April 24, 2013

"A House and A Tree" & An Update

The critique for this early stage painting was that it looks like "a house and a tree." Can't argue with that.   Illustrative, but not a painting.  Time to do some scraping to unify it and bring it back again.
 

What's next is the updated version, still not done, of the painting after scraping, eliminating hard edges particularly on distant spaces and refocusing to look past (not at!) the tree.


April 23, 2013

Tulips in the Bishop's Garden, Flower Mart Painting Sale

Next week, I'll be participating in the National Cathedral Flower Mart painting sale.  It's May 3 & 4 at the Cathedral and there will be flowers for sale, paintings for sale, and artists out painting on the grounds.  I'll be there Friday afternoon with other artists.

 I've got four paintings done on the Cathedral grounds, and this one was done yesterday afternoon.  The Bishop's Garden is a beautiful, formal garden with sculptures and structures mixed in among the plantings.  The tulips were in fine form yesterday.

April 22, 2013

Garrett Park House

We had a discussion about simplification of the landscape, losing the details that may be seen on a shadowed side of a building... so I sketched this house this morning.

We'lll be back in Garrett Park later this week and next and I think I may play around with some new ideas, same house.

April 17, 2013

Small Outdoor Painting Project

It was nice to be outside, not so nice to fight with the perspective in this very simple little "warm up" painting.

April 12, 2013

Middle of the Night Painting

I'm sure there's some joke to be made about painting coffee at 2 am... I couldn't sleep, got up and went into the studio to work on the new cupping painting for Quartermaine's.  I went back to bed at 4:30, and this is where the painting is as of now.

April 11, 2013

Blossoms in the Studio

I worked on the cherry blossom painting in the studio this morning.   The top half of the painting is right where I want it to be.  I'm a bit less certain about the figures under the tree.  Time to walk away from the painting and see how I feel when I return to it.

April 9, 2013

Cherry Blossoms at the National Cathedral

 I painted this afternoon at the National Cathedral, where this huge weeping cherry was in bloom.  May 3 -4 at the Catheral's Flower Mart, a group of painters will be painting and and also have completed works for sale.  When I finish this one, it will be part of the sale.

There was a couple under the cherry tree and I couldn't resist using them as models.  They were kind of intermittently romantic... and she  was talking on her phone a fair bit.

I liked getting the Cathedral in the background.  Once I get a chance to look at it when I'm not sun-blind and hot, there may be some changes to come.


Anniversary Flowers

The flowers I got on April 4 are starting to get overripe, just a perfect time to paint them.  It's going to be 80 degrees out today, so I am planning afternoon painting down by the river.  This morning, I wanted to capture the anniversary flowers before they were too far gone, so I spent time in the studio.

The arrangement had a very wide variety of flowers, including super-fragrant stargazer lilies, sunflowers, gerbera daisies, white tulips and a few calla lilies.


April 3, 2013

New Painting for Quartermaine's

I started today on a new painting for Quartermaine's -- this one is for the Bethesda store and will be replacing a tired map that's up on the wall.  There's a set of plugs right below where the painting will hang, so it's on the narrow side -- 24" high x 36" wide.  This store doesn't have a painting of the cupping process, so I am working on one from a different angle than the one I have in the other store. This one shows the window from the cupping room that looks out into the roasting plant.  I think from the way the sketch is coming together, I'm going to exaggerate the size of the cups and pans of coffee in the foreground to make the perspective work a little better.


April 2, 2013

Studio Work Today

 I worked in the studio today on two paintings that were unfinished.  The landscape was started last fall, near Peirce Mill in Rock Creek Park.  It was insipid and pastel where I left off -- I went back into it today to bring life into it with deeper shadows, more contrast and a more varied palette.

The Jennifer painting is pretty much as done as it's going to be.  There's so much about it that works well now ... and still there's a lot I'm going to be thinking about next time I've got a model to work from.

Outdoor painting should have started already, but it's too cold and windy (mostly too windy).  I'm hoping to get to the gardens at the National Cathedral later this week to get started on work for the Flower Mart art exhibit in May.