Thursday, May 25, 2017

Mount Olympus in May

11" x 14" Oil on Panel
Late last week I went to Olympus Hills Park in Salt Lake City for another visit with Mount Olympus. This painting was made just outside the outfield fence of the south softball diamond. I had plans to paint from right field again, but some kids were already batting a ball around on the diamond when I got there, so they had first dibs. Just outside the chain link fence worked just fine for me. I was a little worried about the weather clouding completely over, but the wonderful partly cloudy skies held out all day. It was a great day to be outside.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Portrait Model with Red Hair

8" x 6" Oil on Panel
This week's post shows the painting I made at last Thursday's portrait session. I arrived late, but so did the model so I didn't really lose any time. There was even a good spot for me to set up my paintbox and easel. 

Colors used were slightly different this time. I mistook a tube of naples yellow for a different yellow and accidentally squeezed some onto my palette before realizing the mistake. Then I thought "Why not try it?" and found it to be a very good color to use in light skin tones. Other colors used were cadmium yellow lemon, cadmium red purple, and ivory black.

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Throwback...Tuesday?

Colored Pencil on Paper
Not just a throwback, but a throw way back. This goes back to the time when I drew with colored pencils. It goes back to when I would roam forest and fields with a Pentax 35mm SLR film camera photographing wildflowers and wild fauna. Then I would send the negatives somewhere to get developed and prints made, and have to wait to see how the pictures turned out. Sometimes I would sit in the grass and sketch using colored pencils. Back then sketching was faster than photography.

Late in the Summer monarch butterflies would migrate through the region of Pennsylvania where I lived, refueling in fields full of goldenrod and joe-pie weed. Butterflies don't sit for sketches very well, so for the drawing shown above I used various photos of monarch butterflies, goldenrod, etc., that I had taken with the old SLR on a few of my wild wanderings.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

A Couple Portraits From Early May

8" x 6" Oil on Panel
It's been a little while since I've done any portrait sketches from life. The first image in this post shows the portrait I did last Thursday at Casey Childs studio. Colors used were yellow ochre, cadmium red purple, ivory black, and titanium white. That is, all except for the necklace pendant. There was no way I could get the color of that pendant with a Zorn(ish) palette. After trying once or twice to change it into something else, I gave in and squeezed a dab of Holbein's "permanent green" (a hue which contains phthalo green) onto my palette, using that color for the necklace pendant only.

8" x 6" Oil on Panel
The second image shows the portrait I painted the day before at Howard Lyon's studio. That day I was in the mood to paint the shadow side of the subject with only a little rim lighting visible. Colors used were yellow ochre, cadmium red, ivory black, and titanium white.

For more about portrait sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "portrait", "sketching" or "drawing.