The sun came out, the sun went in, the sun came out, the sun went in..

[JanB]

very annoying almost as annoying as getting my rejection slip today for the two paintings I entered in a show this past week-end. Anyway on to more pleasant things, the garden is beginning to come alive lots of growing going on as a result of all the rain, my TLC and organic fertilizer LOL. Normally I would have lots of tulips to paint but these are the only two survivors courtesy of the local deer herd
This is painted on birch coated with "orange" shellac, a very interesting surface. Not sure if I like it or not I have 3 more boards made up to continue to experiment with. All knife work, I like my new knives a lot, they are a better quality than the one I had and I'm beginning to get the hang of them. Also a few new colors on the palette today. They are colors needed for the Sovek workshop I'm taking next month and I thought I should get used to using them...they are cad. yel med. and viridian. Not finding the cad. yel med. especially helpful but I do like the viridian.

Garden I
9x12
birch/shellac
knife
1.5 hrs.

C&C Welcome

[nancymae]

Beautiful little garden path Jan....just lovely. Love the way that the flowers jump up over the path as your eye follows. Fantastic knife work!! What types of knives do you use???



Glad you could get out and paint today...and ignore the letters about your paintings!! That's what you have to do too...ignore those "letters"!!

Keep painting!
Nancy

[RI painter]

Very Very Nice Jan!
I like the sweeping feel that goes along the path and continues in the clouds
lovely
Jon

[JamieWG]

Jan, I love your bright and cheerful treatment of the foreground here! It looks wonderful. I do find the sky (particularly the color) to be a little less convincing; the foreground shows a bright sunny day, but I'd expect a clearer and bluer sky to go with that, and not quite so dark in value. (?) I dunno...What do you think?

So sorry about the rejected paintings. That's always an ouchy experience. <passing the Band-aids to Jan...> We all know they made a big mistake.

Unfortunately, I have to work through the first two weeks of June and can't make it to the Sovek workshop. (I'd have to miss the Friday.) Grrrrr..... I'll see you in July though.

Jamie

[JanB]

OOOOOH too bad about the Sovek workshop I'm still planning on driving out to Hyde Park for 1 or 2 of the days, one day at the beginning of the week one at the end, I figure I'll pick the days with the nicest weather.
Now about that sky...it was blue when I started and then got cloudy and overcast with rain clouds and now I have a painting with a split personality LOL...maybe I'll let it dry some and try one of Linda's glazes over it to brighten the sky. I'll post any fixes I make.

[coh]

About that sky...it's actually believeable, I believe. We've had the same type
of showery weather up here the last few days. Often half the sky is covered
by dark threatening clouds while the sun is shining brightly, makes for some
very interesting lighting.

Regardless, it's a very nice painting. I really like the way those 2 yellow flowers
stand out against the greenish yellow background...that's not easy to do!

[Bobbo]

what do you expect it is spring
i love these changing days
so much contrast around
you did well,love the sun lit foreground
against the steel grey sky

[JanB]

I think that most who live where it's rainy and very changeable in spring know that steel colored sky, but Jamie makes an excellent point some of the garden should have been darker in tone to show the effects of cloud cover and another section could have been brightly lit if a break was shown in the clouds with sun coming through. Rather than re-do the entire garden I attempted to brighten some of the sky hoping to indicate the presence of partial sunlight and brightness while keeping some of that "rain cloud" feel in the sky. Not a major change but enough of a value shift in portions of the sky to chamge the mood a little. Always fun to play with these things and see how changes make the work look different.

Garden I