New Years Art Resolutions, and my Blog is Moving!

 

"Park Trail #62" (pastel, 6x12 inches) bid or buy

 I wrote a really nice long inspirational New Years post today about painting more, and you can read it here! (or on my Patreon page.)

What I really want to say here is that my blog is moving! I'm retiring this location and continuing with the Daily Painting posts on my new website blog... 

(Update: Nah, don't go there either I decided not to use a website blog. Just go straight to my Patreon, EVERYTHING gets posted there!! 😃 And tons of free public posts to entertain you if you don't want to subscribe yet.)

But you can always find them also on my Patreon page, and on DailyPaintworks.

I won't delete this blog, I just won't post here any more. Thanks for being great fans! See ya around on the web in other places.

Happy New Year!

"Park Trail #61" and Mark Cole Workshop

 "Park Trail #61" (pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord, 14x11 inches) bid or buy here

The first day of Mark Ivan Cole's workshop was fantastic! He demoed a wonderfully moody and atmospheric woodsy creek. Many of us were surprised by his method, which starts off very loose!

My painting here is from a photo I took "somewhere in TN" according to my endless photo files. I thought it looked like a Mark Cole scene, though I swung myself into a method I used in a workshop with Rae Smith in 2017, when I painted one of my fave landscapes, Park Trail #39. And the Pastelbord handled the many layers very well.

See some progress pics here!

#1 of 21-in-31 "A Peaceful Morning Walk"

 

"A Peaceful Morning Walk" (pastel, 8x10 inches)

Available on my website unframed for a limited time. 

See progress pics here!

Day 19 of 21-in-31: Park Trail #60

 

Day 19 of 21-in-31: "Park Trail #60" (pastel, 4x4 inches) bid or buy
3 paintings left in my 21-in-31 goal! So I felt like doing something quick and easy today. I pulled up a screen shot of some landscape pics and picked a couple at random and painted two little 4x4's. This one is "Park Trail #60". I liked a relatively cool palette for a change, but couldn't resist putting in a few tiny flowers!
See a quick progress video here!

Day 13 of 21-in-31: Park Trail #59

 

Painting #13 of 21-in-31, "Park Trail #59" (pastel 6x12 inches)

I made the underpainting for this one in Lyn Asselta's workshop earlier this year, and never finished it. I liked the underpainting so I tried to play nice with what was there. It was a dark, mostly blue, underpainting, different than what I'm used to, on UArt sanded paper. But I liked the drips and patterns. I used my reference photo very loosely, along with another painting I had done years ago of the same scene. I left both as thumbnails on my tablet so i couldn't get distracted by details. It was still a struggle to stop while this was so loose!
But I couldn't resist tweaking the background lights after signing it and adding  some little red flowers to the foreground.

My color choices were determined by the frame I might want to put it in. I made sure to add some warm greens and bits of warm gold (and was able to use my precious Roche metallic gold pastel!)

See a quick speed video of "Park Trail #59" here!

Park Trail #58

 

Here's the other little landscape from the "Walk in the Park" Paint-Along last month. "Park Trail #58" (pastel, 8x8 inches) (bid or buy) In contrast to "Park Tail #57," posted yesterday, this one had no underpainting. Instead I worked it up directly on a mid-toned gray-ish Pastel Premier paper. The interesting thing is I used pretty much the same pastels for both paintings! What a difference the surface color makes!

Moo-tastic Muses and Bunny Buddies on my Patreon page can watch and paint along to the complete Paint-Along video here!

Enjoy this quick GIF of Park Trail #58 😎

Park Trail #57

 

Wow, I had forgotten to post the Park Trails from the "Walk in the Park" Paint-Along in April! Oops! So here's "Park Trail #57" (pastel, 6x8 inches) (bid or buy) the first of two I did for the paint-along. This one I underpainted in the same manner as most of my paintings; with the gold and terra cotta acrylic-based primers. You can really see the warmth shining through the cooler greens and blues. We added wildflowers (bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes were my choice) just to celebrate springtime.

Tomorrow I'll post "Park Trail #58" which has a totally different color look!

Moo-tastic Muses and Bunny Buddies on my Patreon page can watch and paint along to the complete Paint-Along video here!

Enjoy this speed video of Park Trail #57's process!

Day 25 of 28: "Park Trail #56"

 

Day 25 of 28: "Park Trail #56" (pastel, 6x8 inches) bid or buy

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!

Walnut River Trail

 

"Walnut River Trail" 5x7 graphite.

So I'm traveling north this month for an art festival (Red Wing Fall Arts Festival) and then a workshop in Minneapolis, and while traveling I thought it might be cool to post a drawing-a-day!
This is a difficult habit to start! I missed yesterday (posted some caricatures from last weekend instead) so today I paused in my morning walk to do this little sketch.
If you'd like to catch these little drawings during these 2 weeks, follow my public Patreon posts, or my Facebook or Instagram. 🙂

Park Trail #55

 

  "Park Trail #55" (pastel, 8x8 inches) framed. Buy here.

Finally, here was my last demo from the August workshop in New Braunfels. The 3rd day is when I usually do a landscape demo. 

I sometimes like to show an alternate underpainting method, so I painted this one with a pastel underpainting washed in with denatured alcohol, starting on one of my single-primed gold-colored boards. Unfortunately I didn't get any process pics during the demo, but it was the same process I used on Park Trail #41, here.

I thought I was done with this painting three times, click here to view pictures and read more!