Landscape Painting On My Mind

Warwick Barn, 12"x 16"


It's time to get back outside.  Yes it is cold out but not nearly as cold as it should be.   I haven't been out at all this winter.  I'm going stir crazy.

Marsiliana Update From Andrea J Smith

http://ateliercanova.com/workshops/workshop-calendar/landscape-painting-in-marsiliana Andrea has just put up a new site with lots of info on her school in Rome and upcoming workshops at;  http://www.ateliercanova.com/   Its brand new so it may have some glitches.

Class Demo,"Richard" Monday 1/25/10

As promised here is last nights demo.  The photo has a bit to much contrast and has some glare issues, but it will do for now.  I'll try to take a better one.

If you remember toward the end of the demo(I should have stopped 5 minutes sooner) I got a little heavy handed with my darks, it really hurts to see them today.  The painting didn't need them.  Sometimes you need to have a friend close by who will grab your brushes and run away.  I may try to fix some things, if I do I'll post it.

Sketch of Phoebe

Just wanted to post a recent sketch, to keep my New Years resolution to post regularly.

  While waiting for me to finish up for the day, my daughter often falls asleep on the couch in my studio. Sometimes I'm caught up in what I'm doing,  but often I do it on purpose so I can paint her.  There's a bunch of these floating around the studio. When I get a chance to photograph them I'll add  them to this post. About 8 x 12"

Painting In Marsiliana, Italy

    

My good friend Andrea J. Smith From Atelier Canova in Rome, is putting together a landscape painting workshop for this June.  She is an excellent draftsperson and painter.  You can see more at andreajsmith.com and at Atelier Canova.  Andrea has a knack for finding truly picturesque places to stay and paint. This year she found a castle in Marsiliana that Annigoni frequented.  She also asked me if I would guest teach the workshop. She and I would split the teaching schedule in half, that is one day I teach mornings and Andrea teaches afternoons, And then the next day I get the afternoon.  Its not completely worked out yet but that gives you an idea.  Andrea speaks fluent Italian which will come in handy and I can look clueless in any language, including English if necessary.  I will post more info as I get it but here are some pictures, Click to enlarge

 

An Experiment

The other day my microwave oven died. No tears! It lived a long life and served me well.  I don't mourn its death, I celebrate its life.  In that spirit I got out my home autopsy kit and ripped it open.  Inside was this beautiful blue fan.  In perfect working order and in no way responsible for his/her death.  So I thought I should paint it with one of its favorites things, a yellow onion.  These 2 paintings are not the final paintings, they are explorations as to how I may go forward.

Since they are of the same subject, it seemed a great opportunity to experiment with my approach.  This is not a perfect control, one has a more scratchy quality (more pronounced in reproduction), while the other has impasto due to a repurposed panel. Also, the compositions vary.  But I wonder if even with these differences there is something people respond to.

Do you prefer one over the other for some reason not expressed above?  Let me know what you think.

Click on the images to make them bigger.