Kanji...this has nothing to do with oil paint :)

Zander the Zorse!

After a long and involved move, I can now really get back to oil painting. Here is what I have been working on and recently finished.
Vine charcoal on my 24x36 canvas.
Ink over the charcoal, and then a thin layer of burnt umber. (Scrubbed on thinly, no medium.)




This is a zorse who lives at a safari park near where I now live--seeing him at the park was such a great thrill for me, I almost couldn't believe it. :)

Lego Zebra

Some of my friends at WetCanvas and I have decided to try painting "together" once a month--well, virtually sharing painting vibes, at least! I've already found it inspiring--I certainly wouldn't have done this little painting otherwise. :)

Idaho Desert Landscape, Finished

I think this is done now. :)


(This picture probably has the best color reproduction.)

Idaho Desert Landscape, Continued

I'm afraid I got interrupted in working on this, but I finally got back to it and I think it's getting pretty close now after a couple of days' work. (Colors are better in second picture.)
The thing really bugging me was the value contrasts in the hills...today (amongst other work) I scumbled some mid-value paint on them and I like it much better.
This is all about color and I'm getting pleased with where it's going...I need more detail/texture in the foreground sagebrush, but I might be almost done aside from that.

Idaho Desert Landscape, Oil Stick Underpainting

Oops, I haven't posted for a while, though I've done a couple of paintings since February! Geesh. Anyway, here is what I am working on...I went back home for vacation and was terribly impressed by the summer colors this year, so even though it's a shock to me to actually be working on a landscape, I started this and have completed the underpainting in oil stick. I will continue from here on out with regular oil paint. Here are a few steps of my process.

Horehead Nebula, Finished

I have declared this painting finished...and done in just about a week, too, I can hardly believe it. :) I sort of want to continue fiddling with it, but I believe it is time to move on (mostly it just bothers me how much of the linen texture I can see up close, since the paint layers are so very thin).

Horsehead Nebula...kinda lookin' like a nebula

This isn't entirely updated picture--I just took one when the sun happened to peek out for a few minutes, giving better ambient light for a photo. I think I'm close to being finished with this one, hopefully I'll be able to get another good photo of the finish.

Horsehead Nebula, First Color Layer

The photography on this is pretty bad, with glare and the right side is too saturated and the left side not quite saturated enough...just believe me when I say it has delightful subtle color and lots of blending! Very fun to work on still, I can tell the subsequent layers will be even better with all the cool space swirlies and such.

Horsehead Nebula Underpainting

I am in a spacey mood. :) With the upcoming release of Star Trek Online, I have been inspired to look at some of the pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope...talk about beautiful. I can't believe I've never done a space painting before, and I suppose it is high time. So I've started with a small canvas (8x16) of, what else? The Horsehead Nebula.

Already this has been a joy to work on...and something quite different in approach as well as subject. I did not initially intend to do a total monochrome underpainting, but it quickly ended up that way--appropriate, I suppose, for the subject. And nice and relaxing to do with all those abstract shapes and soft edges...that's another different thing to this approach, all the blending I've been doing. (So there *is* a reason to blend, after all! :D)

This makes me want to do a lot more monochrome work...which might help a great deal in various value issues I often struggle with.

There is a lot more work to go into this!