Painting Final: St Mary’s Courtyard

I’ll call this finished now; although, I still need to sharpen and clean up a few spots.

Painting Update: St Mary’s Courtyard

Making progress on the new painting. I’ve colored in most of the background and the statue. There will be much more refining of details here and there later, but this gives me the direction I need to see how to bring this all together. I like the contrast of the statue to the background. She pops out with good dimension. All of of this was made with Open acrylics. I’ll work more on that top corner next, and then the foreground area.

New Painting Started: St Mary’s Courtyard

I’ve started a new painting. It’s based on some photos that I made of a courtyard at a local Catholic church that has a statue of Saint Mary. I’m planning to enter it in a local exhibit where the painting is due for delivery on the first week of April, so there’s a bit of a deadline. I think I can make it. I decided to do this one using Golden’s Open acrylics, but I started this layer using Turner’s acrylic gouache. The surface is canvas mounted to foamcore, 16 x 20″.

Painting Final: Santa Fe Hospital

Here’s the final state of the new painting. I made a few adjustments, mainly to the building. I figure all the details should be there to be true to the actual location, but tried to keep things loose to match the surroundings. I’ll be dropping this off for the exhibit today, and will follow up on the show details if it gets accepted.

Painting Update: Santa Fe Hospital

I’ve got everything roughed in on the painting. Next will be some cleaning up the edges and adjusting values.

New Painting Started: Santa Fe Hospital

Starting a new painting. This is a view of a local hospital that will be made in acrylic paint on a 12×16″ gallery wrapped canvas. It is intended for entry into an upcoming juried show with a deadline for entry at the end of the week, so I’ve got to get busy. I’m starting here with an undertone range of blues, and will be adding warmer tones later.

The media is Golden’s Open Acrylics, and I needed a few more colors to expand my palette choices. I ordered seven more tubes from Michael’s online (by way of Dick Blick,) and they just arrived today. Not too crazy about the packaging. Just tossed the paint and thinner bottle loose in a padded envelope, but it looks like it survived the trip okay.

I’ve also been looking at some Impressionist style art to get me in the mood for how I envision this piece to evolve. Mainly looking at Cezanne, like the one above, but also some Gauguin landscapes. Cezanne reportedly referred to his painting method as “little bricks.”

Painting Final: Tradesman Bldg

Okay, here’s the final version. I changed the grey value at the top to better match my photo references, and sharpened up a few lines. Also put in the electrical power line at the top. It’s sitting loosely in a frame I had that I think will work well. I’ll set it up for a couple days to study it, seal the back and wire it, and then go drop it off at the show.

Painting Update 3: Tradesman Bldg

I’ve got the painting almost finished now with most of the colors and values set the way I want them. Still need to clean up a few edges, and makes some minor adjustments.

Painting Update 2: Tradesman Bldg

Here’s the latest state of the new painting. I’m gradually getting the color and values laid down, and trying to not get into too much detail just yet.

Painting Update: Tradesman Bldg

I’m showing the latest stage of the new painting I started. On the left you can see the loose wash of color I added to the whole sheet, and on the right I added a more areas of darker values. The colors are approximately complements of the base colors I intend for the final stage. I’m keeping a very loose texture at this point, and will sharpen it up in the next step. Most of this paint is acrylic gouache that is heavily mixed with acrylic medium and water to get the texture I wanted. There’s no specific reason to use acrylic gouache other than the pigment choice. I did use a little Open acrylic with the blue only because it was in the set I had placed out. The next step will use more of the Open colors so I can fuss a bit more with the details if I need to.

New Painting Started: Tradesman Bldg

BACK SIDE

FRONT SIDE

Yes, I’m still active! Sorry once again for being away for so long. I’ve put my creative side a bit on hold lately as I’ve spent time gathering resource material for new projects with my camera and sketch book. Recently I became aware of a “call for art” in the city where I live with the subject of celebrating local architecture.

In my rounds I had come across a building that I liked downtown, so I went back and took a few more photos of it at different times of day, and settled on one I liked with an early morning sun. I made a line art sketch, and transferred it to a stretched canvas, but then went back to the art show requirements only to find that they had a size restriction of no more than 16×20 inches, and what I had started on canvas was 18×24, so I had to start over and scale it down. It happens. This time I decided on a sheet of watercolor paper also 18×24, but will trim it down when I finish.

The media I’ll be using for this is the Open Acrylic from Golden Paints. I’ve written before about how I stretch paper by wrapping it damp around a wood frame, and clamping it as it dries. I’m doing something similar here, but slightly different this time for the technique I plan to use. The undertone will be applied with a “bubble & streak” method, which requires a somewhat slick surface to start with. In this case, I’m using a spray of Krylon’s Crystal Clear varnish over the colored pencil lines. This will in effect “soak” the paper in the same way that my water technique would. I then clamp it to the frame before it completely dries. In a few minutes it dries tight as a drum, and is ready now for painting.

Golden’s New Paint Tube Caps

In my previous post I wrote that Golden Paints was starting a program where you can have them send you replacement caps for their acrylic tube paints. I’ll repeat the link to their site here. My new caps arrived today, the black ones above.

Of the 10 tubes of their brand that I have, only 6 caps were damaged, but I requested 10, and that’s what they sent. For that large 5oz. tube of zinc white, I had previously borrowed a cap from a tube that had dried out, but it later cracked also. The new caps are nice, and fit perfectly. I’m happy to see the large size. In my comments to them on the form to get these caps I mentioned that a larger size would be an improvement, similar to those on Liquitex tubes that I’ve never had a problem with. Looks like they figured that out too.

In my picture above I brightened the image around a couple of the caps so you could better see the details. The top of the cap pops open on a plastic hinge to show a small spout where you can squeeze out paint rather than unscrewing the whole cap. Squirting the paint out should be better, since it will keep the threads of the tube from getting paint on them when you unscrew the cap. The large size of these doesn’t match the size of the small 2oz. tube, but the threads inside do fit. It’s interesting to note in the article on their site that they say the new caps look just like the current ones, and that the new color will be grey. The only caps I’ve seen at stores for their paints are the older “T” shaped design. I suggest you keep an eye out for these larger cylindrical caps, since they look like they will hold up much better.