Sunflowers at McKee-Beshers

The sunflowers are in bloom this week and I was not going to miss them... even though it's close to 100 degrees out.  I did a very hot, very quick painting in the sunflower field this afternoon.

Although I was focused on the flowers right in front of me, in the photo it looks like out in the field one flower is head above the rest, "look at me!"

I worked on this a bit more in the studio to deepen some of the contrast -- necessary because painting in the sunlight blinded me to some of the flatness of the values.

Under the Whitehurst Freeway, from sketch to ...

About a month ago, I did a small sketch while I was in Georgetown, looking under the Whitehurst Freeway.  Today I decided that I'd head back to Georgetown to work on a larger painting, and as a first step, repaint the sketch in the studio onto a larger canvas.  My plan was that I'd take that partly-painted work and bring it with me to finish on site.

The weather isn't cooperating, so for now, the painting stays in the studio.  I may keep working on it there after all.

this is what I'm working on in the studio now based on the sketch

this is the sketch I did last month, painted outside

Reflection in Sunglasses

It's hard to resist looking at the images in mirror sunglasses.  This morning, I was struck by this one and had to paint it. Here's the painting in progress.

The final is on top. The big changes between its "almost done" stage and finish were: the change in the sunglass reflection to minimize the dark trees that looked, dead center, like an angry eye;  returning the slope of the chin to the original sketched in shape; a fuller lower lip; and refinement of the chair straps so they wrapped more fully around the metal bars.

Portrait

This portrait-in-progress is based on a photo taken in Bethany Beach in June.  I liked the strong light on our faces and clothes and I wanted to play around with portraiture, so here this is.  As far as likeness goes, it's not so important to me as making a good painting, but I have to say... there's some strong, easy to identify faces in here.  I plan to keep playing around with some of color of the darks -- I painted them in layers of color and left some of the blues showing through.  In some spots, the blue is exactly what I wanted.  In others, I may make some adjustments when I see how the paint looks as it dries.

Summer Visions

Small Painting & Updated Small Painting

This was my first take

This is the redone painting

This is a 5" x 7" painting I did today with the remains of the hydrangeas in my studio.  I am not used to small sizes, small brushes... but it was fun.   There are "daily painters" who challenge themselves to paint a tiny painting every day -- and there are a lot of cupcakes, apples, pears, oranges, you get the idea, that are being painted that way.

 I think I'll be back to a larger painting when I'm next in the studio.

Update -- I came in to the studio, looked at yesterday's work and took out the scraper.  The flowers were still pretty much as they were yesterday so I gave this another go.  What I hoped to do was take the ordinary and add some inventiveness, some feeling to it.  I got rid of a lot of detail and hard edges.

Finished arrangement

Flowers from a study

I have the study I did last week of clematis and hydrangeas... and I still have hydrangeas I can cut from my garden, but the clematis isn't in any shape to bring into the studio.  And it's rainy out, so rather than cut new wet flowers to bring in, I'm working from the study.  I don't have a photo of the set up, but I'd roughed in a large painting while the flowers were still in the vase and between that and the small painting, it's coming together.

This is the work in progress.  In the study, I didn't include the pedestal the flowers were on and the vase shape was kind of odd because I was looking down on the arrangement.  I'm taking advantage of the longer proportions of the larger canvas to include the pedestal and elongate the vase so that the ratio of flowers to other stuff (background, vase, etc.) has changed.  I am making more of the background in this one.... at least so far.

Dupont North Metro

Dupont North is a completely uncovered metro station -- no glass canopy, just sky above the escalators.  I think the contrast with the Bethesda under-the-building station is pretty dramatic, so I am working on this one painting to get it ready for the July show at Gallery B, where I'll have all the metro series together.  I just got it roughed in today.

Under the Whitehurst Freeway, Georgetown

I had some time early this evening to spend in Georgetown and parked under the Whitehurst Freeway to do this quick sketch in oil.   I'd seen an interview with the artist Rackstraw Downes in which he talked about painting under elevated roads like this -- he said he liked putting the weight into the top of the painting where there'd otherwise be light and sky.

I took this a bit farther and darkened the freeway underside more and brought up the light in the sky along the roofline of the building.  Not sure what I'll do with this, but I might be back in Georgetown quite a bit this summer and might have a chance to work on this idea again.