Still cold

The sun has started peeking in on us for the first time in a month (it has been uniformly gray) so I thought I'd go out and do some painting...The sun was certainly nice, but with the wind my fingers still went numb after a while.  Plus, after I roughed out the drawing, the tractor moved away so i had to kind of paint based on what i rememberd. That's what makes plein aire so exciting! Whee!!!

skull still life

Not actually a really skull - just one of them plastic models.  Complete with brain!  Although come to think of it, I'm not sure where the pieces of brain have gotten themselves to...hmmm...

St. George

A study of a statue we saw in the Grote Markt in Brussels last year.  The setting sun was hitting it just so..

Reverse engineering Anders Zorn

...or at least trying to!  I was inspired this weekend to do some master copies to see if a scintilla of his genius might rub off on me.  Ha!  Probably not, but still, it was fun and interesting. I wasn't too slavish about details/colors...

Master copies

Yet another thing I enjoy doing but don't do enough is master copies.  In this case, a copy of a piece by the amazing Nathan Fawkes.  (This link, by the way, is one of three, all of which are worth a visit).  On this one he posts mostly thumbnails...but they are the most amazing thumbnails!)  He does some really amazing work in watercolors and gouache, not to mention some jaw-dropping charcoal portraits.  They are not to be missed!  I should just take his online class one day.

In my copy, I like how the foreground turned out.  I kind of lost my way in the background.

...And here are a couple of really small but intimidating copies of Anders Zorn portraits.  I still kick myself because I missed his show when it came to the Legion of Honor last year.  It seemed everyone I spoke to, artist or not, agreed it was the most amazing thing ever.

Trees and such

These were pretty much just exercises...using reductive technique for tree branches - that is, scratching out the paint to get to the paper.

Well ok, these are clouds and not trees...inspired by a friend's vacation photo.

Shopping arcade

In Brussels last year.  It had been pouring rain and were thankful to drop in here.  A larger study from a photo. I was trying to go wet-in-wet while still maintaining some architectural details.  Some success here and there...The trick of course is to know when to let things dry and when not to....hmmmm...