Day 59

Little Dust Devil

(6x8", Oil) Price: $110.00 SOLD

Sorry the reproduction quality of this image is a bit rough.

I finished this rather quickly last night. The preliminary painty sketch of the baby elephant had been done several weeks ago - before I put it aside in a fit of 'feeling useless' pique. I found the canvas again this week, while I was looking for something else. So last night, I thought I'd better put the little chap out of his misery and finish him. I swirled in the dusty background and foreground with a big Filbert brush and a soft blending brush. Tweaked a couple of anatomical points, and laid in fresh paint. It did hit me that this kind of painting needs to be done in stages rather than one single session. That's probably why I felt frustrated with it before: everything else in this series has been done in one sitting - albeit long sittings.

So I finally painted a cheeky baby elephant. He's having so much fun blowing dust everywhere and running around in it. Maybe I should work this up into a bigger painting sometime.

Palette consisted of: Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Transparent Gold Ochre, and Titanium White. Some big brushes and some little brushes: mostly Filberts and Rounds.

I guess I'd better go find something else to paint.
See you tomorrow,
Marianne

Day 58

Got My Grump On

(Northeastern Bluebird)

(4x5", Oil) Price: $160.00 SOLD

I painted this a couple of days ago. I wasn't terrifically happy with how it turned out, but it has grown on me since then. It's a very quick - for me, that is - painterly sketch of a fluffed up Northeastern Bluebird. Okay, so I think fluffed up birds are so cute - so sue me. It's probably a girl thing. Anyway, this little chap had such grumpy expression on his face when I first saw the photo, all I could think of was 'Got My Grump On' - hence the title. I changed the bird's circumstances and placed him in some foilage I took reference shots of two weeks ago in a friend's backyard.

Using the usual pretinted canvas, my palette consisted of: Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Lemon, Cobalt Blue, and Titanium White. I used a Size 2 Round fine brush, a Size 2 Flat, a Size 4 Filbert, and a Size 8 Filbert by way of brushes.

I do like painting birds. There's another budgie one in the mix, but I'm not sure where my muse is taking me at the moment. I guess we'll see.

Cheers
Marianne

PS: There's a new link on my links list today. My beautiful cousin Annie has a blog called Dyed To The Bone, and it is dedicated to her own extensive creative pursuits and her lovely family. Why don't you stop by for a look...

Day 57

The Grass is Always Greener

(6x8", Oil) Price: $100.00

I loved the look on this goat's face: very paintable.

I took a few different elements and placed them together in a new context. This was all painted in a single sitting. However, if I was doing this as a larger, multi-session work, then I would take several steps in glazing the fur on the goat to create the layering look. Also, I'd take more care with the flowers - in this case peonies. I did have fun smoodging the background as per usual.

The palette consited of: Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine, Titanium White, Sap Green, Transparent Gold Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Hue, and Permanent Rose.

I think I'll go back to painting birds tomorrow.
Cheers
Marianne

Day 56

The Puddleduck Family

(6x8", Oil) Price: $250.00 SOLD

Well, I've been trying to get back into doing several paintings a week, but it's been difficult with intermittent distractions. However, I managed to paint this little family of ducks... The original is a bit brighter than this image - for some reason, images post a bit darker on Blogger.

Anyway, it was a single session work, working wet paint into wet paint, so I got to smoodge the background and feathers to my heart's content.

The palette was made up of the usual suspects: Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Alizirin Crimson, and Titanium White. As usual, I paintin on a prepared and dry tinted surface: the Burnt Sienna, Titanium White, mixed and blended together.

What I haven't mentioned in the past, is the type of oil medium I use. For the last several years I've been using linseed oil with a dryer in it. Commercially it's called "Drying Linseed Oil" put out by Winsor and Newton. If I need to make the drying time faster, I add a little English Turpentine.

Anyway, another farm animal tomorrow.
Cheers
Marianne

Day 55

The Great Migration

(14x18", Oil) Price: $980.00

Okay, so I've been away for awhile. I got busy with business stuff, bad allergies, and painting THIS...

I've had this painting in mind since I saw the vacuum chamber nebula effects from the movie, THE FOUNTAIN last year. However, I only wanted to paint small uncomplicated pieces that weren't too demanding, so the more dedicated paintings fell by the wayside. Stress will do that to anyone's creativity. Things are improving, though.

The Great Migration took nearly ten days to complete, since I worked in extremely thin glazes and had to wait for each one to dry before doing the next. This is how I've always achieved luminosity in my paintings - whether I've been painting water or space, or just trying to achieve depth.

Stage 1 - Basic Tint. After gessoing and sanding back the canvas board, I began to tint the board with Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine. I used the Sienna in the light spots where the nebula and other light bits are situated. The combined Ultramarine and Sienna created the luminous black of space. Let dry...

Stage 2 - Underpainting. This sets up for the whole composition and tone for the nebula and surrounding space. Still painting thinly, I use Permanent Rose, Alizirin Crimson, French Ultramarine, Titanium White, and a little Cadmium Lemon to lay in the nebula and nebula off shoot. This covers any patchy coverage from the initial tint layer: you need to layer 'transparent oil paint' to get the semi opaqueness of space or other scenes needing depth. Except for the white, the colours above are all varying transparent paints. Let dry...

Stage 3 - Layering. Continue to develop the last details, brights and darks of the nebula. Spatter some yellowy-white for stars. Blur those gently with a blending brush. Paint in some stars, and spatter some more. Nebula basically now finished. Let dry...

Stage 4 - Whale Stream. Using Cobalt Blue and a little Titanium White, glaze in the blue whale stream, and blur with a blending brush. Takes about half an hour, but takes 24 hours to dry.

Stages 5 & 6 - Painting Whales. I took my time choosing references and painting each whale into the stream. They needed to be transparent or semi-transparent, to work the way I wanted them to. Painted in a dolphin too!

Painting in glazes is time consuming and sometimes finicky. One problem is that the paint dries flat and patchy, so before beginning painting on each new layer, you have to use a soft brush to lightly wipe oil into the surface to make the whole image uniform and bring out the real colour. However, too much oil will drip through the new paint if you're not careful, and ruin the effect when it dries: so be vigilant and use the oil sparingly.

Well, the now finished painting is still a bit sticky from the oiling in process used in the last few layers, so it will now take a week or so to dry properly.

Meantime, I should get back to the usual painting practices until the next big inspiration hits...

Cheers
Marianne