Four Paintings

Hey everyone! Got lots of new stuff just in time for Christmas! Spent a lot of time this semester painting people and things around our dairy farm. I had a great time doing these and learned a great deal more about color and value. Special thanks to my drawing and painting instructor Ray Bonilla who offered and demonstrated some great pointers and inspiration.

























I also did a painting of my grandfather. This was a difficult image to do based on the lighting, and I still think I could go back and fix this up a little (perhaps digitally). But I like a challenge and I really wanted to paint this photo I had taken last summer. I'm not much of a traditional painter, but the same techniques and rules still apply, so I spent a lot of my time trying to find the right values and reworking the way I thought about light and color.

Back to Painting

Started off the semester with some oils and acrylics. My challenge this year is to master my oil materials while still maintaining proper color composition and lighting. I started by sketching a photo I took of our barn last fall...


















I changed from a horizontal to a vertical piece because I believed it emphasized the height of the silo much better. I began the first part of the final work with my under-painting using white charcoal pencil, drawing pencils, and later black and white acrylic paint.

















From there I began painting. My greatest challenge for this painting was going to be keeping the sky as realistic to the rest of the painting as possible.


















This painting turned out alright. I'm happy with the way the sky turned out and the warm tone on the light side of the silo. I could go back later and fix those cooler ground colors. Overall, I think it was a good first step. Next time I will be working on a portrait of my grandfather...