Apples

Oil on Gessoboard. 5"x7"

I've been under the weather for the last little bit. It's good to get back to painting.

Morning Pear

Oil on canvas. 6"x6"

The wind woke our dogs this morning, and they woke us. I wasn't able to get back to sleep, so decided to use the time to paint. I like painting in the early morning - a cup of coffee, a pear for my model, and I'm good to go.

Apple on Saucer

Oil on Gessobord. 5"x7"

This is another value study. I like painting in three stages. I think it gives me a little more control. The painting photographed a little better today. It's mistake for me to try to take a picture of a painting that's right off the easel. Allowing some drying time helps with reducing the glare.

Vanilla Cupcake

Oil on Gessobord. 5"x7"

One of the lessons learned over the past year is to slow down and to be more deliberate. Recently, I've been doing my paintings in three stages:

(1) the initial sketch in burnt sienna or burnt umber
(2) an underpainting
(3) the final painting

This allows me to place the values and gives me a bit more control. I've been using Liquin as a medium so that each layer will dry quickly.

Below are the three stages of the cupcake painting.

Happy New Year!

Oil on Gessobord. 5"x7"

Today is the first anniversary of this blog. The intent of keeping a blog was to journal my progress as a painter. My hope was to do a painting a day. I realized pretty quickly that posting a new painting every day was unrealistic for me, but the need to post something on the blog has helped me stay motivated to paint most days, if not every day.

I feel the constant practice has helped develop my painting skills. While I'm far from where I want to be, I think I've made some progress over the past year. Here's a painting of a coffee mug that I did in April. In comparing these two paintings, I can see that there has been some improvement.

While I'm pleased with the progress I've made, I still have a long way to go. I need to get better with color, value, line, and design. My resolution for 2012 is to become more disciplined in my practice. I also plan to include more drawing.

I'll continue to use this blog as my journal, posting observations along with my paintings. It will be interesting to see how things look in January 2013.

My warmest wishes for a Happy New Year!