Reference Photos & Summertime

When I started painting, I painted from still lifes or outside.  Then, I gradually moved to painting from reference photos.  I found that my paintings from photos were looking stilted and fussy (at least for me) since I prefer a really loose style in my watercolors.  Over the last year, I've been working on getting back to a quick, fresh watercolor style by doing abstracts and painting alla prima. 

Now, I'm going to try using some reference photos as a jumping off point to design some paintings.  Why?  Well, we just returned from a western adventure, where the sky is big and the colors are amazing.  I didn't have my paints, but I had my camera.  Here are three photos that I'm planning on using to design paintings:

This is dusk over ID.  That's Idaho, not identification.  The oreground would be a no.  Sky is a yes. 

I like the line of the reflection here, against the line of the waves and the muted colors.

And this a sculpture by Richard Serra called Wake as a backdrop in the Olympic Sculpture Park, which is part of the Seattle Art Museum.  Aren't the colors gorgeous?

The trick will be getting time to paint, since it's busy in the summer!

Eggs Alla Prima

The title sounds like a breakfast dish, doesn't it? 

In return for a favor, I received six local chicken eggs.  They're lovely pale blues, greens, and browns.  I took some pictures--here's one:

 

It's hard to see the variations in the egg colors--it's overwhelmed by the wood grain in the table.

When, I went back around to paint them (different arrangement), I set the eggs on a white surface.  But, I made a poor choice for the background.  I wanted delicate, and I ended up with overwhelming--like the wood grain.  I also painted them alla prima (not drawn first), and I'm not sure that it worked well for something as symmetrical as eggs.


I'll try and paint them again, of course! 

Here's the finished version of the painting:

Another Small Abstract

This is a small abstract I painted using burnt umber, phthalo blue, carbazole violet, manganese blue hue, and permanent yellow deep.  The painting is about 6x8 inches.

This time I wanted to explore the bright yellow/orange against blue grays.  (This sounds like I planned it out--it's more along the lines of: I like blue and orange, let's me see what happens when.....). 

I found that I love the blue grays I got when I added burnt umber to manganese, it sets a beautiful mood.  I carried these colors over into an abstract I talked about here.  You can see the blue gray in the sky.

In the past, I've done some small pure color abstracts (see here), and I've found that the abstracts are helping me to loosen my landscapes and use more interesting colors (and see here).  Again, not always planned!