Post Your Dailies here...120 Paintings

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Tresgatos

Managed to do a plein air painting today of some Iris I have growing in my garden. Tried to remember everything one needs This is one of the few plein air paintings I've attempted.

good for you!!! You need to cultivate a habit of more attempts painting fro life...

Painted on a 11 x 14 sheet of primed canvas taped to a board - left 1 1/2 inches around edge just in case I might want to put it on stretcher - kind of after the fact - does that work??

If you have enough material around the image, sure...but don't "stretch" as in applying it too tight. The paint rooted in the ground and the weave...drying to a unit. Taut...but not beyond.

The other solution is to adhere it to a piece of hardboard or masonite with a ph neutral acid glue...or even acrylic medium.

Anyway, I am also starting to work with WN water soluble oil paints and used some drier in it. I guess I can consider this one of the 120 paintings - have some others I've done in my "studio" but haven't posted them here yet. Can't manage to do one a day but am painting a lot more than I had been.

If you noticed on the image I share in the 120 Paintings session, Jeff was painting on average about three such smaller studies per week. Do what you can, make it routine so that you'll sense the loss if you miss doing it, which helps fuel the drive.


A simple criticism I would offer is when squinting the eyes...I see too close a value similarity in the lower flowers to the background behind it. Alter with color contrasts, value...play up variation. What is forward of the midground and distance must feel forward, even to the point of overstating..

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Dougwas

The cobalt blue dulled the cad red down. I should have used ultramarine to get a more vibrant violet red. Live and learn.

Even so, there is a harmony here...that was forced or imbued. I too would have sided with the Fr Ultra Blue...with the redder denominator..still interesting to see, and the exercise serves a good purpose even if for this reason.

This is painted on 5 x 7 cold press watercolor paper. I painted this without a drawing. The most difficult stroke was the first one. It may not be the most interesting painting, but it is my daily painting #6.




Doug

The orange being so dominant in its color...one suggestion might be to have a reddish-orange tone to paint over...such as a matboard, allowing hints of the color to come thru dispersed throughout the work, which would unify and tie the orange in, even a pretty dominant blue environment. Might be a study worth trying out...

good..!

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Journeyman

Just borrowed some pots from my friend Jill and painted this one while listening to the Rugby match on Saturday


6½"x5" Oil, palette Winsor Yellow, Red and Blue.

A good result, at least for the Rugby Wales won the grand slam

Dave

PS Thanks for the Webinar Larry the concepts and the way you are teaching and getting things over to us are superb.

Nice rich color, Dave...lookin' good. Thanks for the comment as well...appreciated

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Tresgatos

Here are some other paintings I did as part of the Artwork from Life thread. As long as it is from life I would guess that it would count - hope to finish up the two plein air desert scenes I did about a month ago - those are a real struggle for me - always have so much more to learn. I'll keep trying. I want to get some gouache and try my hand at that - looking forward to Larry's demo.

Barbara

nice grouping of work, Barbara...shows you have a good handling of the media..

in the last session, question and answer time...I gave what sounded (when I thought about it in hindsight) what might be construed a fairly negative response to why it appears I don't paint much with watercolors. Seemed I tripped, hemmed and hawed..

I'll share some of my own watercolor work soon...but my methods are a bit different. I tend to like using watercolor in my sketchbooks...to wash color over ballpoint black ink pen sketchings. There was also a short duration of excitement on my part when I purchased a book featuring Sargent's watercolors because when I did...I saw I was applying color with watercolor in a similar broken direct brush manner...which isn't really all that traditional where washes and such are taught.

These are fine...keep it up!

[Tresgatos]

Larry - thank you for your feedback - really appreciate it. I'll re-visit the plein air flowers and adjust colors to create the feeling of depth.

Barbara

[LarrySeiler]

shared this elsewhere, but will post here as well...
It came up in my last Go to Meeting a question as to why I may or may not do much work with watercolors. I have done a number of things...one, I do like watercolor washes over black ink ballpoint pen sketches in my sketch book...when I'm watching movies (a fun exercise)...or at conferences, meetings...etc.,



and...I also mentioned I often take stacks of paintings and wrap in Kraft paper, or just store in a hutch, and totally forgot about thirty watercolors I saw today. Took photos, and will include them in my session...but here is a small comp of a few. The sizes average around 6"x 9"...some 8"x 10" and a couple larger...



I should probably mat and frame a good number of them. What can I say...I do a ton of work, and forget about a good many of them!

Watercolors did not seem to suit my manner of working 'til I purchased a book of Singer Sargent's watercolors. His direct manner of putting spots of color down appealed to my alla prima maner of working...and proceeded to experiment straight away...

[libby2]

Here are my two paintings for this weekend, both are of the same subject, Round Lake at Green Lakes State Park. The first was using the split complementary palette. I'd gone out and picked up a color wheel, figured I'd been mucking around with the wrong colors, so I mixed up a pile of blue-green, orange, and left the red as it came from the tube. I also used viridian because of the green in the water. I just couldn't get what I wanted, it didn't work. Very frustrating. Time less than an hour painting.

Decided to try again the next day, thinking about it overnight I just needed to have some fun painting, so I went back to my basic split primary, but I would make a "mother" mud mix. As I was premixing the colors, I noticed that I was mixing piles of blue-green, purples, and browinsh-oranges. Hmmm. I had 3 piles of blue greens, one purple and a brownish-orange from Pthalo blue, and a matching set from Fr. Ultra Blue. Other than the extra greens, what's the difference I wondered....AH! I like to use the pure pigments mixed in, and mixed together when I paint. I also like - no make that Love - to use different piles of the main colors, in this case green, at the same time. I like to use "warm" and "cool" colors (as they compare to each other because I'm not good at seeing it in nature yet) to create depth. So I painted, had lots of fun. I also paid attention to my brush strokes on this one, previously I'd been using one that works for acrylic but doesn't in oils. You can see it in the tree leaves.

And I'm wondering how I can work backwards to get it down to fewer piles of paint. Maybe I can figure it out.

Here they are, #5 and then #6, oil, both appx 7x9, canvas covered board, preprimed a mid grey.

[libby2]

I'm from the LP, spending summers around Traverse City and Leland. So much beauty in the landscape there, loved the area. That was years and years ago though.

These are gorgeous Larry. I can see in the last one with your placement of color in the foreground that, because of contrast, how the blue stands out against the tans. And how the greens stands out in the water under the crests. You've mastered it.

You know, your colors look so clear and bright. I have to play with it more to figure out how to keep from getting the mud.

Originally Posted by LarrySeiler

we have a cabin in the Marquette/Negaunee area...and I've taught workshops up there as well. Love spending time around Presque Isle, Wetmore Landing..and the Pictured Rocks...

After a ride out of Munising to view the shoreline of Pictured Rocks...(about 40 miles worth and many many pictures taken later), I was inspired to try and paint the impressions of the water...

This was in 2004 where I was at the height of my using the split-primary palette, and I sought out and added viridian to my palette to help. Up until painting Lake Superior, the palette had served me well...but as said, needed to add viridian.

these three came from that 2004 outing and that palette...


then, after the 2006 commitment to experiment and try to exhaust the limits of a limited palette...I painted this one setup on location...now, the only blue was Fr Ultramarine blue. As said, I include the sometimes use of viridian in this limited palette...and Naples Yellow...(which I did here) and felt I did some justice to the color (of that particular day) of Lake Superior...

[libby2]

Thanks for your continued coaching Larry! I'm going to keep at it because I want to figure it out.

Now off to bed, can't keep my eyes open any longer...

Originally Posted by LarrySeiler

commended on your interests to get the feel of this palette strategy down. In the back of your mind you can bank on what Emile Gruppe taught, that near any color scheme can be used so long as the values are spot on.

There are two directions one can really aim for with the split-complementary palette strategy. You can paint the colors of the splits directly...but subordinate their amount to that of the dominant color. But...it would be like painting with red, yellow and blue...choosing say blue the dominant color...and then laying in pure and varied values of yellow and red.

I say that...because the gist (for others reading along) is to pretend that the splits and dominant are representative of the RYB colorwheel. IF yellow-green were the dominant color, then violet and red would be the splits.

To "pretend"... with those three colors, yellow-green would be the yellow of choice, violet would pretend to be the blue, and red the red.

Then mix your colors from those piles as if painting normally. Need green? Mix yellow-green and violet to get a proxmity/interpretation of green. It will appear greenish in context...and is a green that fits within the harmony of the dominant color yellow-green.


IF one can picture a particular light outdoors bathing everything seen, a red chair would appear how? Under a blue and white stripped deck umbrella?

Just clarifying for others following along here, Libby...this is good, and I give you kudos too for aiming on the brevity of brush control!!

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by libby2

Here are my two paintings for this weekend, both are of the same subject, Round Lake at Green Lakes State Park. The first was using the split complementary palette. I'd gone out and picked up a color wheel, figured I'd been mucking around with the wrong colors, so I mixed up a pile of blue-green, orange, and left the red as it came from the tube. I also used viridian because of the green in the water. I just couldn't get what I wanted, it didn't work. Very frustrating.

Libby...I appreciate your interest in the "split-comp" palette...but of the limited palette strategies, that is but one approach.

The simplest is just to use the limited primaries, sometimes viridian..sometimes Naples and from that mix as near you can the approximate colors...but in few necessary values...dark, mid, light and white..

The split-primary is a legitimate good palette...based on color temperature..but, would encourage you not to abandon necessarily what you might learn of the limited palette due to frustration of one of a good many strategies possible.

Tomorrow night, I will be sharing a number of such strategies in the Go To Meeting...

[Dougwas]

Here are 7, 8 and 9.


This is a 5 x 7 pastel painting and is painted from life. I went for the complementary pair of red and green.


This is a 5 x 7 gouache painting using a split complementary palette of cad yellow, ultramarine, magenta and perm white and is painted from life. It is painted on buttercup Pastelmat, a surface that Deborah Secor uses for a lot of her gouache paintings. I like it and have a good supply of all the colors, so I can see some experiments in the near future with pastel paintings on top of gouache under paintings



And finally, a small landscape painted from a photo I took behind our old house in Houston, BC. For this one I stayed with mostly a warm palette in the yellow/ orange/ red family, using soft pastels. It is also 5 x 7 and painted on brown Pastelmat. I am starting to really like this paper for pastel.



Doug

[LarrySeiler]

Doug...an assignment for you specifically. I'd like you to spend some time in the Plein Air forum and go thru some pages til you find Kyle...from Wisconsin. Your color...your flatter broader interpretation with the brush and shapes...I believe Kyle's work on location in Wisconsin would be totally inspiring for you. I want to know what you think? Maybe check out his blog....

[Dougwas]

Larry- Thanks for pointing me to Kyle's blog. I just spent an hour going through it and liked what I saw. The two things that stuck out to me were the simplified shapes and the broad brushstrokes. It gave me some ideas that I want to work on in the next few days. I want to get the gouache out and see what I can do.

There are so many different styles and methods out there and this challenge is a perfect time to try things out. Thanks again. I will be heading back to Kyle's blog and take another look at his paintings.


Doug

[LarrySeiler]

Good for you, Doug...and Kyle has such a wonderful color sense. He has grown much and come far in a relatively short time. Truly for him it was seeing those simple reductions of what is essential painting from life, and the poetic color that relates to mood...

I see some similar traits in perhaps your journeying...

[CaKatt]

Larry, Thank you for your presentation on Palette Strategies today. It was the first time I had heard of having a palette strategy and I am trying to wrap my mind around it How blessed your students are to have you as a teacher.
This is number one of my 120 paintings adventure and I thought it would be a good strategy to begin with 4 value studies. 5x7 oil on panel from a photo mostly done with a palette knife. It was a struggle to pare so much information (color and value) down to four values. It feels clumsy and awkward but anything new does.