Adding Depth

The shadows here create a feeling of depth and mystery.
    When I was a kid, we used to walk to an old powder mill in the woods. First, you hiked through two fields and a little patch of deciduous forest in between.  My dad could name all the trees. 

 

     "Look, that one's tulip poplar.  There's an oak, and that one is a maple." 

     If we walked with stealth, we might come across deer.  They weren't bold like the Texas deer, and took flight as soon as they got a whiff of a human.     

     this painting reminds me of deep, cool Pennsylvania woods, where barely a ray reaches the ground. 

Reflections

With this painting, I tried to show mist and reflections.  It's apparently a bridge in the woods.  I used the acrylics a bit like watercolor.

Jamaica Moon

Last year, we spent Spring Break in Jamaica. One morning, we rose early to photograph the sunrise. But I wanted to paint it as a moonrise. Using the photos below, I did a composite.

Grand Times

The most fun is painting with someone else. We are so intent here! The end is not a paper or canvas product, but a forged link over the time shared.

Beach

Beginning

Starting the background here. Got the people in with light blue.  I started with the sun and lightest shades.  

We noticed how there's a ghost sun in the smooth wet sand that is almost a mirror image, while the waves chop up the light in the surf. 

Depth and shadow

BIC - Matic Grip Mechanical Pencil, HB #2, 0.7 Reeves 451474 Reeves Oil Paint (Google

Yesterday, Krystal said this painting looked pretty much like someone threw up yellow all over a canvas.  It lacked depth.  So, I'm trying to remedy that with shadows.  It's a small painting, so a little hard to do much in a teeny weeny space. 

Painting the Ocean

I'm finding this to be a challenge.  You have sun (or moon) and waves and water.  You want to paint some people walking on the sand.  The sand has wet places, dry places, and foot prints.  There's the shoreline where the foamy little wave puddle slightly.

    It helps if you've recently seen those waves, dug your feet into the sand. If you can still see that the movement is constant and dynamic.  The clouds float, the surf churns.  I'm trying to paint this convincingly.  I want to hear the pounding and swish of the water, feel the wind on my face.  I want my little figures to brace slightly against the wind.  Their hair and clothing should be a little mussed.
     We saw a semi-professional photographer shooting a pretty female showing a lot of skin on the morning we snapped these photos.  The girl's hair was stiffly sprayed, her clothing carefully arranged.  I'm not going for that.  (Ahem!) I want to portray normal people having a good time chatting and slogging through the sand. They are enchanted with the sunrise and each other.  Then, there's the guy under the palm trees who is raking up the seaweed and debris blowing around.  He's amused by all the tourists, but this is a job to him.  He's willing to work at it, enjoying the coolness, maybe, but this is where he spends all his mornings.  His head is down, looking at his work.  He's thinking about his workday, and is a little immune to sunrises.

Light and Landscapes

Moonlight is a challenge. So is misty rays streaming through trees. I need more research to see how to improve these. A man who knows his way around an easel says, "There's no big secret to painting. Just paint, and learn as you go." I'm beginning to see the wisdom. If you don't know where you lack, you don't know what to research.

Great painting inspiration

I went on a trip, did a lot of sketching, took lots of water and sunrise photos. Ready to paint!

If regulations weren't so stringent on liquids in carryons, I would have found a way to take tubes of acrylics.

I am so very lousy at pastels.  But still, it was fun while relaxing.  Here were some of our views of the beach at Punta Cana:

The sea was an incredible pale aqua.  Had the surf not been so rough, I imagine the water would have been very clear.  One snorkeler told us visible was poor.  I imagine so!

 The sunrises were quite spectacular.  I thanked God for each day and breathed in all that beauty.

Bridge in the woods

I'm putting away all my paints as we're expecting company with small children in the coming weeks.  However, I started this water color-style painting. Can I really abstain from painting during this trip, then in the ten days afterward? I packed my sketchbook, then unpacked it.  Too bulky. And will it be too windy to sketch? 

Less Ambivalent

This is a quad I created for Dr. MG.  I like it better as time has passed.  Initially, I really disliked the red panel.  It was too...red. Loved the creamy yellow leaves and the blue morning glories.  I will have to revisit this in a similar project.

Bridge

I'm going to start a bridge series. I found a group of beautiful photos to paint. Here is the first:

The Bridge Builder 

By William Allen Dromgoole 

(1860-1934)

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening cold and gray
To a chasm vast and deep and wide
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The rapids held no fears for him.
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.






“Old man,” cried a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting your time in building here.
Your journey will end with the closing day;
You never again will pass this way.
You have crossed the chasm deep and wide;
Why build you this bridge at even-tide?”






The builder lifted his old gray head.
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There follows after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This stream, which has been as naught to me,
To that fair youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim —
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”