The View from Friday

Ok well to start off this daily painting week my intention was to paint lesson 5 with Dan Edmondson which I am enjoying so much. I am learning to paint things that I would never even try to attempt, like a martini glass with a pear in it with grapes! YIKES. But that is later this week.

I am working on painting 120 paintings, some pretty good, some not so good but I learn more with the not so good ones.

Here is the first one. This one is an 8x8 on a linen panel.

Below are the abstract poppies that I painted at 11:00 the other night. I should never so that because it keeps me up but sometimes I just have to go into my little painting closet and paint to keep from going to bed. I never liked going to bed even as a child.

Then came this one that I thought was going to be so cute from the photograph but came out not so good to me. I am not sure why but I think the pink flowers are rather garish. I just didn't feel that little tingle that I sometimes get when I feel like I nailed it. I seem to get that little thrill more when I paint something from my imagination rather than from a photograph.
But my goal is to paint from real life and photos that I take.

Most of these daily paintings are 6x6 or 6x8--and sometimes 8x8.

These next two were painted the same day. Again these were just intuitive paintings and not looking at a photo.

This one has some collage tissue in the background. You see, I am reverting back to my "grungy" style but using oils rather than acrylics. I am really liking the oils now. I use water soluble oils as well as the regular oils. As I paint through my regular oils I think I will probably just stick to the water soluble oils.

The thought is rolling around in my head to do an online class on using these water soluble oils and paint some flowers and make a little masterpiece..because you know that everything painted in oils is a masterpiece!

Here is the one I painted yesterday. It's a 6x8 collage with oils. I enjoyed painting it and it looks like alot of other paintings I have painted. I always go to these safe background colors but I need to branch out and get adventurous.

 Ok, now for Lesson 5 of Dan Edmondson's class. I put this one off as long as I could because I was intimidated by the martini glass. Well it actually wasn't that hard. You just paint what you see and not what you think you see. That's easier said than done. Of course it helps to see him paint it also.

So there is another week of painting. As always if you would like to purchase any of these paintings you can do that at my website or Daily Paintworks.

Have a wonderful weekend and have a creative week!
I will leave you with this valuable and  oh so true quote:

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Weeks Worth of Paintings

I thought I would post a few paintings I have painted this week. I actually did this one yesterday.
One of my favorite artists and teachers, Kevin Macphearson, says in his book, Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color, to do 100 "starts" of paintings. He explains in his book that this is just a beginning of a painting. There is no detail just shapes with the base colors with the lightest lights and the darkest darks. At this point you don't finish the painting or lay in any details. This is what I did in this painting above. As you see in the reference photo there are many details and I have chosen to crop the photo to fit on my 6x6 canvas size.  I think this will be a good exercise for me because I tend to fiddle way to much on my paintings. I paint from the image on my iPad in Filterstorm app and blur the image and paint the shapes. Surprisingly it looks like something after the "start" is finished. Then if I have a good start then maybe I will have a better chance of getting a good painting. I have a really hard time stopping though. He wants you to stop and don't finish the paintings. It's just for the practice.

I posted this one of the "Itty Bitty Berry Picker" on FB so some of you might have seen her. I am going to try and paint little children but not their faces. I am not ready for that yet. This one was from an inspiration photo I found. It's just on canvas material because it's a practice painting.

This one was from a still life that my art buddies and I set up in my studio to paint. It is very blue-- Old Holland Caribbean Blue that is! And it looks nothing like the still life. The still life, as you see below, had material for the background and lots of folds and shadows. I decided I have a new policy--I DON'T PAINT FOLDS! Well...never say never I guess. It's just a shape so what the big woop.
 As you see I had quite a different interpretation.

Below is a interesting one and it also is just on canvas material (no panel) because it's just a practice start but I got way carried away and painted the house red.
It looked easy to paint but it wasn't easy. I fiddled way too much and it was only suppose to be a start.

And one last thing... I was very excited this week because Daily Paintworks picked this painting to be one of their picks of the day on their Facebook page. I felt like I had died and gone to oil paint heaven. Here it is.

One last thing...you know I just have to use my stamps and try to 

make these oil painting have a grungy mixed media look (it's so much easier with acrylics) so I stamped this pear that I had painted several weeks ago with my Harlequin stamp. The painting has to be dry to stamp on it with oil paint. That takes patience. I am learning patience as I learn to oil paint. 

If you would like to see more paintings please visit my Fine Art Website.

And also... Happy Birthday Lori!!

See y'all later---maybe next Friday I will post again and show you what I have done. 

Just Checking In...

Even though I have taken a blog break I sure haven't taken a painting break. As I said before I took the break my next goal in my art journey is to learn the ins and outs of oil painting starting from the ground floor up so I can learn properly. I have watercolor knowledge as well as acrylics but to really learn to paint what you see with the correct colors takes practice. It's fun and frustrating at the same time. I am still working on my 120 paintings and I am taking an online class with Dan Edmondson. He is teaching me some good tips that I needed to know about oil painting and he sends a video critique of your work. Pretty cool!

Below are a couple of the completed lessons so far. I am only half way through. I never thought I would be putting dark backgrounds on anything but it's so good to learn how to do that. I am certainly not anywhere close to where I want to be but so far so good.

I have also been building a new website and have been extremely busy with that. It is up and running.
Here it is:
www.marthalever.com

I will continue to paint and might check back in next month. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July yesterday and hopefully everyone is staying cool.