Spring, 10x12 and 11x14

These were painted about a week apart in response to having the Spring colors begin to show, the winter colors quickly fading.

There is such vibrance in the landscape as the greens start to poke through, and even the winter colors seem more intense and vital before that green appears.  My intention is always to spend every day exploring and painting the landscape but the reality of Spring is also that there is a lot that needs doing.  There never is enough time or energy for all of it.

'At the Head of the Harbor' (top) is 10x12 and 'Port Blakely Spring' is 11x14.   This second one was interesting for the challenge in all the doo-dads of the ground litter.  The only way I found to make it work was to eliminate about seventy-five percent of the stuff, just hinting at what was on the forest floor.  Hopefully the viewer fills in the 'stuff' from their own experience in a forest.

Maybe I'll go back again and explore the changes and colors...tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy.  That would be interesting.

I'll be back.

Thanks for looking!

Spring Snowballs, 14x18

Flowers can be so fleeting that several Springs can go by before I get around to painting certain ones.  It has taken a few years to get around to painting snowballs again.  My friend Debbie showed up and took some progress shots....thanks, D.  I'm sharing them below so you can see the steps.

In this painting I drew a little first.  Another demo, but one in which I didn't draw, I posted  HERE.

A few things to note:  When the flowers are drawn in they have square edges that reflect the planes of their shapes.  I then put a single dot where the center of the flower is which immediately establishes which direction they are pointing.

Another is, that since this was a fairly close valued painting, the first note of paint was the value and color of the sky.  From this I could judge what the rest of the values should be to describe the flowers but still keep them in light spring colors.

The photo of the source doesn't accurately reflect values or color....and there is no sky.  The day was cloudy and very cool. 

By the way, I have a plein air workshop coming up in July at the Winslow Art Center. 

Signs of Spring, 11x14, gouache

I uncovered this one about two weeks ago and showed it at my gouache workshop.  It was painted about this time of the year, but several years ago on a heavy watercolor paper.  With Spring popping out all over I thought it was worth sharing.....there's a similar one around here someplace that I'll probably throw in in a day or so.

The gouache workshop was fun to do.  There were a lot of people there with watercolor experience and to see their approach was enlightening.  In the past, most people I've taught have come from oils and don't do washes.  These people were having a ball learning how both watercolor and oil techniques can be combined, leaving the constraints of each of those mediums behind.  I saw some wonderful work....and it was only their first attempts at gouache.

Try it sometime.  You'll like it.