Sunflowers and Blue Bottle and Pears

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This is a painting I did a few weeks ago, and have been meaning to post. Creating a still life in plein aire and alla prima was a double challenge. I had to work quickly. I had to be precise about what I was seeing. I had to really look at the values. I find this all to be very rewarding because my primary purpose as an artist right now is to stay loose and painterly. Plein aire and alla prima sort of force that to happen. When I work this way, not every painting is a keeper. In fact, some are truly bad. The ones that work out, however, are very satisfying to me.

Yellow Rose Surrounded by Apples

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I broke out the palette knife on this one as I strive to create atmosphere in my still life paintings. Again, I am trying to pay close attention to value and notice lost and found edges. This time, I also applied the paint a bit thicker than usual, and am very happy with the outcome.

Yellow Flowers in Glass Bottle

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I am staying at my sister's house for a few weeks and found these sweet yellow flowers growing on a bush in her backyard. I have no idea what type of flower they are and even tried "googling" them to find out. No luck on the name, but I am very happy with the still life. It is simple and quiet and peaceful.

Peony, Too

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Ok. So this is the same peony I worked from yesterday. It is just a day older and so the bloom is a bit fuller. This time I sat down and painted it, so the viewpoint is slightly different, too.

Yellow Trumpets 2

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After buying ($5) and studying artist Carol Marine's Artbyte, Value is Essential, I decided to give one of my paintings a make-over.  As Carol explains so clearly in this little tutorial, the ratio of darks to mids to lights is an important element in the success or failure of a painting. Armed with this information, I was able to "see" what was wrong with the original painting (below) -  too much middle-range value and, therefore, a rather uninteresting painting. When I painted the first one, I was very happy with the execution of the daffodils and glass, but still thought the piece fell short somehow, and I wasn't sure why. I think the new version is soooo much better, and as Carol states in her tutorial, we can be in charge of the values... and as I found out, at least for this painting, it wasn't too late for a value make-over!

Daffodil Blues

                                               
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So I am continuing to paint in the blue cast of north light. I am also making an effort to stop painting before I over work the piece and kill its spontaneity. I cannot explain the frustration I feel and cannot count the number of times when I've had something really glorious going on on the canvas and then just lost it because I didn't stop. Its like I know it is done but I put the brush back up to the canvas for that last dab, which inevitably turns into one more dab and one more dab and one more dab and stops at boring. So, for the next few paintings at least, I am going to stop sooner. If I am going to err, it will be on the side of almost done rather than over done.