roan mt. painting

My first landscape since college. Began painting last Thursday night and was 70% complete by Sunday night. I like the colors and the oddity of a rock sitting out in the middle of nowhere.

I was just taken in by all that green lumpy grass and the storm rolling in over the top of Roan Mountain and the layers of mountains in the distance.

I stayed pretty true to the photos in regards to mountains and trees although I departed more on color and took more artistic license than in previous paintings. I redid the clouds on the right side three times to try to give the feeling that they are arching over your head as opposed to be very far off- because although you can see the storm in the distance- it was also passing over top of us.

This was the easiest painting I've done so far- although I could have been more detailed- it accomplished what I was after at this point.

Snow Day

This was Jake's first ever sled ride and he got to do it with his cousin Breigh. He was a little scared coming down but you can see his reaction once his feet hit the ground and he wasted no time getting back up the hill. Later he went solo- which I have on dvd. What was funny is when they started taking turns- when Breigh was climbing up with the sled, Jake would lie on his belly at the top of the hill and reach his hand out to help her up, and he kept saying, "Breigh- take my hand, I'll be your hero." I have no idea where he got that from.

build-a-birdhouse

As a family project I took some scrap decking board pieces and cut them down to make a couple of birdhouses. I ended up having enough for three. I then let Brooke and Jake use the nail gun to assemble them (adult supervised) which Jake went to town on. Then they painted them, which I think Brooke enjoyed more- and today we put them up.

I don't know if the pressure treated wood is a problem...or the latex paint...or the wood shavings we used to line the bottoms...well- we'll see how it turns out. The main thing is it was fun to build and paint and install with wood that I was going to throw away. I'm hoping we put it to good use.

new paint #3

This one was a quickie- my wife's sister had taken a photo of brooke and jake for Christmas that I thought was really good, and it had a bluish tint which I thought was very cool so I wanted to do a quick painting of it. I just loved the lighting, and I wanted to do a face study- the critique on the last one was that brooke looked better than jake- and here I had a perfect shot of them both. I also felt that the last painting the faces were stiff, so I wanted to try to do something a bit looser, yet realistic.

What I'm noticing is that I have a pattern of; great start (really excited) then a period of doubt where it doesn't meet my expectations (so I struggle) then it seems to come together at the end. So the start and finish is great, but the middle part isn't so great because I'm still not quite there yet. I still can't get jake's eyes and mouth right, brooke seems to always turn out better- yet- going in I felt that in both paintings she would be more difficult one to work on.

I still struggle with the three parts- the eye, being able to "see" basic shapes and details but not getting carried away with details early on, -the color, being dead-on and the technique, being clean and not messy or sloppy. I've struggled with all three areas every time I paint- and I'm trying to avoid getting into doing super detailed art that takes months to do-