Home › Forums › Explore Media › Oil Painting › Oil Painting – Hall of Fame › Oil-from-life challenge, Nov. 2018: optional "fall colors" theme (again)!
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November 1, 2018 at 1:31 am #464160
Happy November! Let’s paint from life! As always, feel free to post whatever you like — landscapes, portraits, figures, still lifes, whatever — so long as your work is painted primarily from life. This month I’m suggesting the same optional theme as last month: autumn colors! Fall is only just now arriving for many of us, so let’s try it again. As always, the theme is just a suggestion; post whatever you like. Four guidelines:
1. Please paint primarily from life — not from photographs or imagination. It’s okay to post finished studio works based on studies from life; in that case, please post the original study as well as the finished work.
2. Please submit something created either last month or this month, not something you’ve done in the more distant past.
3. Please paint in oils. That said, please feel free to post studies in any other medium, so long as you also post your oil painting(s).
4. Please list the size of your painting and support. E.g., ‘”8×10″, oil on panel.’
Optional: Tell us the title of your painting!
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Unfinished works, studies, and outright failures are all welcome. There’s no requirement that you invite comment & critique. If you’d rather post without being critiqued, just say so; that’s fine by me!
You can find older oil-from-life threads in the “hall of fame” subforum of the Oil Painting forum.
I hope you’ll all consider posting a painting or two! Thanks.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 1, 2018 at 1:36 am #720527I’ll kick things off by re-posting a Halloween picture I posted in the October thread an hour before midnight. (I don’t normally repost stuff, but I’m afraid no one will see the other post, because it’s about to be archived.)
Anyway, I started an hour before the Halloween witching hour, and sure enough, within an hour I had dozens of little goblins and ghosts peering over my shoulder. I had fun with this one. Maybe I should do a studio version with trick-or-treaters in it. “Halloween on Exeter Street,” oil on panel, 9″ x 12,” about 90 minutes.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 1, 2018 at 2:12 am #720563I’ll kick things off by re-posting a Halloween picture I posted in the October thread an hour before midnight. (I don’t normally repost stuff, but I’m afraid no one will see the other post, because it’s about to be archived.)
Anyway, I started an hour before the Halloween witching hour, and sure enough, within an hour I had dozens of little goblins and ghosts peering over my shoulder. I had fun with this one. Maybe I should do a studio version with trick-or-treaters in it. “Halloween on Exeter Street,” oil on panel, 9″ x 12,” about 90 minutes.
[IMG]http://s3.amazonaws.com/wetcanvas-hdc/Community/images/01-Nov-2018/97183-Exeter_St.JPG[/IMG]
This reminds me of how the leaves changing is so dang beautiful. I live in Hawaii, so we just get more sunshine.
I can’t wait to see what everybody’s doing!!!
November 1, 2018 at 12:29 pm #720528Thanks! More sunshine sounds good to me, lol. I visit Hawaii almost every year, and I don’t spend enough time painting there. Anyway, even if you don’t see any fall colors in the Aloha State, I hope you consider posting a painting from life here.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 1, 2018 at 12:56 pm #720549congratulations! how you must feel!
so very beautiful. bustling with joy in a balanced manner. this is too good to go into detail but doing just that. one element with excruciating exactness in values, the rest lighter, more playful, more personal – that for me is a perfect rendering. the exact one is a compass for interpretation inviting the viewer to that unique time and place; the eye then gets to do its thangg with everything else making sure the viewer stays. all the dapples bring magic, no idea why but the one in the middle of the road is The One. yea the brown one. it’s the value relationships. next to it is the blue triangle that gave an exhilarating joy upon discovery, these little things! i love the shadows on the road. and to finish off, you didn’t paint with oils you painted with fire. i’m gonna tell. 😀almost forgot, did you pay for parking when parking your easel during the previous painting?
C&C welcome
November 1, 2018 at 11:33 pm #720529Thanks for the kind words, Ronsu! Ha, I did paint with fire — it’s so fun to mix cadmium red light with cadmium yellow. A bonfire of the toxic pigments!
Yes, I did indeed pay for parking to do my Norfolk Street scene — grr. Four bucks. It’s hard enough to find a plein air site without worrying about parking too! I need: (1) good lighting, (2) preferably perpendicular to sun direction, (3) good compositional elements, (4) a good center of interest, (5) a spot that’s not too hot, (6) a spot that’s not too cold, (7) parking, and — the most important item — (8) access to a bathroom.
Today I parked on a quiet residential street, just one street away from the scene I painted yesterday. (Free parking, yay.) This orange tree captivated me. It got dark before I finished, but it’s a good start. I need to fix the street itself, which I muddied unnecessarily; do something about the dark spots at the end of the road; fix the overlap in some of the trees, e.g. on the left; soften edges generally; maybe add a figure or two or a car or two. I may do that stuff in the studio. “Exfair Road (in progress),” oil on panel, 16″ x 20,” about 2.5 hours.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 2, 2018 at 2:49 pm #720550yesssss! beautiful! the values are already there. can’t wait to see the full final version! under three hours tells me you’ve cracked this case wide open, Watson.
i’ll think out loud for a bit.
you’ve upped your game radically right before the big event, enough so to warrant strategies. maybe quickly gift these new ones, but hang them anyway with a red dot on the side and without price (“confidential, sorry”). you can probably slightly raise all your prices thanks to these late additions. it can be a hurdle to present developement right at the latest apex in one show, but it can above all be an ace up your sleeve. just carefully handle every reference to “the good ones” or “the best ones” being sold by happily, fearlessly and quite loudly correcting “the latest ones have sold yes, if you’d like to leave your contact info i can alert you to the next show/ invite you to my studio when the next five are finished” etc etc depending.timing is everything. yours is so good let’s say no more. 😎
C&C welcome
November 2, 2018 at 11:40 pm #720530Thanks, Ronsu! It’s been a great week of painting. I find that if I paint every day, I improve; if I don’t, I regress. There seems to be no standing still.
LoL, I’m afraid my contract with my gallery wouldn’t permit me to pursue your gift-red-dot strategy, but I appreciate the advice! I’ll just try to sell these along with everything else. Alas, I won’t be able to varnish them, as they’re going to be too wet, but that’s okay.
I watched a nice video on softening edges of trees and background elements — it was intended for acrylic artists, but the artist also repeatedly mentioned oils too. Can’t find the link now, but it was helpful.
I actually started another fall-colors picture today, but my session was abruptly cut short by rain. I have life class tomorrow, but I hope to continue it Sunday.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 4, 2018 at 1:26 am #720531Life class today, with a terrific male model who likes to wear a funky little top hat. It was the first session of a two-session pose, so I’ll get another crack at this next week. I’ve got some obvious placeholders around the eyes and jawlines, but I think I’m off to a good start. It’s already a likeness.
Hats are hard to get right, our instructor said, and he’s right: the dang thing is always too small or too big. Best to pick some landmarks on it and sketch them in, then finalize the hat later. I tried that, but my hat is still not right — it’s too small. Will fix next week! “Harry and the Hat,” oil on panel, 11″ x 14.”
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 4, 2018 at 7:10 am #720551ok so early days, but looking good. the light is very bright, i like it and i like the background blues face to neck, good choices but of course relative to now. the hat is priceless. the muses are taking good care of you at the mo. 😊
C&C welcome
November 5, 2018 at 12:30 am #720532Many thanks, Ronsu! You’re right about the muses. I appreciate all your support!
I did yet another one today — a painting of a tree on a nearby street. This tree has been pruned in funny ways, so it may not have been the best choice of subject, but I couldn’t resist. “Fairfax Road,” oil on panel, 9″ x 12.”
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 5, 2018 at 2:36 am #720517Excellent work done with fall colors, Grotius. I like a lot “Exfair Road” and even more the last “Fairfax Road”. Enjoyable to look at. The portrait is coming along very well. I can tell he’s a good model and it shows in your work too.
I don’t have fall colors this yr but I will try to post a couple latest ones of the views I have when I get back to my laptop in two days.
November 5, 2018 at 6:42 am #720552
beautiful! the reds on the right, the sketchy distant tree, but above all the light as expressive color on the road.. wow! the trunk to the left seems to cast a vertical shadow but somehow guessing you’ve fixed that already, and the bright green down right is delicious, my eye follows it out the frame looking for more! you could lie the color into that corner as sun dapples? the black has transformed your plein air, it brings a springing board to all the fireworks. spent the longest time looking at this, the interplay of extremes woven into one, your inspiration lighting it up. you really need to get back out again! something”s going on!C&C welcome
November 5, 2018 at 11:29 am #720536Moscatel, great to hear from you! I am really looking forward to seeing your latest work, so please do post it when you get back to your computer.
Ronsu, you’re absolutely right about the tree trunk shadow; I’ve since fixed it. The same session, alas, may have weakened the top-left of the picture. And I still feel that my tree leaves aren’t soft enough. I tend to get a lot of spots or dots in my leaves. If I try using smaller dots, pointilliste style, I still get lots of dots. When I take a blurry photo, I prefer the image. That suggests I really need to radically soften many of the edges in the canopies of the trees, leaving harder edges for branches coming toward the viewer. I just find that all so hard to pull off! Even branches may benefit from softer edges, though I’m not sure.
Anyway, I’d appreciate anyone’s advice on painting convincing trees.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/November 5, 2018 at 10:26 pm #720545Little still life- have been inspired to paint from life after spending Summer PleinAir painting. Previously, I painted from photos so this is new to me- but I’m so happy to be learning something new- and I feel pretty good about he painting too! It’s a 6”x6” on wooden panel. They are
Miniature vintage ornaments (my grandmothers) with natural light.Lisa David
www.lisadavidart.com -
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