August 28, 2009 at 2:52 am (Painting)
Tags: brush painting, color mixing, contrasting colors, final project, painting medium, palette knife painting, shading, sundial bridge, theme project, underpainting, whiskeytown lake
I finished up my other two paintings for Art 155 today, and had time for an additional palette knife painting (thanks Greta for the canvas!). I had a little bit of trouble on these, especially the water on the Sundial Bridge. It spans over the Sacramento River, so creating the dynamics of the water proved to be quite challenging.
Water is ever-changing and really hard to paint!
Whiskeytown Lake also gave me some trouble. I was having issues getting the foreground done. I’m not overly excited about how it came out, but I am a beginner! I love how the mountains came out though! I think I need to ease up on the painting medium. I like how shiny it and alive it makes my paintings though. Very few people chose to use it, opting for liquin instead.
It looks a lot better after come coaching from my instructor!
Now I have my three paintings done, and am ready for the final. I am glad I took this class, even though I avoided it so long. As much as I don’t believe so, I got some of my grandma’s “artistic gene”. I’m deciding if I am going to continue painting on a regular basis. I am a Gemini, and we kind of become “Jacks of all Trades, Master of None”. I get bored easily, after I have achieved something. Only time will tell though 
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August 7, 2009 at 3:03 am (Painting)
Tags: 3 Shastas, layering, Mt. Shasta, painting medium, Shasta Dam, Shasta Lake, theme project, underpainting
For the last few weeks of painting class we are to paint three different paintings that are related. I chose to do various landmarks around Redding. The first one I started was that of the “Three Shastas”. Today I completed it, and I am very happy with how it came out.
I started with an underpainting of Alizarin Crimson. My instructor suggested using that, because I would be using a lot of green, and a contrasting color would look great coming through.
Then it was just adding layers upon layers of paint to achieve the vast number of colors found in Redding. I went through painting medium and liquin like there was no tomorrow.
And finally today I finished. The last thing I did was add water to Shasta Dam, and put some flower bushes in the foreground. I ended up using liquin impasto to create a thicker paint for that.
The other two that I am doing are going to be Sundial Bridge and Whiskeytown Lake. I started the underpainting of Sundial today, and will start Whiskeytown’s on Tuesday.
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July 23, 2009 at 5:19 am (Painting)
This painting assignment is to take us back to the way the old masters painted. The first day (7-14-09), we were to do an underpainting in a very light layer of Burnt Umber. The paint had to be very thin, so painting medium and liquin was used heavily. This first layer was left to dry until the next class meeting, and looks like this:
The next coat (7-16-09) was achieved by mixing the paint with lots of painting medium and liquin. The point is to layer and layer so you are able to look into the painting and have the under layers radiate through.
Once this coat was dry (I actually just left it for the weekend), more layers were to be added (7-21-09). More dimension was added to the limes, and more “transparency” to the pitcher.
The final layer was painted on 7-23-09. It was more detail work than anything, but still using the thin layers.
I used almost every color in my painting supply box for this painting. I did quite a bit of blending, because I wanted unique colors. I really like how it came out.
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July 9, 2009 at 2:47 am (Painting)
Tags: apples, blending, brush painting, contrasting colors, limited palette, palette knife painting
So this next assignment I was given a red delicious apple and a green piece of construction paper. For part 1 (7-7-09) of the assignment, my palette was limited to Cadmium Yellow Medium, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Red Medium, Alizarin Crimson, Viridian Green, Sap Green, Raw Umber, and Burnt Umber. I was also just to use my filbert brushes. The idea was to learn how to add dimension to a two-dimensional surface by adding warm colors to the front, and cool colors to the sides and edges. For my apple, I added Cadmium Red Medium and Cadmium Yellow Medium to the front and Alizarin Crimson to the edges (and blended it inward to the warm colors). I also blended Raw Umber and Burnt Umber into the edge to give it a darker look. The green background was to make the red pop since they are complementary colors. My painted apple looks like this:
For the second part (7-9-09) of this assignment, I used the same subject matter, but I was to mix my paint with liquin impasto and layer it on with my palette knife. I could use any color I wanted, but I wanted to keep it simple (thus I used the same colors). I did however, blend yellow and brown into the green to further my understanding of color blending. I enjoyed this technique immensely, because nothing had to be perfect. Here is my palette knife apple:
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June 30, 2009 at 2:09 am (Painting)
Tags: Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Medium, color mixing, greyscale, shading, Ultramarine Blue
I began an oil painting class this quarter to fill the gap between my chemistry lab, and my chemistry class. I have never painted before (painting rocks when I was a kid doesn’t count!), so I have gone into this class blind. It’s a beginners level, so I’m not so worried about the grade. I just want to learn techniques.
So my first assignment was to take my Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red Medium, and Ultramarine Blue and blend it to a grey shade (actually I volunteered my palette, so my instructor blended mine in front of the class). This assignment was just to introduce us to blending. After blended to a darker grey, Titanium White was added in varying degrees so we would have shades of grey. Then we were to paint and here is my result:
I think I did pretty good, considering this is completely freehand. It was not meant to be a perfect painting (it wasn’t even graded), and we had the option to scrape all the paint off.
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