set up 2 flower still lifes and we could choose which one we wanted to paint. There were 5 students and with 3 of us doing the same still life and 2 doing the other. It was incredible how different they all looked. Ingrid did a demo and showed us how to do an underpainting with a rough painted sketch. I hadn't worked in oil so it was a very interesting, fun and frustrating. It was like knowing how to play the piano and then picking up a trombone and trying to play! I wasn't used to paint that wasn't dry and kept picking up everything underneath where I wanted to paint!

Ingrid's teaching style was to enjoy, have fun, and learn in an encouraging environment. I would highly recommend taking a class from her! Her blog is: http://ingridpainter.blogspot.com/  I put the painting up in our lunch room at work (my gallery) and have already had an offer to buy it. I am not ready to let it go yet though.

Mount Royal University 100 year mural celebration

This is Curtis' artistic panel. The unfinished mural can be seen at http://mtroyal.ca/100/mural100.htm Click on any of the small panel pictures to see a larger view, the artist and artist comments. He did his panel based on his MRU Aviation Program. Curtis will graduate from that program in April with a Commercial Pilot Diploma.

The panel (#116) he had to work with is below:

I am really excited we both were able to be part of this artistic MRU historical celebration.

Hiking memories

Acrylic 10 1/2" x 14 1/2"

This (hiking) picture is painted with a bright orange underpainting. I was inspired after watching a painting DVD by Hugh Greer. The picture below is my take on a painting he did on his DVD. It was fun and relaxing. I also used my hiking photo (close up) as inspiration as well.

Acrylic 14 1/2" x 10 1/2"

Acrylic challenge

This was one of the last challenges in my art class. The challenge was to work on a painting from a photograph that I did not know how to paint. We were to break it down to what we were interested in and make the other "stuff" secondary. The other challenge was to paint it completely differently than we were used to doing. This is the final picture.

The "painting it differently' for me was to paint the underpainting in Cad Red Medium and Quin. Crimson. I chose these colours as they were far from reality. Here is a close up of what some of my underpainting looked like:

This is the complicated and challenging picture I was working from. I had taken this picture on a hike and was influenced by the "Y" in the water and the variety of colours. It was so busy I had no idea of where and how to even start this one!

Mount Royal University Panel completed

The story of Mount Royal University told through art.

"The Centennial Mural Mosaic Project is a permanent showcase of the most significant people and stories in Mount Royal's 100 year history. 180 panels created by numerous Alberta artists will make up the mural. Each panel celebrates those who created today's premier undergraduate university. Informative and engaging, this project is an artistic legacy that will bring Mount Royal's rich history to life."

The panel (#48) is shown below as it was given to me.

I chose to celebrate the Commercial Aviation program at MRU as my son Curtis will be graduating in April with his Commercial Pilot's License. Below is my finished panel. You can check out the panels that are posted so far at http://mtroyal.ca/100/mural100.htm  Click on a panel and it will increase in size and the artist's comments are shown plus the original panel.

My finished panel is of a MRU plane with the Springbank airport in the background.