Painting Class - June 29 - July 8

I spent 3 sessions on this painting. I think it's the most "realistic" painting I've done. Really looking at color and value, shadows, highlights, etc. I worked on it for 2 sessions and was ready to move on to something else but Susan encouraged me to continue and push it a little further. I'm glad I continued to work on it.

Painting Class - June 15 and 17

Same subject, different view but this time the bowl and pitcher were on a white paper towel so it lessened the colors being reflected up on to them. I like the apple here.

Painting Class - June 8 and 10

It's been awhile since I posted anything from my painting class. This still life was fun to paint. Just shows how much color is in white!

Cathedral Woods

Just back from a week on Monhegan Island. This is my only watercolor sketch. The rest were all oil studies on either 6x8 or 8x10 canvas panels.

This was done in the Cathedral Woods. I loved doing this sketch as I was on familiar ground here - both physically and artistically. When Alex was 4, 5, and 6 we would come to the Cathedral Woods and build Fairy Houses. He loved it and I have good memories of doing that with him. And after a week of struggling with oils, I needed to do something I felt familiar with and for me, that is watercolor with pen.

I'll post some oils soon...

Bananas Farnsworth

Next week I'm heading off to Monhegan Island for a whole week of painting. A former watercolor instructor I had a few years ago is running a workshop called "The Race - Monhegan Studies". It's based on a story that Robert Henri (The Art Spirit) and a few other artist - George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Leon Kroll, and Randell Davey - came to Monhegan in the early 1900's and made a gentleman's wager amongst themselves to see how many paintings they could do in a day in the weeks to come.They felt this was the best way to get acquainted with the island and experience as much of its uniqueness as possible in the short time they had. This became known as “THE RACE” and it created some of the most beautiful studies ever painted of Monhegan Island by these very same painters.

Now, I don't think I'm going to "race" but I hope to paint at some interesting locations and sharpen my plein air skills. See you in a couple of weeks!