"Untitled", Acrylic, 8 x 10

Acrylic with a painting knife...

"Untitled", Acrylic, 8 x 10

Monochromatic color scheme, Oil, 8 x 6"

A much larger boat this time: a Canadian Mariner. This kind of boats remind me of my youth. We use to spend summers camping along The Saint Lawrence in Quebec (Canada) and we would see these boats every day.

I tried to convey the austere and cold look with the use of different mixes of white, ultramarine blue and black.

Untiltled, Oil, 8 x 6"

Untitled, Oil, 6 x 6"

One more... I was limited in time and painted a small and simple version of the previous boats... I find it very difficult to stay loose (even with the palette knife) when there are perspective and straight edges implied in a painting...

Untitled, Oil, 6 x 6"

Untitled, Oil, 9 x 12"

The fishing boats again, in a larger format and with different color of boats. I started with the brush and finished with the palette knife on the water. It seems like I'm not getting where I want with these boats, so I'll leave it alone for a while...

Untitled, Oil, 9 x 12"

Untitled, Oil, 6 x 8"

A warmer overall version of the previous painting.

Untitled, Palette knife, Oil,  6 x 8"

Untitled, palette knife, oil, 6 x 8"

This is a palette knife painting using a reference picture of fishing boats from a trip to the maritimes a few years ago. 

Untitled, Palette knife, Oil, 6 x 8"

Playing with the palette knife and leftover paint

Every once in a while I like to play with the leftover paint on my palette at the end of a session. I start practicing different palette knife strokes and effects I can do, with nothing specific in mind and sometimes it starts to look like something and I go with it. I like to get momentum and make quick decisions and work with the result. I have a lot of fun doing that...

Palette knife, Oil, 8 x 10"

Ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and white

Another palette knife painting with only two colors (ultramarine blue and burnt sienna) and white.

Ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and white, oil, 8 x 10"

Quinacridone violet, cadmium yellow, and white

Another painting with only two colors (quinacridone violet and cadmium yellow) and white. There are not quite complementary colors but I like the combination.

Palette knife with quinacridone violet, cadmium yellow and white. Oil, 8 x 10".

complementary colors...

This was inspired by an exercise in Margaret Kessler's book ("Color Harmony in your Paintings")  on using complementary colors.  I started with a brush and wiped it. I tried with the palette knife and wiped it. I was about to give up... I took the palette knife one more time and forgot her image and did my thing.

Complementary colors... palette knife, oil, 8 x 10".

City Emergent, Oil with palette knife, 6 x 8"

Again with the palette knife and premixed paint, I wanted to be more assertive and looser with each stroke. My first reaction when I put the knife down was: okay that may be too loose... I went too far and I may have to go back the way I painted the previous one :(

I put the painting on the mantel and went to the gym. When I came back, I took a fresh look at it with a totally different reaction: I really liked it! It has grown on me since.

City Emergent, Oil, 6 x 8"

Urban Mirage, Oil with the palette knife, 6 x 8"

I wanted to exploit this design/idea further... and I still have two smaller picture frames with copper inset :)

For this one, I tried to keep moving at a steady pace: make quick decisions, stick to them and leave the stroke alone. I premixed my paint: about 3 different colors for each of the 4 values.

I like how distant the "city" appears in the background with a value closer to the value of the sky rather than the value of the foreground. I don't mind the roughness of the strokes either.

Urban Mirage, Oil, 6 x 8"

The last three paintings framed

Here are the last three paintings framed. The second painting had too strong a red and was competing with the copper inset (cf. the first and third picture frames). It worked better with the gold inset. These paintings are growing on me, specially the first one!

City Awakening, Oil, 8 x 10"

Destination Unknown, Oil, 8 x 10"

The Quiet Beyond, Oil, 8 x 10"

The Quiet Beyond, Oil with the palette knife, 8 x 10"

I used the reddish color (brown pink) again in the background but ended up covering most of it. I like the closer (but still distant) look of the city of this one. 

The Quiet Beyond, Oil, 8 x 10"

Destination Unknown, Oil with palette knife, 8 x 10"

I recently sold a bunch of picture frames. Some I used before and others always ended up back in the stack.

I often use coffee bean with a gold inset picture frames for my paintings. Not too long ago, I had also bought some coffee bean with a copper inset frames (picture below). Sounds good, right? Well, they didn't seem to fit any of my paintings. So I tried to sell them, but I still have 4 of them (I sold one).

In order to better fit the coffee bean with a copper inset picture frame (so I thought) I chose a more reddish color for this painting with a similar design as the previous painting. I lost some time struggling with the sky. It was fine and I should have left it alone. I was then limited in time to finish the painting and decided to skip the "buildings" in the background.

I like the overall warmth and peaceful feel to this painting.

Destination Unknown, Oil, 8 x 10"

Coffee Bean with a copper inlet picture frame

City Awakening, Oil with palette knife, 8 x 10"

Howdy!

This painting is loosely inspired by my last trip to Canada when I visited one of my sisters in her new condo. She has a nice view on the Ottawa river as well as some of the downtown buildings. She'd like me to do a painting for her new place. Something large (4' x 6'), abstract, neutral colors, with a lot of paint (palette knife effect). It doesn't sound like anything I've done so far, but I like the challenge...

While waiting for more instructions on the commission work and after spending a few weeks getting the house ready for sale (more on that in a future post) I was ready to play with some paint! It felt good!

City Awakening, Oil, 8 x 10"

Sunset on the Lake

This seems to be the time of the year where it gets harder to paint/post regularly for me. It happened last year and I tried very hard to avoid it this year...

Among other things, Ken (husband) and I are getting ready to do our 3rd ConcART (a piano recital followed by an art show/sale) and this needs some preparation. Ken does the piano part and my paintings are on display. So one of the things to do for me is to decide if I have enough paintings to show. I need at least 40 paintings and since they are mostly small (under 11 x 14") I could use more. So I have five different "piles": paintings already framed, those to frame, those that could use minor modifications and be saved, and the reject pile. Oh, and the 5th pile is the framed paintings without a title. :) So for the next few weeks I will be busy touching up some paintings, framing, and doing quite a bit of work on the computer to get ready for our ConcART-2010. Maybe I'll post some of the modified paintings if worth it.

Last week I was able to paint this one with the palette knife. I worked on it the first day for 4 hours. I should have stopped after 3 hours: I made bad decisions and got careless in the last hour. So I had to work on it some more the next day to try to save it. But it was not as easy to work with the paint that already started to dry and got sticky... My house critic and I are still not sure where this one should be piled.

"Sunset on the Lake", Oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14" (palette knife)

Quiet Fall Morning

This is the 3rd and last painting I did in the palette knife workshop. As in the 1st painting, I worked on graying down the background and adding more saturated colors while moving forward towards the focal point (left yellow tree :). I needed another hour to finish this one, but I had already taken one hour overtime on the workshop....

Quiet Fall Morning, Oil on canvas panel, 8 x 10"

Sunset Over the Tree Line

This is the second painting I did during the palette knife workshop at the Windberg Art Center. I wanted something simple to warm up on the last day, ... I ended up spending the whole morning on it.

Although the painting is not really about the trees, I like the way they turned out.

Sunset Over the Tree Line, Oil on Gesso Panel, 8 x 10"

Country Road in September

After working on house and computer stuff since the last post I rewarded myself with a 3-day palette knife workshop with Mike Windberg at the Windberg Art Center in Georgetown, Tx. I felt out of my comfort zone and I had a rough start on the first day. The next day it felt better and I had fun painting. I learned a lot and I'm still digesting all the instructions we got.

Here's the first painting I did in the workshop. I'm pretty happy with it! I like the back lit trees and their glowing leaves.

Country Road in September, Oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14"