Wings Over Winecountry, Colleen's place (1 Viewer)

[colleenc]

thank you all
here is a one with 2 itty bitty gull marks in the right place and value at last, adding scale and not taking over...I HAVE arrived!

this is a new view for me and this was borrowed comp with my coastal colors
( what I do when faced with a new situation that I've not done before, so I can learn how to do it) I let this great painter Jesse Powell, be my mentor, I scraped it of 4 times, and it's greatly simplifed from his, what a master...I learned so much. His control of values is simply beyond the pale.

6x8 oil

 

[colleenc]

the strangest thing this AM a bird fluttering at my studio window, too big for a humming bird but hovering and pecking, then resting on the sill to do it again...I went over and it stayed there just inches away...a ruby crowned kinglet, one of the very few lbj's I know....then it went around the the other side of the cottage and tried to get in the kitchen window, resting on the hummingbird feeder, which really confused the hummingbird....I've never been so close and it stayed about 20 min until I took pity and lowered the blind, it's too cold to waste energy that way...I did a few quick sketches and also snapped a few photos...sheet is from the live view....

Isnt that strange, :eek!: it really was trying to get in both windows and did not shy away even when I was inches away...I thought maybe it was a little message from my departed friend, who shared a love of birds with me.

 

[solitaryVSong]

Your sketches are better than my attempts to get them for my first 3-4 years! They're very difficult. It may be the pecking was him attacking his reflection. That's pretty common bird behavior. We've watched Indigo buntings attacking themselves in the rear view mirror of a pickup trucks. I suppose if I'd been more skilled I would have tried to sketch it.

 

[JTMB]

I like both of your 'pink period' seascapes a lot, Colleen! I think the color works well with the subject, and is harmonized nicely in your particular pieces. You're probably familiar with Richard McKinley's amazing pastel landscapes (often done with a watercolor underpainting) - and Richard loves using violets and pinks in his pieces, to great effect. In one magazine article about him, a student was quoted as saying, 'Richard has never met a violet he didn't like.' It's true, and he makes it work extremely well, and it definitely is part of his style as a painter.

 

[colleenc]

thanks John...I know his work

Ken, I thought that maybe too, but went outside and the reflection does not show from the angle he was at, and since my windows are dirty and have cobwebs they didn't reflect well the way he was looking in sure looked like he spotted something inside he was interested in, he didn't peck so much as lightly tap trying to figure out what the barrier was..., was not at all agiatated.

 

[Strandman]

you must be very excited with these last few scapes- there's there's such a strong sense of a real scene again, in this latest at 1841

 

[colleenc]

I'm excited that its not such a struggle any more to get the basics set down, and I will begin to be able to pay attention to more subtle things on the larger works. Soon I'll be able to start real seascapes...these last few have become more like big paintings.

 

[Lykos]

lovely sketches....and the photo is great...the bird looks very astonished o

 

[colleenc]

yes and he came back for two more days tapping at the window


#99 long view, a study for my first full sized seascape, after one year and over 300 studies all together, I think I have found a pathway.

its so much better in real life, but I will add some more sky color to the sea, and work the foreground a bit more. Let me know what you think, I'm a bit astonished at this outcome, not what I expected to do but somehow maybe the first one I feel is really my work.

colors are more harmonious in the real thing, including a detail too, its such a delicate thing to just put a stroke on and leave it, but have it lay down gracefully and just express the movement of the water.

 

[solitaryVSong]

colors are more harmonious in the real thing, including a detail too, its such a delicate thing to just put a stroke on and leave it, but have it lay down gracefully and just express the movement of the water.

Though I like the entire painting I always love paintings that are confident enough to just put down a stroke and leave it. That's one of the first things I noticed about this one. In the end every artist has to decide how much finish they want in their paintings, how much they want to hide the brushwork. I'm all for just showing it.

 

[ARTHUR BISHOP]

you can see the confidence in this last one and love the pink period

 

[colleenc]

I always love paintings that are confident enough to just put down a stroke and leave it. I'm all for just showing it.

Me too but I never thought I'd be able to do it, it seems esp good for seascape, in animals all the detail is very nice, and it was good discipline for me to learn how to do that, it's very good practice, but carried over to the sea and water it makes a sort of "frozen" work leaves a kind of stiffness. There are some who carry it off well anyway like Byron Pickering, but I found that is not something that makes me happy when painting, it's more of a chore, where as this way I'm just entranced with what happens with each stroke. It turns out to be harder than doing it tighter. I put the wave in 5 or 6 times before it got the right fall and stroke to express it.

I've looked closely at my mentors William Trost Richards and Waugh and they all had a looser hand, but when viewed on screen and reduced it looks very realistic even tight. Besides the brushwork on this the color went into new places, it may look made up, but it is what I saw only sort of filtered through me, ie those colors were there but maybe not in the same places and relationship...not A moment, but a blend of the whole time I observed this particular sunset.

 

[JTMB]

This is just a beautiful piece, Colleen! And I agree with Ken and others about the brushwork - something I'm trying to work toward. I showed the most recent study to my wife, and when she saw the detail, the first thing she said was how she liked the quality of the brushwork. I continue to admire your perserverance and dedication to a topic. I'm still doing a wide variety of subjects and techniques to build overall miles on my tires, which I greatly need. Recently I've been spending a lot of time working on portraits and figures (signed up for several classes after the first of the year) because I want to improve my observation and drawing skills.

 

[colleenc]

. Recently I've been spending a lot of time working on portraits and figures (signed up for several classes after the first of the year) because I want to improve my observation and drawing skills.

the best and most traditional way to hone skills for a painter, been going on that way for 400 years...so have a good journey :t:

 

[Woody]

Beautiful, peaceful, calming, even the livelier seas with the living surf, your latest works are all these things. Truly wonderful Colleen.

Mike

 

[colleenc]

Thank you Mike,
came down with a bit of flu over Christmas so this was delayed, finished last night the last painting of 2011 and number 100 of the long view series...and my first real seascape in size and concept, and TA Dah I got those final pearl like colors that happen at dusk at last. Feel like I can now go on to really paint the sea, it will always be a challenge but I have the abc part now and I can start speaking a few words with the paint, it's been a year and 300 studies, well worth it in what I've learned and now one more 100 will be the sky, the last piece of seascape I havent practiced, I'll do it in pastel so it will go fast, and I'll be glad to get my hands dusty again.:clap:

this is the studio work that came out of the study I posted earlier

Dusk at Salmon Creek Beach
10x20 oil on oil primed linen

Happy New Year, so glad to close the last one and feel grateful I'm here and still painting.

 

[timwootton]

Congrats on the 100, Colleen - and by heck does it show! This is a fabulous piece with a very strong composition; the wave from is expertly structured, full of liquidity and that exqisite light you have started to introduce. No doubt you could easily make a living professionally doing these inds of scenes - and that's not easy. All the best and I hope this year is an easier one for you to negotiate.

 

[Andrew H]

Congrats on getting the 100 done......Once ive identified myself a subject matter, maybe I should attack a numbered project.?

 

[colleenc]

No doubt you could easily make a living professionally doing these inds of scenes - and that's not easy. .

Thanks Tim, this is what I'm aiming for, It is hard to make it professionally, lots of things have to go together, I know I've managed galleries. For the artist the trap can be painting the same thing over and over, in the same style so the gallery has a "product" and then one has to have an audience that wants what you paint.

With the seascape I've found a subject I can do endlessly, that brings together both the abstract and representational sides of me, lets me use color as my USP ( unique selling point) as I seem to see it in a way that sets me apart from other seascape painters. One of the sidetrips I took in art was for 7 years to use a color theory evolved out of how color works in the atmosphere, so I have uncounted hours studying light at dawn and dusk. Its also been 4 years painting with oils, and I'm coming into my own on that.

I will still do the birds that are part of the seacoast, and maybe some of the mammals too. I love the animals and birds...starting on some gull studies next.

So at last I have all the disparte parts of my art career coming together in one place with a subject that has an audience and buyers.

 

[colleenc]

Congrats on getting the 100 done......Once ive identified myself a subject matter, maybe I should attack a numbered project.?

It doesn't have to be just a subject matter, it can be a question, like the first seascape 100 I did was all about composition.

I've found no faster way to improve, and along with the art, the self discipline grows too. I started doing these because I am impatient, and I didn't want to take years to master a subject, so this condenses everything, and lets the leap ahead happen sooner than just wandering around. Think of going to London if you live in the Lake District, you could just start driving south and east, or you could find a map with the exact roads. The 100 when done with awareness, is an exact road, its not just doing 100 it's about letting the painting teach you, answering the questions that arise, finding other artist mentors to learn from both current and past. Its not a mechanical thing its a thing of the soul of you meeting the art you are making and really engaging without distractions or ego, honoring the horrid mess as much as the successful one as the horrid mess teaches you too.

there is a FB group of 100 painters that can be great support if you want you can ask to join by sending me a request on FB.