Seascape Next step.

 

"Shame on you,- told me my friends from wet canvas, -finish it!"

I guess I have no much choice, but do so, do I ? So, here is some updates on the painting. Particularly I worked on some more stones and clouds. Also, did I mention, I got a 24 colors set of Caran D Ache OPs to go with my Senneliers... like them and getting even more curious about how Holbein's fills... Mmmm... sounds very tempting! Caran D Ache at this particular painting I used to change color of sky to the shade I needed and also - for work on those stones. Like it... for the stones. Don't think I would like it for the water. Sennelier still the best.

And finally I managed to frame it! So, here is a final touch.

Paiting of the week.

For whatever reason often I'm starting to work with more then one painting/drawing on a time... Usually I know that some of them will take a lot of time and a lot of thinking and it will be SLOW. However some I'm trying to finish at time I gave myself... usually around a week or so. It could be half of hour daily or several hours... depends of time availability. It is something sort of "painting of the week". Not exactly a sketch, but something what started and finished in short period of time. This week it was seascape what I mostly did in Senneliers, but added just a hint of Neoplastels, mostly to change a sky color, since I have limited blues in my arsenal. Here how it came out. The only part I'm not totally happy with would be a clouds. I like the rock on the right (yes, once again - the rock!) and structure of water. New shapers were very helpful with it. mMaybe I will change the clouds, I'm not sure.

One of my first Pet Portraits in Oil Pastel and how it was done.

I like to work with my photographs and after all turn some of the best ones into paintings... Since I only have as much time and so many things to do (try to plane you day around 20+ dogs, two horses, party-time job, all hobbies and yes, family!), I'm using a lot of digital images as reference for my art works. There are several ways to go about it and I will share with you some of them, when I have some extra pictures of work in progress... This one was my second attempt to do a pet portrait in Oil Pastel. I used Sennelier Plain Air set and Sennelier watercolor paper. Reference image was one of the shots our Wire Fox Terrier, Zippy, heaving good time with his toy.

First I cropped the photo to the exact create exact prototype of my future painting.

I used a Photoshop to put grid on his photo and separate it on smaller parts, what will make reference easier to handle. I did hand drown sketch from reference picture

and then rendered it in Sennelier's starting from background, then putting a layer of white pastel on image of dog, as a base color and then adding extra colors (browns, grays etc). I used a small piece of my eraser as blender to mix up layers and create a coat structure.

This particular work was done in size about 8 X 10 and finished at one evening... (OK, let be honest - way after midnight!)

Progress with Waterfall.

After another evening session it started looking better. Still not finished, but getting there. Water has some more highlights put on it and some more colors embeded. I used blue, turquoise, pink, some yellows and greens to give it more volume and life. 

 

       

   Here is a a close up look at running water.

Same Painting, next step.

And here is next step, after I got stuck with this painting and had to ask for suggestions at WetCanvas Oil Pastel's forum.

Work still in progress!

   Why "Total Illusion" ? Simply because I like both - Photography and panting and also ultimately like my photographs to be look like Fine Art painting and on other hand my painting to be as realistic as possibly... most of the time. After all everything around us could be at some point real and yet, still be somebody's total illusion..  


   So... Here is my new project. And this is how it all started. Several years ago, I had a neighbors daughter coming over to help me with the kennel and play with my dogs... She was interested in painting I did at that time, so I gave her a canvas with sketch and offered to try my new watersoluble oils. She started her underpainting with big spots of color, but soon lost interest and picture never was finished. 
   About month ago I dropped at our local Dick Blick Art store to pick few items for some of my new projects, naturally we started talking about what I'm planning to do and I mentioned that it still big challenge for me to figure out about "American Art supply". For instance I know nothing about Acrylics and Oil pastels.
Sales Associate almost jumped up. "Oil pastels?!" We have a terrific set on sale, you should try them! I did. My mistake. I know it will cost me a lot. I returned home with my first box of Sennelier "Plane Air", tried it the very same evening, and felled in love. I did few works on a paper and then , while was cleaning up my office found that old canvas with sketch of rocks and waterfall.This is when decided rejuvenate and finally finish this poor thing, but now with oil pastels, since I didn't try them on canvas yet...
   Unfortunately I don't have a photo of painting, how it used to look when it was started in oil, but here is my start with oil pastels...