There you have it. The January 2020 Strada Challenge is officially over. I don’t really have anything more to say about my experience this go around. I’ll just briefly summarize though: it was rough. I really wanted to present the collection as a whole and try to decide on my favorite painting from the bunch….
Category: Oil Painting
2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge – Week 5
Here are the final paintings in the 2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge. It is a huge relief to finally be finished. I honestly thought I would enjoy painting flowers more as the month went on, but I found myself struggling the whole way through. There are some paintings in this collection that I am really proud…
2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge – Week 4
Two-thirds through this challenge and I still don’t like painting flowers. I think I just need to accept that flowers aren’t my thing. This was a good challenge to do though. I was very intimidated by the idea of painting flowers and I’m not anymore. So that’s something. Every January I try to set up…
2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge – Week 3
Here we are, just over half way through the challenge. While I’m still struggling to some degree, I think I’m finally getting the hang of painting flowers. I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and not rush through it, but overall I think I’ve improved. This week feels slightly less horrible than the…
2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge – Week 2
After spending most of last year working with water media, it is genuinely weird to be back to working with oils. I just can’t get over just how oily it is. I’ve never been bothered by the oiliness of an oil painting before, but for whatever reason I’m really aware of it. Transitioning back into…
2020 Strada 31-Day Challenge – Week 1
The Strada 31 day challenge is a challenge hosted by… you guessed it: Strada Easel. The rules are simple: Complete one painting from life every day. If competing for the prize of one of 5 easels, post your completed painting each day to your facebook page with the hashtag #stradaeasel and the day. Official rules…
2019 Year in Review
This year was a mixed bag. It was very positive in terms of my art and getting back into the workforce and very difficult due to some unexpected losses. Overall, I’m grateful this year has finally come to a close. I’m ready for a fresh start in 2020. After nearly a decade of being a…
Revisiting an Old Painting Part 2
Here it is. Is it better or worse? I’m not entirely sure. In many ways I think it is improved. In other ways it’s possibly worse. I’m really proud of myself for taking a risk with this painting though. I’m a novice at palette knife painting. Without really knowing what I was doing I went…
Revisiting an Old Painting
It has been a while since I’ve done a work in progress post. It has also been a while since I’ve done any oil painting. Be prepared. The photo above is from where I left this painting in 2017. This week I busted out the palette knives and went to town. Already it is looking…
2019 Canyon River Runners Art Show
At the end of March I entered two of my paintings from my Utrecht Color Theory Challenge in at art show hosted by the John Wesley Powell River History Museum in Green River, Utah. Since the museum is about an hour away, it wasn’t until this week that I was finally able to visit and…
Utrecht Artists’ Oil Paints Review
*Not a sponsored post. I’ve always heard good things about Utrecht products but hadn’t ever used them myself aside from a few brushes I got years ago. Since I recently sold a few paintings, I wanted to finally replace all of my remaining student grade paints with artist grade paints and decided to give these…
Utrecht Color Theory Challenge Complete
For the month of March, I challenged myself to paint 30 6×8 landscapes using only a limited palette of Utrecht paints. I further limited myself to painting local landscapes from my own references. Going into this, I knew I would be challenged by my inability to paint convincing rocks and the very real struggle to…