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Wings Over Winecountry, Colleen's place (2 Viewers)

Truly outstanding, Colleen! Wonderful that you have identified a niche that provides satisfaction, and commercial opportunity. I hope I live long enough to do that...! :-O My current focus has been on drawing skills, so I have been doing a lot of dry media and pen work, and portrait sketches (rather than landscapes and birds, which are my primary interests) - because I know the drawing skills will help the painting. I'm signed up for 12 weeks of once/week drop-in live figure drawing sessions as well as a couple portrait workshops. But I need to get back to doing the small painting per day approach on a targeted area like you have done here. The benefits to your work have been amazing, and very obvious.
 
Hi Colleen, brilliant to se you reach your goal in such a manner. The final painting reveals the progress your journey has brought to you and is quite wonderful. Rather than rest your straight back into another 100! Your progress has been remarkable to behold, looking forward to 2012 and seeing where it brings you...
 
This will probably sound corny but I'm looking at this painting in the low light of near sunset here. and it's surprising how much better it looks. It looked good before when I first looked at it but I think the low light accentuates the strong light at the top of the painting and makes it more important.

As so many have said, Congratulations on seeing this through to something that you're happy with. it will be interesting to see what happens from here.
 
thanks for all the kind comments, tho I've done some sky work I notice I'm a on a plateau after the last one and don't know where to go next so I'm kinda treading water here. Supposed to be 17 foot surf today so I'm going out maybe that will clear my head.

Ken, it's and old art gallery trick to get you in a chair in a room with a dimmer on the spot, and slowly dim the light and the painting( if its well done) transforms as the light get dimmer. like you did with the light on your monitor. Its all done with values, if they are there the painting will glow that way.
 
I know Im not posting but I do lurk here, I think at last I'm starting to find my path with the seascape, finding some new ways to work and leaving the nest so to speak....also leaving California. My new home will be in Oregon all along the coast to spend the next 2 years in an RV painting the sea.

I have a new website here and my blog will be there too. When my tour Brush with the Sea starts, I will be posting there a couple of times a week. And I have not forgotten my birds :t:

Two things I'm so happy about, 1. these are really the rocks of my area...rough new things just congealed lava really, not like the nice rocks of say the British Isles or the East Coast, ours are rough misshapen things that have eluded me for so long. I have a whole raft of techniques to do them that I will only share in classes eventually as they are too hard to explain. But a hint is to start with the Curtis book How to Paint Successful Seascapes, I've mentioned before, that will get you a long way. The other thing I'm happy with is I got all the water movement through the manipulation of the paint with my knife and soft brushes, without resorting to a liner brush and lots of details...it looks like they are detailed in but its the many scraped layers that do it. IE, I put the paint on and scrape it off it leaves ghost images and I build those up in layers.

9x12 At the Edge of Twilight oil
 

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I got an ipad this last year, and the golden arches of MacDonalds is everywhere and so is Starbucks and all have wifi free...but I will be more out of touch than a home wifi for sure.

I do have and iphone and it does not need wifi, but its a very small screen to see all the beautiful work....
 
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Thanks Ken,
everything is still in progress and there is more detail now that I think I will have in the future, the process is to learn how to create the look of some detail but not have to really paint it in if you get my meaning, to suggest just right and the eye makes it happen. The scraping technique lets me suggest foam trails, deeper water, more refelctions here and there without actually putting it in, so that gives more movement to the water. Eventually these are going to have more light and simpler forms, but I need to work up to that from my subject and distill it down.
 
Nice to know you're still here Colleen.

I've admired these seascapes since the start of your great Odyssey, they just get better and better.

Mike
 
thanks Mike, I think I'm really starting to come into my own now, I got the basics down and can start to plan and create my own ideas in response to what I see in Nature....its been a long haul...and in OR I can see some birds I don't see here, so I will begin to bring them more into my work. I want to be invited into at least one more Birds in Art show before I leave this life.
 
3 years later

I made the move of a lifetime and its paradise for a seascape painter. Not as many birds here tho. Here is one of the few I've done this year. Love watching these tough little ducks that hang out near shore

Harlequin Ducks. 8 x10 oil
 

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Nice painting...where in Oregon are you located?..I lived in Portland for a number of years,and visited the coast a few times every season,mostly around the Columbia mouth area.Great birding ,but never saw those beautiful ducks .Lucky you....
Regards
 
thanks Nigel...
M I live on the central Oregon coast only 5 min from the sea. I see these ducks at Yaquina Headlands and at the Jetty on the harbor, always a treat....they are so active and manage the surf like great body surfers.
 
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