White Flowers with Apples

"White Flowers with Apples", 12 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
The daily painting blog is strange. It is so motivating related to getting into the studio with brush in hand every possible day. But it also feels risky sometimes, because the daily painter, at least to a certain extent, lays it all out there. That's why I put the quote from George Bernard Shaw at the top of my blog and why I keep remembering it because being on the risky side of things is in the end, a better learning place than the safe side of things. Sometimes I want to finish the painting less and not worry about it. Sometimes I want to use big sloppy brushstrokes and not think about it. This painting was mainly a result of "6 x 6" size fatigue. Its "12 x 12", four times bigger, but in the scheme of things, still pretty small.

Loading Rocks

"Loading Rocks", 12 x 8 In, Oil on Panel
This painting was from my figure series about a week ago. I was up in Edmonds today, about an hour and a half drive from here, at the Plein Air Washington Paint-in, but it was too dark to take photos once I got home and I'm not sure how the paintings turned out anyway! This figure painting was another one where I used a photo I've had for years of a worker in Northeast China, deciding that it was interesting enough to try to make something of it. It's definitely a study and I had fun doing it--a guy and some rocks--not something I would ordinarily think about painting.

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Shadowed Face

"Shadowed Face", 6 x 6 In, Oil on Canvas
This painting was a struggle--to get plane changes with small changes in color and value when the face is almost entirely in shadow. It is a very good exercise.

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On the Bike - NFS

"On the Bike", 6 x 6 In, Oil on Museum Board NFS
Back to the small paintings, this is from a photograph I took in a rural farming area of Northeastern China--a photo that I've looked at for a long time and wondered if I could make anything of it. So it was fun just going at it.

NFS

Zangle Cove Snow

"Zangle Cove Snow", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Panel
It rarely snows here, maybe once a year, and today was the day. I think it requires some kind of weather convergence--wet weather from the southwest that is usually warm with cold air from the north that is usually dry. So I couldn't resist a painting of the Cove, even without sun.

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Mongolian Herder

"Mongolian Herder", 6 x 6 In, Oil on Museum Board
Its a good exercise to do these small portraits because even if the painting itself is larger, the head of a figure is often small. This is from a photo taken in 2005 when a small group of us took an excursion from Jove Wang's studio near Jilin, China, to Inner Mongolia--a province of China.

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Zangle Cove Sketches 2 - NFS

"Zangle Cove Sketches 2", 6 x 8 Inch Each, Oil on Panel NFS
This is the second set of 15 minutes sketches of Zangle Cove that I did last week with my painting friends. It was late in the day and the sky was continually changing as the clouds swept across the sky. I am so use to this beautiful changing view that it took my friends to point out to me how amazing it really is.

Zangle Cove Sketches 1 - NFS

"Zangle Cove Sketches 1", 6 x 8 In each, Oil on Panel NFS
When my friends were here last week, the weather moving across the Cove was dramatic and ever changing. We had done the 10-minute still life exercise in the morning and in the afternoon decided we would do quick sketches of Zangle Cove. Our goal was 15 minutes each and we pretty much kept to that! These were my first two.