Commission - A Dog Portrait of Timi

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This commission was a dog portrait of Timi (right) for a Christmas present.I painted a small acrylic picture (upper left) of Timi to get a feel for her face and shape. I enjoyed this small picture in my office and everyone commented that Timi was expressive and looked like a character. I had a lot of fun painting this one as I did not have the pressure of the final product.

The picture (bottom left) is the commission with the original background. The background was not satifactory to the purchaser so I changed the background (below on right).

Now I was not satisfied, so once again I worked on the background and below is the final picture. It is certainly easier to paint for myself than a commission, but it was fun to do and as always, a learning process. The recipients were pleased with their gift.

 

 Acrylic on masonite panel in a 16" x 20" frame - Sold

Merry Christmas and Season's Greetings to all!

We have snow on the ground, but a sunny warm winter day for Christmas Day. Looking forward to enjoying the day with friends and family...in and out.

Water colour, matted and framed to 16 x 20 - Sold

 Above is a water colour picture of our majestic Rockies with their first blanket of snow.

Warm wishes for a healthy, prosperous, fun filled 2012! And to my fellow artist, may your brushes stay wet throughout the new year!

First Portrait in Ingrid's Class

I went to the previous class and stayed for the demo only as I wasn't feeling well. This week I was able to try my first portrait (between coughing fits). It seemed like a daunting task but Ingrid's demo gave us a starting point. Again it is not finished, but I felt it did look like the subject. I am pleased with the result within the time limit of the class after the demo.

This is my view of my easel and our model behind. This painting was painted in oil on a 12" x 16" canvas board. I am not going to wipe this one off, but keep it to check my skills the next time I do a portrait. I wish I had asked to take a picture so I could of worked on it at home. Working from a picture is certainly different from working with a live model!

Mount Royal University Centennial Mural now on display!

The closing of the MRU centennial celebration culminated with the unveiling of the MRU centennial mural. It resides at the East Gate entrance to the university. They have a large touch screen that will zoom directly to the panel you press so you can read about the panel. They had a group of 30 people that wrote about the history of MRU beside each panel. This is not viewed on the website. The website has the artist interpretation of the panel and their reason for doing what they did. The final picture with all the panels together is of the MRU founder reading a book and all the thoughts and history that comes out of the book.

You can go to the website here. Once there if you click on the individual panels, it will give you a close up and the information. The whole panel can be seen on the second grouping. The blank panels had colours and designs or shapes on it that you had to incorporate into your design. That is why some of the colours seem odd choices.

My first panel is #48 based on the aviation program is on the 2nd row, 13 from the right. Then I found out that they needed more panels painted with particular themes. I painted #131, 5 rows down, 11 from the left and #166 on the bottom row, 16 from the left. You can see the size of each panel in the picture on the left of me holding my panel when they were displayed individually.

 

 

Our son Curtis was also a student at MRU at the time and he painted #116, 4 rows down, 5 from the right. As he was an aviation student, he painted the cockpit in a spin. As a gift to every artist, they gave us a book with the panel images in it as well as the MRU historical information. It was a wonderful year of celebrations and I certainly enjoyed as many as I could.

Gratitude!

I would like to thank everyone that has encouraged, helped, laughed and cheered me on in this art journey I am on. This blog has received over 1500 views so far, way more than I ever dreamed of. I started it to keep me painting, learning, expressing and experiencing the world around me as I see it.

To those that have commented (especially Marie Flynn), I take to heart your words of encouragement and suggestions. I still have difficulty knowing if my responses are posted or not (or even how to check).

To those wonderful friends (especially Sue and Karen) that take beautiful pictures and allow me to paint my own interpretation of their artful photographs, again I am grateful.

My Creative Path friends that have travelled most of my painting journey with me, I am very grateful for your honest suggestions, laughter, like mindedness and friendship!

My family are my greatest cheerleaders and critics, and I am happy to receive both.

Not least by any measure, a very big thank you to those that have bought my art and share my blog. It instils that others believe in this journey AND keeps me in art supplies!!

This post is of one of the paintings that gets viewed most, a Calgary sky view.

Third figure class

This was my third figure class with Ingrid and last class for this session. I was away the previous week so I missed the demo and class. Our class worked on the same painting during this class. It was amazing and intimidating to see the wonderful and varied works in progress. I think everyone was happy to have a chance to finish a piece of work. We are in a semi circle around the model so everyone has a slightly different view, therefore, no work is the same. The shine of the oil really shows when taking a picture straight on.

You can see the models legs at the left, my painting (work in progress) straight ahead and the beautiful painting on the right being worked on for the second week. My view was very straight on. And yes, her hair was a very funky style, very short on one side and long on the other.

Oil on canvas board 12 x 16

This is as far as I got in the class. I would of really enjoyed having a second class to work on it. I am happy with how it evolved. The model was amazing and worked hard to sit exactly in the same position after taking stretching breaks.

I have signed up for the next session of classes with Ingrid, again on figure and still life with the addition of florals. I wasn't going to sign up as I find that December and January are just to busy work wise and I don't have much energy after work, but this group is so fun to paint with and I enjoy Ingrid's style of teaching.....so stay tuned, more oil work to come!

Creative Path Artist Challenge

Every two weeks, The Creative Path Artist group meets and paints for an afternoon at a community hall. It is a very safe environment to challenge ourselves and share our art escapades and lives. We set up challenges for ourselves and the last few times together, an artist brought a picture for everyone to paint. I brought this picture in of a bird fishing in the ocean near Sidney, B.C. I loved the reflection of the bird. I am not sure what kind of a bird it is. Once again, starting was the hardest part! I am pleased with the way this one turned out and happy I painted it in oil.

"Fishing in Sidney"

Oil on birch

11" x 14"

I bought a new tool for signing my name. It has a rubber tip on it and really just pushes the paint around. It would work better if you had a colored canvas to start with. This painting was white underneath and you can just barely see my signature in the bottom left.

Second figure class

We had our second figure class with Ingrid Christensen painting in oil. The model was lovely with a combination of bare legs and a flowing dress. We did thumbnails first to decide on what we wanted to include and the placement of subject and empty space and how we were going to link our darks. From where my easel was, the view was mainly of her thighs and everything was foreshortened. Here is my view from my easel and the painting so far.

Ingrid showed me how to make the folds in her dress on my painting. I scraped the paint off at her suggestion and then did it again myself. The other difficulty I was having was the size of her hand and the fore shortened forearm. Again with Ingrid's help, I was much happier with my result. This was a one evening class so once again, a full painting was not completed, but I am happy with the result below.

First figure in oil

This was the first of 4 figure classes that will end the Fall oil lessons with Ingrid Christensen. As oil is a new medium for me, I have learned a lot! Ingrid did a demo for the first hour and then we painted for the next 1.5 hours. If she did not do a demo first I would of had no clue how to even start! It was hard to shape the body to get the feeling of volume and not flattened out. Flattening out the body seemed to be my specialty!

Here is a picture of my easel with our model behind. I did not ask for his permission to put his picture of my blog, so I have only a partial view of him.

Below is how the picture looked when our time to clean up had arrived. It was really hard to get the roundness of his belly. As this class was just for one evening, I wiped the picture off to use my canvas for next week. Ingrid generously lets us take pictures of her demos so I have those as a reference. This class is for learning, not necessarily to get a finished painting. This is one I knew I did not want to finish.

Still life lesson on pattern

This was an (one) evening set up of a teapot and dried sunflower heads. The lesson was on how to paint a pattern to get the essence of the pattern without painting every little detail. It was extremely daunting to look at the set up and again begin with a blank canvas. Below is the my view of the still life and my work in progress.

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Ingrid's demo was starting the painting with the still life set up on the other side of the room (round bowl with delicate flower pattern) to show us how to tackle a pattern and still get the roundness of the bowl. Again, this painting is not finished as I plan to finish all the paintings from her class when the class ends or I have more time. I still want to work on the sunflower and the area under the teapot.

12" x 16" Oil on canvas

click on picture for a larger view