Here's one of my landscapes from my workshop in Rockport last week. I really struggled with this one, but at least my students said they appreciated seeing me struggle and figuring out what to do about it.
See how I fixed it here!
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Day 28 of 28: "Sunlit Glade"
Here's one of my landscapes from my workshop in Rockport last week. I really struggled with this one, but at least my students said they appreciated seeing me struggle and figuring out what to do about it.
See how I fixed it here!
Saturday, February 26, 2022
Day 27 of 28: "Zebby"
This was the other painting in my workshop triple-demo that i finished this past Thursday.
See a couple of progress pics here!
Friday, February 25, 2022
Day 26 of 28: "Ozetta"
In my workshops I have what I call my triple-demo, when I underpaint three small paintings in the morning, and pastel a couple of them after lunch. This little ostrich was one of today's triple-demo.
See a quick GIF here!
Thursday, February 24, 2022
Day 25 of 28: "Park Trail #56"
This was a painting hanging around in my studio that I just discovered had never been posted! I vaguely recall painting it as a workshop demo a while back, maybe last fall. Anyway, I love it when this happens because now I can claim it for my February 28-in-28! (Ok maybe I'm stretching the rules a bit, but you haven't seen this one before so it's all good!)
I'm in the midst of my workshop in Rockport right now. Stay tuned tomorrow for one of my demos here!
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Day 24 of 28: "Moo Mime"
Moomime was a cute little white face calf I painted years ago, and it never sold. Personally I suspect it was because of the atypical off-centeredness, with the left ear cropped. Also, on further study, the values were not quite right in the face. So it's been hanging in my studio waiting for me to fix it. I needed a quick painting right before heading out to my Rockport workshop, so I decided to tackle this.
I decided what she needed was a back-tilt to that ear to get it away from the frame edge, some better shadow values in the face, and maybe a few other tweaks.
So I searched my photo files for some dark tilted ears on cows, and used a few to reference how Moomime's ear might look in that position. I also thinned her down a bit, and of course corrected the face shadow values. Then I had fun adding some colors not seen in the photo!
To celebrate her rebirth, I've slightly edited her name to "Moo Mime" (I always thought her face looked like mime makeup ð)
Enjoy these progress pics showing how I gave Moo Mime a makeover!
And, see a few of the original, pre-makeover progress pics here.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Day 23 of 28: "Lovey Dove"
Day 23 of 28: "Lovey Dove" (pastel, 6x6 inches) bid or buy
The star of my February Paint-Along! I think we had a record number of participants actually painting along. Here's a collage of the doves that were sent to me afterwards... what a beautiful bevy of birds!
To see what paint-along I've got coming next, visit ritakirkman.com/workshops!
Monday, February 21, 2022
Day 22 of 28: "Scaredy Bird"
Here's another little house wren (maybe the same one as "Little Wren in Sunlight" from Day 17) running along the sidewalk. Birds are so funny on their feet.
I will have this one, and most of my other available little dailies, with me at my Rockport TX workshop this week, for my usual "show and sell" to the students. So be forewarned, the auctions may be ended without notice if there are no bids!
See a quick speed video here!
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Day 21 of 28: "Chloe, Pretty in Pink"
Yet another cute doggy commission from my best client with sisters who seem to have lots of dogs! This makes 3 or 4 this winter that I've done for her and/or her sisters. Besides this one, there was "Callie and Cooper", "Krissy with Flowers" and "Jade and Liza". I love it when the clients send such great pics to work from!
See a quick video here!
Saturday, February 19, 2022
Day 20 of 28: "Murdoch"
Another handsome Black Baldy, this one in early morning light. Yum, that little sliver of light on his face was my favorite part!
See a quick speed video here!
Friday, February 18, 2022
Day 19 of 28: "Lyra"
I have several medium sized works planned in this month of paintings (10x10 is "medium" for me!) I managed to get this one half done yesterday and finished today. As the works get larger, the strokes must get larger and looser. I'm pretty happy with this one. But I have painted her twice before from the same pic and I've always loved how the light looks...
See progress pics and the reference photos here!
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Day 18 of 28: "Mugsy"
Whenever I get back into cow-painting mode, I always love the whiteface cows (or Black Baldies as they're sometimes called) best. They're a mix of Hereford and Angus, and they just seem to have the most expressive faces!
See a quick montage here!
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Day 17 of 28: "Little Wren in Sunlight"
Someone asked me to paint more birds on wires, and while I was looking through my bird photos I found some cute little wrens on sidewalks, so I added this one to my batch!
Click here to see a quick speed video of this painting's process!
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Day 16 of 28: "Harkin"
I named this young Red Angus calf Harkin, which means "red" in Gaelic. I'm really having to dig deep for titles these days!
Enjoy this quick GIF!
Monday, February 14, 2022
Day 15 of 28: "Nio"
Nio is a young Pygmy goat. I have a gazillion pics of his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and friends belonging to a friend of mine. They're so much fun to visit in the springtime. All that silly jumping and bleating.
See progress pics here!
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Day 14 of 28: "Cora"
Day 14 of 28: "Cora" (pastel, 6x6 inches) bid or buy
I've decided I'm not tired of cows yet ð. Herefords have such lovely colors!
Enjoy these progress pics!
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Day 13 of 28: "Gerty"
Gerty is the star of my Zoom demo this morning for the Pastel Society of Central Florida. They wanted to see a sheep, so I found this lovely sunlit angle on this ewe's face in my "good sheep" image folder.
I'll be sending the full-length demo video to the PSCF, and maybe they'll put it on their website. If they share it anywhere I'll be sure to post a link!
Meanwhile, enjoy this quick GIF of the main progress points of the painting.
I actually got as far as the 5th image in the morning demo, but I wasn't satisfied with the overall darkness of the painting, nor the disproportionate variance in the shadow values on the sheep. So afterwards, I took a good look and decided it was mostly the background that was too dark. So I wiped it all out, used gesso to lighten parts, and re-primed in gold. It took some experimentation (and more tweaks on the face!) before I was satisfied.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Day 12 of 28: "Tulips and Pot"
This was my replacement for missing out of recording "Spring Garden 2" from Tuesday's VOS. It's painted the same way, with a watercolor underpainting on Arches w/c paper.
The real time creation of this little landscape will be available to Patrons on my Patreon page soon, but meanwhile everyone can enjoy this little speed video!
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Day 11 of 28: "A Sunny Walk"
This little painting will be the feature of my VOS video Episode 90, Part 2. Part 1 is another little garden landscape that I painted to replace the actual VOS Episode 90 (in which I painted "Spring Garden 2") which, due to technical difficulties, did not actually get recorded!
So I had some fun with watercolor underpainting for a couple days. I really like this image. I clearly remember taking the reference photo on a walk in some gardens somewhere. The happy daisies shooting up and casting long shadows... All around me were beautiful sights, but sometimes you just have to look where you're walking or you might miss something sweet!
Enjoy these progress pics!
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Day 10 of 28: "Spring Garden 2"
This was a re-paint of a sold painting from 2012 that a client fell in love with. The original of this little landscape was one small part of a photo reference that I had posted way back in 2012 on DailyPaintworks as "The Cropping Challenge". Read all about my adventures with this challenge and the other paintings I did, here!
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Day 9 of 28: "Swan Goose"
I had to make this neck slightly shorter than my reference photo in order to fit in an 8x6, and so I wanted to do some research to make sure it would still look right this way. I also wanted to find out if this was a goose or a swan. Well, guess what? It's a Swan Goose! No wonder it kinda looks like a swan and a goose. I also found out that the neck is fine at this length. I guess sometimes they stretch it up more.
Enjoy this quick speed video!
Monday, February 7, 2022
Day 8 of 28: "Sammy"
I'm still just keeping up with these 28 paintings day by day. One of these days I hope for a good long day in the studio so I can get a couple extras done to give myself some breathing room! 'Cause you know Daily Painters don't really paint every day; that's just a myth. ð
Enjoy this speed video of Sammy's painting progress... (recorded smoothly with my Samsung camera app!)
Sunday, February 6, 2022
Day 7 of 28: "Glitch"
I named this cow for my experiences today with a favorite video app that had been working just fine for many months. Today, it looked like it was recording, it behaved as if it was recording, but it evidently decided to not actually be recording, as the videos I thought I was capturing were nowhere to be found. My tech manager son said it has something to do with closed source apps that never update. Oh well, chalk another one up to experience. ðĪŠ
Enjoy these few pics I took of the underpainting steps, and for tomorrow's painting progress I'll use the native Samsung camera app (as soon as I learn all the pro video settings!)
Thursday, February 3, 2022
28-in-28 for February - Painting #4
This was the other old underpainting I had laying around. Pretty sure it was from a recent workshop's underpainting demo. I had a few strokes of pastel on it and decided it would be a good one to finish!
Enjoy this quick montage of clips I recorded while painting.
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
28-in-28 for February - Painting #3
I'm really scrambling to get my month of paintings up and running! This was a leftover from a batch of underpaintings from way back... might have been a workshop, I can't even remember. But it was nicely waiting for me on a shelf, ready to pastel!
Here's a short montage of some clips of the pasteling here!
I had fun with the wooliness on such a small scale. Lots of tiny Pointillistic dots and dabs!
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
28-in-28 for February - Painting #2
This adorable pup portrait was started as a demo for the Wisconsin Pastel Society last month, and finished in my Virtual Open Studio Episode 88
I always love painting pet portraits, especially when they're this cute. The client said "It's not Penny Pickle without the tongue!" so I showed a bit more of that pink appendage that was visible in the reference pic. I enjoyed playing around with the background to suggest more of a flowery outdoor feeling, while keeping the color harmony of the reference.
Human error (mine) prevented me from getting any pics of the beginning of Penny Pickle's portrait, but here are a few progress pics of the second half here!