Ambition

Today, I painted this little ceramic turtle.
I just visited my uncle mel's studio and
I think that's why I put a little more color
in this painting. I also was a little looser and used
more broken color passages than normal. I'm trying to
break out of my box. Emerson said " Without ambition
one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing.
The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it."
I like that saying. I hope to win it!

Variety of morning paintings

Watering can, apple and rock...
I particularly like the way
these colors harmonize.

a beautiful red apple
ripe for eating...

a little dragon and a marble egg
from ruth's curio collection. I think I
needed more time to finish this one.

Out in the Garden

a garden fairy....
I finally painted outside again. Plein Air painting
in the back yard. I just put my tabletop easel
on the ground and painted sitting on a log. The
sun was eventually shining right on me and my
painting so it was getting hard to see the colors.
I had to call it done!

red ond orange peppers
Back inside in my little basement studio.These
were very hard to get right. It's sometimes hard to
get the right colors, especially high chroma colors. These
peppers were very vibrant in color. It's also difficult to
get the values correct with bright hues like these.

a yellow apple...
My favorite kind of apple, yellow delicious.
I think this came out rather nice. I think
I'll hang this one.

Eggs leave a lot to the imagination....

an egg and some leaves
The light spot in the shadow area is where my dog walk over it. I guess he showed me what he thought of it.....



pear

Pears are pretty cool to paint. I had
fun with this painting.

an onion and some leaves
I thought I was mildly successful
with this little painting.

getting in some "brush" mileage

pumpkin pot and brush
I loved the color of this bronze pot
need to do another one to really get the quality
of this metal.

another one of my wife's window plants
beautiful greens and the pot was
beautiful shades of brown, but I don't think
I captured the beauty of that..
still searching for the depth.....

another of Ruth's plants...
I love the variety in this one. there were
some nice things going on in here...
at least I see a little more depth in
this one.

my pumpkin
this painting was huge(16 X 20) compared
to my other little paintings and it
was one of those ultra smooth prepared
boards...didn't like it... too smooth
and slippery

softball glove and ball
loved the texture of the leather
tried to convey that.. don't know
if I totally succeeded but it doesn't
look too bad for a 45-60 minute painting

an egg on a lego
I thought I'd paint an egg... wow,
I didn't realize how hard it is to
paint an egg. There is a lot of color
and reflected color in an egg.
Need to try one of these again..

reflective still life

bottle, banana and a tomatoe
Glass is always fun...
I love the reflective quality.

salt shaker and pepper mill..
another reflective glass surface..
I'm trying to paint light hitting
surfaces , need to push the illusion
more and see where it takes me...

brass vase and lego car
needed more time on this one..

a flower picked from my wife's garden
She would love for me to paint
all of her garden plants and flowers..so
I try. I used to really stink at painting
that kind of thing, but I think I may be getting
the hang of them, a little. Still have trouble
getting the depth sometimes. Need to really study
how light hits each petal or leaf and state
that deftly.

more daily paintings...

a brass mug..it had a hammered finish
on it. very hard to render...had to dab
little strokes of paint on it..kind of felt like
Monet.

a banana and an onion...
I didn't eat the onion for breakfast.
Some of these paintings probably
don't look real finished because I am limited
as to the amount of time I get to paint in
the morning. This one had too much in it
to get it all to the degree of finish I would have
liked. But it does force you to put down what
I feel is most important.

brass and banana
I love the warmth of brass but
it is a challenge to render
I like it's reflective quality and
all the colors you can see in it!

an apple, a knife and a rock
I've got to work on my lighting...
the florescent bulbs and my little lamp
create conflicting shadows

some of my early daily paintings

Here's some of my early daily paintings. Not all of these were done outside. In fact, most were done down in my little basement studio. I would love to paint outside more, but I have been doing these paintings in the early morning around 6AM and it's kind of dark still out on my deck. And lately, it's getting too cold to be out there.


just a little red apple...
I like the way the color of this apple affected
the color of the paper it was sitting on.
Again, I painted this and then I ate it!

a little ceramic scuplture
holding a banana and a paint brush
did this one at the kitchen table


a banana and an apple...
breakfast again....

a journey, a day, a lifetime starts today....

They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step so today I'm taking that first step. I'm going to try to do a painting everyday and post them up here. Maybe along the way, I'll gain a little more knowledge in color, value and composition. Hopefully I'll refine my technique and perhaps find myself in my art. If nothing else, I'll sure get in the "brush" mileage. And even though I'm starting this blog today, I started these daily paintings right after the BillyO workshop I went to at the end of September. He is a great artist and teacher and I am doing these daily paintings on a suggestion from him. What a great workshop it was! Not that I did the best work there, but I took away so much information. I know that it is going to make such an improvement in my work. I can see some of it already in my work. These paintings I did at the workshop!

I'm going to post some of the daily paintings I did since the workshop......

Here's a banana sitting on a cooler outside on my deck...
I painted it then I ate it....