Poppies II

7 x 5 inches, oil on panel

Poppies

6 x 8 inch., oil on panel

I went out in our front yard this morning with the intention of doing some yard work....but upon seeing these guys, my plans changed :) .

Spring Fun

detail of lid

Longhorn Red Clay, leather hard stage, 5" tall

Playing with some clay today.  I just finished prepping a new batch of surfaces to paint and I have a couple paintings in the works that I'll post soon.  But I have to say, when spring arrives, as it has, I get distracted by the mild temperatures and all the flowers blooming that I try to be outside all day long to play in the dirt, sit on the porch, go to the park... Thinking about trying some plein air paintings but first I need to get planting, prunning, and raking out of my system.

SXSW Wraps Up

This was my husband's set up at the Flatstock Poster Show.  In all the craziness of the weekend, I somehow only got one photo of his set up and not even in its entirety!  

Flatstock 33 - Mig Kokinda

His posters are all spray paint and stencil, mostly for music venues or film festivals. This was our 10th year of participating in it---lots of fun and lots of work.  Flatstock has been part of SXSW every year since 2003. There's also shows in Seattle, Chicago, Germany, and now Spain, but unfortunately we don't get to go to all those.  

Now that its over,  I'm resting and catching up on laundry and such, tomorrow I hope to resume my painting, drawing, and being able to post more regularly!

SXSW Color

I'm helping my husband at the Flatstock poster convention during SXSW.  The days are long so I probably won't be posting any of my work until next week.

Outside the convention hall there's a big table of legos available for any passerby who has the urge to build. My boys and I played there today for a few hours!

Legos, Legos, Legos

Sunday

Longhorn Red Clay, leather hard stage,  8" tall

detail: bunny head

This beautiful spring day led us outside to play in some clay.  My youngest son and I collaborated and made this bowl with a lid.  While I made the body, he created the bunny head with the two big teeth.  He also made a clay carrot (not shown) to go with it.

Two Lemons

8" x 10", oil on board

This was the other painting that I had brought home unfinished from the workshop. I decided to finish it last night and do a little experimenting. It's interesting painting objects that don't belong to you.  This was the first time in a painting that I used my fingers! I did this mostly on the lemons.  It's funny, but I was kind of dreading going back to this painting but once I started working on it, it was a blast. Painting is such a joy.

Plum and the Green Bottle

8" x 8", oil on panel

This is one of the paintings I brought home unfinished from the workshop. I completed it today---yay!
When I brought it home, the values seemed almost all the same across the painting.  The challenge was to make those objects pop out from the background.  It was a tough painting. The foreground is actually a bit  brighter in real life but I couldn't get the camera to pick up the subtleties.

Study in Four Squares

6 inch. x 6 inch, oil on Crescent Board

I had set up a still life to paint but felt I didn't have enough time for my goal of doing it alla prima, so I opted to do four 15 minute studies of just the bowl. I like doing these studies a whole lot.  It's a great opportunity to experiment and learn.  In between each square I clean my palette and sit back and try and recognize the problems with it and think how I might do the next different.  Then I change the lightening and position a little, set the timer, and try again.
The first two squares my palette was limited with my only blue being ultramarine and my only red alizarin crimson. The third square I added phthalo blue for the bowl, but not the shadow. For the fourth, in addition to the phthalo blue I added cadmium red. It doesn't quite show in the photo but I put a line of cadmium red just in the shadow where the table meets the wall and it glows ever so slight---really lovely.