Day 2 of 30: Three Apples

Three Apples.  Watercolor.
Approximately 7 x 10 inches.

For the third January running, I'm participating in 30 paintings in 30 days.  It's hosted by Leslie Saeta, and you can check out the artist participating here.  I highly recommend it if you need some kind of push to get going.  It's an excellent exercise.

The painting above is from Day 2, and is the 5th painting I've done using the palette of quin gold, phthalo blue rs, and quin red.  You can see an example of one on my blog here.  Others are on Instagram.

This is also the 2nd still life I've done of late.  I usually paint without any reference, but every once in a while I need to loop back through a reality based painting framework to revisit shapes and composition.  I'm not sure it helps, but I struggle with getting almost too loose otherwise.

Here's to a great start of a New Year, cheers!

Three Trees and the end of 2016

Three Trees.  Watercolor.
About 5.5 x 8 inches.

This is my 43rd blog post of 2016 and, I believe, my 184 post all together since October 2012.  I aim for about a post a week, but some months there are more and some months there are less.  This month and the last, I've only manage about one post a month.  If you're interested, you can go back and check out my first post ever, which was a plein air painting of sycamore trees.    I'm maybe a better painter now....maybe.  I do happen to like today's painting better.....

I'm going to do the painting a day in January 2017, just because it's so much fun.  I don't know what I'll paint yet, or maybe I'll go in with no particular plan at all just to see what happens.

Here's to 2017.

Phthalo Blue RS, Quin Gold, and Quin Red on Kilamanjaro 300 lb cold press paper.

On Cobalt. Three Studies.

On Cobalt.  Watercolor.
Approximately 6.5 x 4.5 inches.

Three small paintings using the same limited palette of quin red, indathone blue, cobalt blue, and azo nickel yellow.

On Cobalt:  Barn.  Watercolor.
Approximately 3.5 x 5 inches.

On Cobalt: Sunset.  Watercolor and Crayon.
Approx. 4 x 3.5 inches