Tulip in the works.....

A tulip painting in acrylic on a 8 by 10 canvas.  I don't have a solid good photo of this, but I wanted to share where it standing at this point. I am happy with it, but struggled yesterday. I painted in a lot of informal foliage at the bottom yesterday and I painted it all out in black by late afternoon.
With any subject matter,  you have to learn how to visualize what you actually see.  I had to dig out a seed catalog and find some reference photo of actual tulip leaves. That did help a lot.  I will let it set over the weekend and go back in a fine tune it.

In progress....

 This is a pretty rough looking painting, but I wanted to show you how these things take a lot of thought and time.  It is a Rembrandt tulip.  It has to be better defined and the background will be started tomorrow. I have always been fascinated with this kind of tulip as well as with parrot tulips.  I hope that I can bring it around into more than just a spot on the canvas with a diverse deep colored background of tulip leaves.

Spring.......

Spring

As I painted this work I was using all of my past memories of seeing farms in northern Iowa with their rolling hills. The barns are all dated if they still are standing at all. The wild plum trees line the fence rows, putting out great early blossoms then becoming an Iowa fencerow shrub. The fences are overgrown with new plants and the livestock are being grown in large feeder lot pens in Nebraska so they are gone. The painting could be in western Nebraska, South Dakota and also southern Minnesota. Our border's lines don't erase our similarities.  I will tweak it one more time after it has dried in and that I have been away from it for awhile.

A Painting in my Past......

This is a painting that I created many years ago. I am researching thatched roof houses and will try to create a newer version of a cottage garden and house.
It will be interesting to see how my style and skills have developed  from experience and more mature visual awareness.  All artist are in continue development of what they see around them and how they represent it.

Posted as done, but......

I have a couple of quick tweaks yet and then it will stand as is.

Silo evolution...

I said good bye to the front fence today as I thought it was too much becoming the center of interest. I am getting close to being done with this. There is a little tweaking that needs to be done and one last go over of the color balance.  I had a red roof on the little building to the right and somehow it is gone. I will bring it back. I may put a few more small farm things around on the ground.  I am getting to be quite happy with it. 

Still in progress......

 I haven't posted lately as I have been struggling with this painting. I am finding a soul in this one but am going to put it aside for a couple of days. I need to get some space from it.  I need to put clouds back into the picture and to study some of my color values and their relationship to each other. I blocked in foliage quickly and will probably rework it but wanted to have something in the foreground to see the balance of things.

A second painting in progress.....

I don't always do this, but sometimes it is best to have a couple paintings going at a time. It is so you can return to one and be more objective about what you are doing. I have read about artists who have up to ten paintings going at the same time.  It works better if you are working in oil as sometimes it just plain needs to dry out so you can get back into it.  My wife has to take days off sometimes to get any work done, as oil tends to absorb the colors layer to layer.


I am being brave here showing you a start of a painting, but I know that it interests you all.  It is a rough start and I don't have a handle on the color tone of the picture.  One just needs to block it all in to get the canvas white covered.

Day two on this work and I am getting a good grasp as to where I want this to go.  I still have some over intense colors that comes with acrylic paint.  One has to work hard to tone down such bright colors that are in the tubes.  I worked on the foreground just the past hour and I am so pleased with it. I will put in a few stray weeds and sticks and that part is done.  Again as with my Ragatta painting,  I am sensing a balance problem in the composition.  It will probably call for some wild plum bushes or trees somewhere on the right side.  I will get to that once I get the fresh plowed field to the correct color.

I really do want to finish up the painting with the barn and silo.  I may pick it up tomorrow and work on it again.  Thanks for checking in on my work in progress. 

Ragatta, Assembling to Race....

I just reworked this painting to it's completion.  I had painted it a few months back and I knew I was going to have to rework it.  I had it hung on the wall with completed paintings but it bothered me. I now can say I have finished it.  

My wife and I like visiting the North Shore of Minnesota, and as a couple of land locked Iowans, we are so fascinated with the racing of the sailboats on Lake Superior.  I really like the patterns of the sails against the blue of the water. 

This is an acrylic painting painted on a 10" by 20" canvas.

A Painting Is Started....

I have become motivated to get some paintings started. This blog is for the sake of selling my artwork but also for you to see things in progress.  Artist are human and even though we possess skills that will make it easier for some than others to paint, we still have to flounder around in the water, to complete a painting.

I started this painting out as a silo being the center of interest with a nice sky to make it stand out. I added buildings, imaginary, and then fence post are coming up out of the ground. There was a balance problem that I created, because I was lazy and didn't sketch it out first.  Another building had to be added on the right side and I am getting closer to the end.  I want to add a lot of simple details, the thing that takes it away from abstract to a little closer to impressionism.  It won't be that, but I am not a super realist. 


I must solve the problem of making grass that looks natural and not a color from out of the tube. I studied some pictures today on tv and in a book and grass can almost be orange on a sunny day.  I will work on my color values and how they relate to each other and the finished work will be done.