Naomi and Friends

Here is our lovely model, Naomi, at the end of our painting session, with Blue and Gracie. She and the dogs made an immediate bond.

The day flew by and I didn't manage to finish my painting. We all took some photos though so I should be able to resolve it later.

It was fun to see everyone's different approach. I will post Alan's painting in the next day or so.

These two paintings are small. The ballerina is 9 x 12" and the lamb is 8 x 10". Both are oils.

I did the ballerina pretty easily, except for the face, which took many tries to get it looking ok. I painted the background in the ballerina in a few minutes. I never questioned it- just popped it in. Nice when it goes that way.

I panted the lamb in acrylics first and over painted in oils. I was considering leaving it as an acrylic but I wanted a really rich looking background. Then of course I couldn't get the background looking the way I wanted it at all. After fighting with it all afternoon yesterday, I left it alone.

Today I went in the studio, wiped out all the paint on the background, and started from scratch. Now it looks more like what I had in mind originally. Good grief!

We're hiring a new model and painting with some artist friends in my studio on Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, with a little trepidation. Working from life is still nerve wracking for me. However, this is my year to challenge myself so we'll see what happens.

We will have my husband, Alan and our friend, Kiff Holland there- both excellent figurative painters, so they can show us how it's done.

New River in oil

This is a big painting- 24 x 48". It's an oil and I have to say it was a bit of a struggle. My comfortable acrylic techniques for rocks don't work in oils. Some of the rocks were painted over and over. Still so much to learn............sigh.

Today my friend, Jeannie, arrives for a couple of days of painting and visiting. It will be great to have company in the studio.It can be a lonely place at times. On the weekend, Alan and I, and a couple of artist friends are going to paint from a model. Really looking forward to that.

The sun just came out, the bulbs are poking up and life feels pretty good at this moment

New Ballerina

I think this one is finished now. Took me a few days to figure out the skin tones and I was working in oil, which I'm not too familiar with. I'm torn between oil and acrylic right now. Acrylic is so comfortable for me- I have my systems, my colour recipes that I lean on and I can do them pretty fast. However I love the classic buttery look of oils- I think it's the direction I want to go in my work. If I don't keep doing them, I will never get into any kind of comfort zone.
I am very happy with this painting. I just love the pose- when I saw the photo, I couldn't wait to paint it. I definitely want to paint more people. It's exciting to be doing something new.
"Before the Dance" 24 x 30" oil

Here are two of my first ever paintings of a live model. I went into the experience fully expecting to be completely lost so I was very surprised to be able to do anything that was half decent. I really like the ballerina painting. The other one has some problems but still, I learned a huge amount while doing it. I learned a lot too, from watching, Liz, Gaye, Sarah and Jean- they did some beautiful work.
I 'm hoping to do this again soon. I never considered the figure to be something that I would be interested to paint, even though most of my favourite artists are figure painters; Sargent, Sorolla and Richard Schmid. It's a whole new world to explore.

Here's a few more pictures from the Sorento trip. As you can see, Blue and Lily were quite stressed by the event. I will follow this posting with a couple of my painting efforts.

Here's my painter friend, Liz Wiltzen and I, along with Lily and Blue, just before we drove up to Sorento last Tuesday.

I spent three days with Liz, Sarah Kidner, Jean Pederson and Gaye Adams, at Gaye's beautiful home near the lake. We painted from models, ate too much, tried to figure out the truth of art and laughed- a lot. What a gift.

I have never painted from a live model before so it was a huge learning experience for me. I will post a couple of my paintings, as well as a few shots of the group, later.