Jovan - Blue Man

Jovan - Blue Man  oil - 7 x 5 

I painted this on a dark burgundy primed canvas to see if I liked starting with a darker value and working lighter instead, of the medium value I usually begin with. This forced me to look and paint the values in a different way. I started with the highlights and worked towards the medium values and then changed the the dark values to cooler or warmer colors where they were needed. I plan on experimenting with different colors of primed backgrounds to see how they effect my paintings. 

Sarah "Our Angel"

Sarah (Our Angel)  oil - 6 x6

Beautiful Sarah's life was taken from her but her spirit still lives in the family that loved her. Her Mom asked  me to paint this for a Father's Day gift for Sarah's dad. I can think of nothing quite as sad as the loss of a child  no matter what their age. Sarah was loved, and is very much missed every day.

Amanda

 Amanda  oil - 8 x 8

She is the middle daughter of my three daughters, but the last to have a daily painting done. Amanda has always been very photogenic so I am sure I will be painting her again. This photo was taken of her after she had been tubing behind our boat on the Middle River in Essex, Maryland two weeks ago. I really enjoy painting sunglasses on sunny faces and this was no exception. 

"Paint an Egg" Challenge

Reflecting Diversity  oil - 6 x 6

The Tuesday's lunch group met yesterday to reveal our paintings of the Spring Challenge to paint a painting of an egg (somewhere in the painting). Above is my painting of eggs I started painting at 7 pm the night before. Talk about procrastination! Eggs, I found, are not as easy as they look to paint but still a cool subject.  The fall challenge will be 4 months away since it seems we revealed the Spring challenge a month early (oops, my bad). The silver lining to having the spring challenge early is that we should have plenty of time to work on the Summer Challenge through the lazy, crazy days of summer. Below is the photo of those who attended lunch and a photo of the egg paintings with some painted eggs brought in to enhance the spirit of the challenge reveal.

We all had a wonderful time and are looking forward to our next challenge, selected this time, by Jodi. Thanks Jodi! 

Seasonal Challenge: Summer

Limited Pallet: primary colors, a warm and cool selection of each and white 

Rules:

You must paint an painting using only the colors you mix from the limited pallet of a: 

"warm" and "cool" Red

"warm" and "cool" Blue

"warm" and "cool" Yellow

and white

So an example of your pallet might be:

alizarin red

cadmium red

ultramarine blue

cerulean  blue

indian yellow

yellow ocher 

white

You are not limited on your subject.

Have fun!

We will meet at Chef Lin's, in Frederick, MD, on October 4, 2011, at 12:30 to reveal our paintings.