Painting Spasm!

#106

 Another long layoff from painting, this time over two years.  I got the urge last week to try my hand again, this time at seascapes.  Not wanting to use new canvasses, and having some old paintings I didn’t quite love, i opted to paint right over them, lol.  All were 16”

#107

#105

#104

#102

 Just want to add this painting to the blog.  I did it just after the last three many months ago, but I see I forgot to document it, so here it is!  It was an effort to work on deciduous trees located in the right side of the mid ground.  Not bad...still need to practice.

More happy accidents ....finally!

It was a very long lay-off from painting due to selling weathered and detailed HO train buildings, and building and flying RC planes and helis.  Perhaps over four years?  During this covid nightmare I decided after building two new planes to finally paint again, ala Bob Ross.  A few weeks ago I did #99.  A week ago I did #100, and a couple days ago #101.  I was happy and surprised they came out pretty good.

#99

#100

#101

Blue Joy

Did painting #4 for 2015 today.  Loved the blues in the sky and water, thus the name.  This is my 98th painting since starting almost 6 years ago.  Still much fun and it is getting more natural and easy even with long layoffs!

#98 Blue Joy

Storm Approaching

This one was a struggle to get the sky done.  Originally I had very black clouds on the right side of the painting.  I finished the painting that way.  Then San came home and I asked her to look at it like always.   She really hated the black clouds, heck!  So I took another hour to scrape off the right side of the sky and replace it several times till I came up with what is in the pic.  It involved painting the left half in places to darken the blue evenly with the right, and to add more clouds to match the right side.  Anyway, it is done and my pal critic says it works okay now, lol.  Lucky the wave and beach went on easy today, and I feel good about my comfort level with doing those features.

I'd say this is my last painting for 2014, 94th in my career, haha.

Lakeside Chateau

Here is the painting I did for Andy yesterday.  This was per her request for one like J's (see #85 in right margin) but with a cabin in it, and still with a lake.  I feel good about this one as the mountains came out nice, so did the many layers of trees with misty spaces between them.  The cabin came together easy, and the grass and bushy area from the cabin to the shore turned out the best I've done yet.  The feel for meadowy hills is coming slowly, but surely?

Private Privy!

Why in the world Sue wants an outhouse in a painting, but I fulfilled the request today.  She wanted a painting like J's but horizontal, and she wanted an outhouse in it.  Andy already asked for a cabin in hers, so I guess she did not want to be a copycat.  Anyway, the whole painting came out pretty nice.  In fact San says it is my best ever, but I dunno about that personally.  It was fun though, and indeed a good one, just not my personal favorite.

My 92nd painting using Bob Ross'es wet on wet method and paints.

Painful Practice

I challenged myself to paint deciduous trees and grassy areas today, using a model painting we see at Momiji Japanese restaurant.  Would love to be able to emulate it better.  Gotta start somewhere so I ventured an attempt today.  Boy it was painful.  Results are so so, and I can only improve with more attempts.  The main challenges are to find the right brush for the technique, and to have the right consistency of paint.  Thinner paint sticks to thicker/drier paint, so the leaves and rolling grass need to be thinner consistency than the underlying dark paint.

Here is the model that I admire!  I'll get there someday...

Wave crazy!

#90 and #89, left to right

Having a ball practicing my wave action in my paintings.  Did the right one on Fri, and the left one yesterday.  Totally good fun.  I struggle on each one a little but the payoff comes soon when each painting is done.  These are both 16x20 since I have lots of those stretched canvases right now.  No two ever identical because I make a lousy copy machine.  Right now I am getting lots of color in these seascapes with the sunrise or sunset skies and then the beach and water color variations.  I have now done 90 oil paintings using Bob Ross'es wet on wet method, and his paints and brushes.  Works great for me!

#90, Wave Splendor

#89, Ahhhsome Waves

Back to oil painting, finally!

Gosh I took a long break from my oil paintings...my last ones were done in January 2014, so it has been almost 10 months since I held the brushes!  I just got into enhancing my HO trains from Feb to May, then put them away and flew my helis (some planes too) for the Summer.  Now we are into Fall and rainy days have commenced running together one after another.  When I walked this morning, some ideas popped into my head for my next painting, and I came home and got set up immediately in the bonus room, on the pool table as usual.  Here is what I produced today, not bad after the long layoff that made me wonder if I still knew how to paint!

Misty Hills

#87/#7 Sunset Solace

Just finished painting this one today.  The last two seascapes made me want to do yet another, but horizontally on the canvas, and sort of close up.  Not bad, my wave splashes can still use more refinement, but I am happy with the overall feel from it.  Good fun.  Did black gesso below the horizon, allowed to dry, then followed by liquid clear, and then pthalo green with some cad yellow in the center third of the ocean, and pthalo green with prussian blue and pthalo blue on the outside thirds.  There is dark sienna and cad yellow on the bottom third of the ocean, ie the beach.  This all is just brushed on any old way, as underlayment, and then the waves with titanium white are created over that, and blended, etc.

The sky was done first using the typical liquid white underlayment, and then creating the colors of the sky first, followed by layers of clouds.

This is my 87th painting using Bob Ross'es wet on wet method, and my 7th for 2014.

Surf at Sunset

I used a totally blacked out canvas (black gesso) for this painting, and it came out pretty satisfactory!  Had fun just being very loose on what I deemed a practice canvas.  Bob Ross did one on Monday, so I tried my hand at it.  One thing he did not say he did, but I took it upon myself to coat the canvas with liquid clear on top of the yellow, lavendar and brown that is below the horizon.  I did the sky first without using the liquid clear, and that made blending the sky very difficult, as I added white on top of the yellow, alizarin crimson, and lavendar/blue.  Next time, liquid clear goes on top of the black gesso, then the undercolors, then the white on top.  Hard to explain unless you paint with the Bob Ross wet on wet method.

This is my 84th painting overall, and 4th for 2014.  :)

Misty Falls

This is painting #81 for me, and my first for 2014.  I am pretty happy with this one.  I painted over an old painting, haha, because I did not like the old one and because I really wanted to just practice without restraint.  I wanted to do these leafy trees better, use a predominantly black gesso canvas, and get the perspective better via painting the background trees much smaller, doing so with smaller brushes and dabs of paint, and conversely the foreground trees with larger brushes and bigger branches of leaves.  Also I have not done a waterfall for a long time, so I tossed one in and played with that and the river.  I think this is my most successful result for leafy trees!  Might have to keep this one till I better it.

Blah

Felt good doing the sky, mountains, and distant tree lines.  Fell apart after that.  Failure to launch!  I think the prob was not using enough thinner to get the paint to stick when doing the Fall colored trees.  2 steps backward.  Better luck next time.  #80 overall, 9th for 2013.

You're Next!

2 New Paintings

This is my 78th painting, 7th for 2013, been a slow year for painting!  My other hobbies and new grand daughters keep me busy too.  This one I painted yesterday:

Winter Blush

And here is my 79th painting that I just finished today, 8th for 2013:

Seclusion by the Pond

The first one came easy yesterday, and I finished in a few hours.  Today's was a struggle towards the end, and I think I took 6 hours!  Oh well, still enjoyable either way.

Quantum Improvement

Created a new fave painting this AM!  I feel I made a quantum leap improvement in how I paint leafy trees and bushes.  Next one will be even better.  I can already see things to improve, but this one is a feel good painting.  Main thing to remember for me is to have very light touch and to use the right amount of thinner to highlight the trees and bushes with color.  Good step forward.

Heavenly Hues

This makes my 77th painting, 6th for 2013!

FINALLY Painted Again!

Gosh it was a long layoff.  I put my painting equipment away in mid January to build the Bravata, finished that a month or more ago, and have just been too lazy to paint.  I watched Bob Ross in the interim though, maintained a spark, and today lit the fire and finally painted again.  This is my own creation, using colors I had in my head during the layoff.  Will use them again because I love em....shades of lavendar and orange.  This one came out ok for the first painting in 8 months, but I do need practice again.   The colors are more vivid than the photo picked up.  I believe this is painting #76, and 5th one for 2013.

Sherbet Peaks

Autumn Snow

3 paintings in 3 days!  I just painted Autumn Snow, given that name since there are still leaves on the deciduous trees.  Anyway, I tried to create a painting similar to #70, which I gifted to Syl and Richard a few months ago.  I never can copy a painting, each one turns out different, but this came out pretty good and just a little different from the first.  I felt good doing this one because throughout the flocking of the trees and shrubs on the river banks, I was getting more and more adept at it.  I think the last three paintings are a step for me up to a new plateau, and I am pleased about that.

Frigid Peaks

Whoa Nelly, I painted two days in a row!  Here's my 3rd painting for 2013.  I saw Bob Ross do it on TV today, and tried my hand at it too.   I was done in just over 2 hours, some kind of record for me.  I wasn't rushing, and was surprised to see the time when I wrapped up.  It just went pretty well.  I got some more snow bush technique improvement today, first time in a long while.  Also the mountains were fun, as the snow white broke on long strokes like I want it too.  Things are getting easier, less mud mixing nowadays!

This painting is fairly monochromatic, using just prussian blue, black, van dyke brown, very little alizarin crimson, and of course white.

Mellow Creek

Painting #73 is Mellow Creek.  Bob Ross did something like it last Fri and I tried to do something similar today.  Brown mountains are challenging.  Deciduous trees are challenging.  Grassy meadows are challenging.  I felt challenged to say the least, but I want to learn so I took it on.  I scraped the mountains off once, the big tree once, and the grass meadow once.  After the redo's I am darn proud of the results.  Maybe I learned something and will do these subjects even better next time, lol.  Lots of fun anyhow, good therapy.  This is my 2nd painting for 2013.