Portland Cityscape

This is a 30x40 canvas. Getting this under painting worked out required 4 to 6 hours of pencil time and 4 hours of painting. This is a morning scene which will have lots of contrast when I get going on the color. I hope to keep the sky beyond more or less white with an overexposed feel. I painted in the sky in white to see what I might get out of it.
There is a lot of nice color in this scene.
It is easy to get overwhelmed with the level of detail, especially when working from a photograph. I have to keep backing up and squinting to make sure I get the major elements to read. I like to contrast the light and dark and give detail to things that pop in the image. Since there are no people in the image (can't believe this was actually the case, but it was) I will add detail in the signs to give some scale.

Orange Sign

Since Christmas, I have been renovating my basement, again. Hopefully this is the last time for a while.

Unfortunately I was not improving my studio space. It is the same as it has been.

I was very much missing the painting. The lack of painting was effecting me in a bad way. The art work has become much more of a mental health issue and going without makes me sad.

This is a painting that had been started many months ago. It has been sitting in the basement taunting me. "Finish Me! Finish Me!" it seemed to beg. I just let it sit there, festering.

While not one of my more inspiring pieces, I like how it came out. The name "Orange Sign" is because of the one orange sign in the middle of the painting. I used some of the same orange to accent the sky, which is fictitious, but the blank fields of blue (painted more blue/green) needed something to liven them up.

I have always been fascinated by the scale of these entangled over-pass structures. Crazy big they are.

I have seven blank canvases primed and tinted, ready for more action.

Need to make some art

So, the holidays are over once again and I spent the entire time (I had the week between x-mas and newyears off) doing some rebuilding of my basement. My "studio" has been filled with building materials and tools. The small canvas sheets are now, I imagine, permanently taped to the hard board panels.
I have not done any painting in a month or so and want to get back at it.
Art Media is now Blick Art Supplies and will soon be moving out of it's current location only three blocks away to a location in NW Portland! The closest art store is now Utrecht! Blick is having a canvas sale, I think I will check it out.

Walking to School

This was still wet when I took this photo and has quite a bit of shine to the surface.

I exaggerated the golds and the reds for this one to give the feel of a glowing morning, which it was.

This was my daughters first full day of Kindergarten.

For this one, I went right from the dry under painting and completed the painting in a little over four hours.

I had been waiting to do the sky after the second layer had dried, but I wanted to get it done and also wanted to see if I could get the lighter colors to not only sit over any wet paint but also mingle a bit with the leaves to give more depth.

I think that I was successful.

This is a sweet subject and it is a keeper.

Portraiture by Edward Hopper

Here is a great portrait by Edward Hopper. It is an interesting pose that he chose to paint his wife. He probably painted her in on the spot (plein air).

He painted her as she painted.

Amazing how he makes it look simple.

Aidan

This project has been a challenge in that it has been my first attempt at a portrait in a long time.

I like the finished product (almost finished) but I continue to like the earlier stage above. Something about the unfinished quality is interesting. I need to play with this in future paintings.

Well, this was a good first try, but it is over worked and my transitions are a bit abrupt. The contrast is good. I did smooth out the gradient on his arm, which you can see in the two close-up photos.

Painting or drawing a likeness is one of the hardest things that I have done. This came out very close to what Aidan looks like, which is promising.

Aidan has a rather heroic pose going on here and I am glad I could capture it. He has been watching me do the painting and he seems pleased. He asked me how much I was going to sell it for and I told him that it would probably not go up for sale.

Three paintings

Today is Sunday and I completed the under painting on the left.

Now I have three painting starts.
I have a bit of a cold or something and the associated aches and pains are keeping me from painting more today.

I have had two breaks during this mornings session, which is how many I should take anyway.