I’ve never been a painter that spends a lot of time mapping out or planning paintings. I tend to just dive right into a painting. The majority of the time this tends to work out decently for me, but not all paintings work as well as I’d like. During a recent plein air class, I…
Tag: plein air
A Week of Plein Air Painting
It has been a week of plein air painting. I feel like it could’ve gone better, but I just so happened to get sick right at the beginning of this competition. Going forward, I think there are a few things I would change. First, I will definitely use a fast-drying medium if I do another…
2019 Strada 31-Day Challenge Complete
This challenge went better than I had anticipated. And I finished it. Woo! Compared to the first time I did a 30-day challenge, this time was a cake walk. I’m not totally sure why though. It could be that my subjects were easier, I was more practiced in daily painting, the fact that I didn’t…
2019 Strada Easel Challenge Days 25-31
Finished! This was a really hard week, but I was glad to have the distraction. Next week I’m going to do a final post displaying all of these paintings together and let you know which ones are my favorites. Day 25. I was surprised to find these mandarin oranges with stems at my local supermarket….
2019 Strada Easel Challenge Days 18-24
Only seven days left! I’m so proud of myself for making it this far into the challenge. I can’t wait to see what I come up with for the final week. Day 18 went pretty smoothly once I figured out the composition. It turns out it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to make…
2019 Strada Easel Challenge Days 11-17
I’m halfway done!!! Actually, more than halfway. Only 14 days remaining in this 31-day challenge. I’m having a dilemma. While I like the painterly look of some of these newer paintings and I can get them done relatively quickly, I’m on the fence about them. I think I liked the more refined paintings I was…
2019 Strada Easel Challenge Days 4-10
So far I’m really happy with how this challenge is shaping up. Aside from a couple of paintings, I’m thrilled with how the paintings are turning out. Today I’m a third of the way through the challenge and it has really flown by. The challenge I did last year really drug on, but I was…
2019 Strada Easel Challenge Days 1-3
I know it isn’t a very big reveal this week, but here are the first three paintings of the challenge. Out of the three, I’m happiest with the beets. I put a couple hours into that one and really pushed it to a more polished finish. Or it could just be that I love the…
2019 Strada Easel 31 Day Challenge
For the month of January I will be participating in the Strada Easel 31 Day Challenge featured on their Facebook page. If you complete all 31 paintings and post them to your Facebook page daily, you will be entered in a drawing to win a Strada Easel. The rules are simple: Enter the contest before…
Painting Field Trip to Canyonlands
This week I joined my oldest daughter on her class field trip to Canyonlands National Park. The school has a great “art coach” who goes out of his way to make art interesting for the kids and this field trip was entirely devoted to art. It was a 40 minute bus ride to the…
Sixth Apple Still Life – Sliced Not Diced
This is the 6th in my apple still life mini series. Only 3 left. Yay! I was pretty excited to paint this one since I just love the idea of it. Plus, with all of the cuts it was more of a challenge than some of the simpler apples in the series so far. The…