Wanting to Get Outside

What a bummer! This fall the weather is not cooperating with outdoor painting!

Right now the weather is blustery and chilly and the temperatures have dropped to frost alert, it is full on fall. There was/is no happy transition from the hot to the 70s/60s, the temps just fell to the 50s with blustery 20 mph winds! No fair! Probably I could deal with the cool, but winds are a challenge to even the best painter.

Frida 2018, a work completed at home from photos

I have been thinking a lot about my recent art workshops and I have been back to painting portraits from life with my art group. At home, I also have been working on a portrait from a photograph which has taken me many many hours! I think and hope that I have finally finished the at home portrait, it took forever! Frida is the work that I have been working on at home. I got wonderful expressive eyes and I think the skin tone is good. I had trouble with the flowers, the bright big lovely fake flowers, so hard to paint! The flowers started too bright and with too much the same light color (no depth) I had to go back in and add the darks. I ended up changing the background from green to a blue purple with a touch of pink and orange on top. I wanted the dark hair to merge with the background. I also had a darker burgundy lip, but lightened it a bit as it was harsh with her light skin. The light top is not white but is white-ish in color, very light. And the shadow on the top has a touch of pink and orange as those are the flower shadows on her shoulder. Definitely I like this beauty, she is done.

Having done so much portrait painting, I do wish I could change it up and go outside to paint. I will look through my photo references to see if anything strikes my fancy for a landscape I can paint in studio..

Post Workshop Blues and Reds and Yellows

Small quick color study, plein air

For JK-- feel better, you are a good friend, let's chat soon!


Whew! I have just finished 2 weeks of art workshops! Sounds like a dream right? It was great, but it was also exhausting! Help, I am buried under a pile of laundry --woe to be back to household chores!

How did I manage to get myself into a 3 workshops in 2 weeks quagmire? Well, a workshop that I really really really wanted to do was cancelled this year and my heart was a little broken about that. I researched other workshops and found one in Wisconsin and one in Ohio. I was unsure what to do and which to take when my husband suggested signing up for both. His logic was that since every workshop I signed up for (all 3) in the last 3 years had been cancelled at least one of these would be cancelled. No such luck this time around, both workshops were a GO! Oh yeah and a figure workshop that I have been waiting to take finally announced its dates, and--of course, started the day after workshop #2. Ack!

Larger painting, unfinished

My first workshop was held in Wisconsin, Door County (Monday through Weds). It was very professional and really really good for me as an artist. It gave me homework and quite a bit to think about in regards to taking my work to the next level. This workshop forced me to focus on what I believe is my great weakness--this was tough to identify. I think I understand it, but still need to figure out how to address it and be more thoughtful about it in my artwork. The personal aspects of this workshop was important and valuable to me. I need to get back to work this week, to really paint and move forward to be the better art me. I enjoyed this class very much and loved making new art friends. I flew home Thursday, started laundry and packed my art supplies again, leaving Sunday for my next art workshop.

Small quick plein air study

My second workshop was in Ohio and it focused on taking plein air references and color studies and then making paintings in the studio. Good instruction, great ideas and I think this will really help my plein air work moving forward. This was about thumbnails but also multiple thumbnails (as many references as you need) and color studies, it was great to see in action.  I enjoyed it and made new art friends. Honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop but I felt my work was not as strong as I would have liked. I paint in the park, lots of trees and water typically but for this workshop we painted neighborhoods (houses and lawns). So, I was perhaps less inspired by the subject matter or maybe the lack of perspective training got to me.  I had hoped to be more proud of my work especially since I was one of the more experienced artists in the workshop--I got frustrated. I was confident in my equipment set up and color mixing skills, but my compositions drove me a little crazy.

Larger painting

The third art workshop, thank goodness was back in the studio I go to near my house. The timing of this workshop was not my favorite, but I love the Instructor and subject matter and had to take advantage of the opportunity. So, workshop #2 started Monday ended Wednesday, workshop #3 started Thursday ended Saturday--6 straight days of workshop mania. Yes, I was a zombie Saturday night.

The third workshop was Expressive Anatomy. It used up the most juice by far in that I was constantly drawing and painting from a live model! But it was so good, I actually felt that much of my work was fairly strong in this workshop! WOW since I have not taken figure drawing in a while! Also, I brought in my worksheets from the first workshop (what I need to work on) and discussed that with this instructor. She totally got it, and really helped me see, using my work as example, what to do to get it to the next level. I think for me the awareness helps, and now I will work with my instructors and mentors on how to apply it to my work!

So much done, so far to go but at least I am confident that I will have clean clothes for art tomorrow!
Here is hoping I can paint tomorrow and make sense of it all, wish me luck!