Another Landscape...

9 x 12 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

This is another painting I did today of the beach here in Key Biscayne.  I am starting to see more and more that landscape painting is not my forte but I am still trying though.  Its difficult to do paintings when visiting family, when we go to the beach for some reason its easier to paint.  I am currently painting a couple small still lifes and will post them soon, hope you enjoy!

Landscape...

"Key Biscayne"
9 x 12 in
Oil on Canvas

This is a painting I recently did in Key Biscayne, FL.  I am in south Florida visiting family, and thought coming down here would be nice and warm to escape the harsh winter of Minneapolis.  Well, I got off the plane with the weather at 30 degrees, needless to say I was not happy.  I was born and raised in Miami and never experienced this type of cold here.  Finally today the weather warmed up to 70 degrees and was able to go out to the beach to do a landscape painting.  This is not a normal painting for me, this was heavily influenced by Norman Rockwell.  The other day I went and saw his exhibition in Ft.Lauderdale and it was so amazing.  To say that I was inspired is an understatement, the way he is able to play with broken colors and also with the blended areas is just pure genius.  If I can achieve 1/4 of what he did in painting I will be happy.  I really love how he handles the lighter areas with such thick paint and is not afraid to put it on the canvas.  I learn so much every time I see his work in person, there is nothing like it.  With this painting I just loosened up and went really thick in the lighter areas and played with the gesture of the stroke to give it movement.  I hope to do a couple more of these before I leave, hope you enjoy!

"Beets"

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"Beets"

12 x 16 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I started the drawing with a dry brush with burnt umber.  I went pretty quick knowing that the gesture was more important to capture rather than spending too much time articulating lines.

I then started to apply the paint, usually when I paint I like to go in sections and take it to a certain stage. Again I am not using any medium in the first stage of the painting, I am just laying down the primary colors and modeling them correctly to their form.

When I felt comfortable with the colors and the modeling of them, I then moved onto the background.  I know a lot of artist work the other way around, but for me at times this works.  I can easily bring the background in and soften the edges of the subject where it needs to be soften.

This is the result of my first session which took me about 3 and half hours to paint, I did not apply the darkest darks because I did not want them to sink in.  Primarily whats important in the first stage for me is to get the right colors down, model them correctly and play around with the edges.

This is the finished result after the second session.  I brought in the darks and it really unified the values, then I added more of the smaller details which brought it all together in the end.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Detail

"Il Siciliano"

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"Eggplant and Lemon"

12 x 12

Oil and Canvas Panel

I started this painting with burnt umber and again in a dry brush manner as I did with the previous painting.  As you can see I started also to outline the shadow shapes, just lightly indicating where there placement will be.  I don't go to far in this stage it depends if the painting is really intricate, but with this one I didn't need too.

I modeled the lights and shadows pretty quickly, I went section by section.  I first started with the eggplant enthen moved towards the top of it.  After I finished with the eggplant I moved to the lemon, I started with the shadows enthen moved toward the lights.  In this stage I keep the paints pretty thin scumbling in the main colors I will use, I used no medium just the paint straight out of the tube.

After I felt comfortable with the modeling of the lights and shadows, I started the background.  Its fun blending the background with the objects your painting, you can play with soft and hard edges.

This is the finished result after two sessions, the second session I went in with a little Linseed Oil and brought back the darks and also added more chroma to the lights.  Its fun playing with different textures and techniques when handling the middletone and lights for finishing touches.  Hope you enjoy!

Detail of the lemon

Tomatillos...

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"Tomatillos"

Oil on board

9 x 12 in

I am posting the process of this painting, I started right off the back with a dry brush no charcoal for the drawing stage.  Then as you can see I just started to apply the dead coloring stage with no medium, just to get the correct Hue, Value and Chroma.

I went pretty far with the dead coloring, but had so much fun with it.  Once I got the modeling right with the Tomatillos I then moved onto the background treating it the same way with no medium.

This was the end of the first session I had with this painting, I got pretty far on the first day.  It was fun playing with the lost and found edges, I kind a think of it as hard and soft lines when you do a gesture drawing.  Once I had the background in I was able to play with the edges on the Tomatillos and the background make it soft in some areas and hard in others.

This is the final result,  I hope you enjoyed!