Finished

The World is my Oyster

9" X 12"

Original Oil

The Wave

Notice the bluish teal spots in the the breaking wave. I am using the color to give a sense that the sky is reflected in the delicate bubbles.

A new painting

As promised, I am back to a wildlife piece.
The last oystercatcher piece I did (see blog post March 20th) is slated to for the
Wildlife Treasures Show
Nature in Art Museum
Wallsworth Hall, Sandhurst, Gloucester
England
which runs July 25th - September 3rd, 2017.

In this rendering, I wanted to show not only a different position for the bird but also paint a different treatment for the water. Rather than blues and greens, here is a chance to play with browns and golds.

For the crest of the wave I grabbed one of my least used tubes of paint, Rembrandt Deep Gold. Not sure when mixing it with burnt sienna, yellow ochre, and naples yellow if the metallic will read, but at least while working on the piece it has a nice effect. And, something I haven't tried before.

Finished

Cottages

14" X 18"

Original Oil

This and more of my new original oil paintings will be at the Louisa Gould Gallery, Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts starting May 24th.

There will be a special artist reception with live music Sunday, May 28th from 5 - 8 pm. 

I'll be there to show you my completed work.

The warm colors

Up to this point, I have been using cooler colors for the pink & green house and the pink & blue house. The reason I wanted to paint this piece was the contrast of the warm colors of the sunlit near house with the two other houses.

I am really enjoying these yellow and oranges.

Almost there. This has taken a lot of hours, but painting that lower left orange rocking chair made it all worthwhile.

In case you are wondering where these gingerbread houses are, they are in Cottage City, Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard. You can find out the history of this place with this link
 http://www.didyouweekend.com/content/gingerbread-cottages-oak-bluffs-marthas-vineyard
and this link:  http://www.mvcma.org/history.html

Tiny brush work

The upper pink balcony took a lot of tiny brush work. On my palette I have three main pinks mixed, starting with a base of rose madder, and am using them throughout the piece.

Some roof detail completes the upper right section.

Color

One of the tricky things of this piece is the colors. I spent a bit of time figuring out how to make this green.

Don't find too many fancy teal/green balusters in nature. I mixed several shades from dark to light in this color range to give the posts depth.

A Challenge

Usually after experimenting with a technique, my next piece will use some of my more usual methods and subject matter.
Not this time. With this upcoming show at the Louisa Gould Gallery, Martha's Vineyard, MA, I wanted to really challenge myself with a very complicated scene. (for those of you who would like to see more wildlife paintings, thanks for your patience. I'll get back to them after this one.)

Here goes.
The drawing gave me an idea of just how long this piece will take.

I am starting with the shake siding. It acts as a foundation and doing it first helps unify the piece.
This painting is 14" X 18" and I am using a Jack Richeson Toned gessoed hardboard panel with an umber wash.

Finished

Waves

24" X 36"

Original Oil

When I completed the white of the broken wave, the foreground seemed too cool. Since the last post I added some warmth (yellow ochre, van dyke brown, titanium white, and a little paynes gray) to the sand showing through the foam. I left some of the darker green/blue color around the edges of the circles and ovals to give the white foam a feeling of height.

Some of that same warm color was brushed into the cool areas of the broken wave.

I hope you enjoyed this journey with me. Can't say I didn't struggle with this new palette but I believe the painting and I are better for it.