Ocean Waves

I finished my first painting at the Maggie Price workshop by lunchtime, so after another wonderful lunch I started a second painting. One of the other women was working on a wave painting, and I was a bit envious as I have long yearned to learn how to paint waves - something I'm clueless about!

But as I looked through my reference photos I found I did have a pretty decent shot of a wave I'd taken down in North Carolina, and decided to give it a shot. Some great advice from Maggie, but I'm still not very happy with it. Oh well, it's my first wave ever, and I'm sure I can get better at it with practice. Practice is the key, jsut as in most things. Like all my other workshop paintings this is on 9x12 white Wallis paper with an underpainting.

Today we had to do underpaintings that used only one color, but just 4-6 different values within that color. I chose turquoise for the color of the underpainting for this one, and magenta for my Beach Rocks painting.

Rocky Shores

Today was my second day at the workshop with Maggie Price. She gave a wonderful demo of doing rocks and water, so when it was time to do a painting of our own I wanted to do one with rocks and water too!

So I went through all the photos I had in my bag, and this was really the only one that fit the bill, so I went ahead and did it, even though this very scene is one that I have already painted twice already, both here and here.

But it's sort of interesting doing the same scene twice, to get an idea of how you, or your artistic vision, may have changed. And after the workshop I came home, loaded up the car, and began heading north for Canada. Right now I'm stopped for the night in Auburn, MA. By tomorrow evening I should be right up at the place where this photo was taken!

Misty Maine Morning

This is my second painting from day one of my workshop with Maggie Price. This was just from an old snapshot of an early morning on the coast of Maine. I can't even remember exactly where it was anymore. The snapshot itself is sort of dull looking, but I love taking dull photos and seeing if I can make them into more vibrant paintings. Like the first one this was done on 9x12 white Wallis paper, with a pastel and turpenoid wash underpainting.

Purple Haze

I'm taking a workshop with Maggie Price this week! She is teaching for 5 days, but alas I can only take the class for the first two days, so want to make the most of it. But today was the first day. Maggie was there with her husband Bill Canright. The weather was not conducive to working outdoors, so we worked in the studio using our own photos as references.

It was definitely different for me. We had to use white Wallis paper, and then lay on an underpainting lightly with pastels, and then use turpenoid to make a wash of the colors. I've heard some teachers suggest that for the underpainting you should use complimentary colors to the final layers. But Maggie feels you should use colors similar to the finished layer, but very bright and vibrant versions.

As she puts it - if you use dull or muted colors for the underpainting it's hard to brighten up later. And also she reminded us that one way of making gray is to mix complimentary colors. So that's what she feels you don't want to use compliments for the underpainting. You are setting yourself up for a grayish hue to your painting.

So it was fun to try a painting, with her critiques. I actually did two paintings today, and this is the first of them. This scene is taken from one of my photos from Greece, looking out over the Gulf of Corinth from the seaside hotel I stayed at for a couple of days, just south of the city of Patras.

Ocean Sunrise

This is another painting my March 2010 cruise to the Bahamas yielded. I've been thinking about this one for a while, and finally decided it was time to give it a try. I always woke up very early on the ship when we were at sea. Our cabin was on the starboard side of the ship, so we faced away from the sunrise on the way to the Bahamas. I had to get up early and get dressed and go up to the Sun Deck to watch the sunrise then. But on the way back to port in Jacksonville we faced east, and I woke up early in the morning and captured the sunrise right from our cabin. I'm so glad I sprang the extra $50 or so to get an exterior cabin with a window. Not only did I enjoy the view, but I got a painting out of it too, LOL.

Hydrangeas

It's been a while since I did a still life. But last night I had art class, and no real idea of what I wanted to paint. None of the reference photos I had with me really "grabbed" me. But Christina had the most glorious arrangement of hydrangeas set up in one corner of the studio. I loved them because they had so many colors! White, lavender, pink, blue. So I decided they would be my project for the evening. I have been getting lazy about working from life as I've been too enthralled with my landscapes (which I still love), so this was good practice for me.