Playing with shapes and colour.

I didn't feel much like painting today, yet again. I am fighting to stay awake and it is so hard. I am wonder if it has something to do with the red meat I ate a couple of nights ago, on top of the Sunday Market thing. I am trying hard to overcome it, as I hate being like this I really do.

Anyway I painted these, just playing, and I want your opinions and critiques. There is plenty to critique here ;-)) Even though I may prickle when I read the critiques, we all do, it is a natural reaction, I do take notice, and I do go look at my painting to see how I can improve it with your suggestions.
Tali gave me the idea by the way, for this, with her thread Local Colour in the Open Critique Forum. I am going to buy some blocks and paint them tomorrow.. These are just drawn from looking at some books I have, and making them up myself..
10"x12" acrylic

Mike and Jesse's Fav Shirt Game

This is what I've been up to mostly this week, trying to get it done before I go to the hospital. Acrylic on wood, 6X9".

I have a few more tweaks on the face and hands but it's close enough to show you. This is only my 3rd portrait, second in B&W. The next will be a larger canvas with the combo of my dad and I (scroll down the page) along with my boys, called a firm foundation, with my dad in the middle.

Birch Tree

Don't laugh, but I had an idea for a minature show. Unfortunatly I missed the deadline already, but it was a good exercise. This is acrylic on canvas, 3.5X4.5". I got it at the dollar store which came with some crummy watercolours. Knife work mostly.

Rose in Square Vase

Acrylic on canvas. I drew the vase and the outline of the rose in graphic, and put the petals in with my brush. I had a ball with this. Not "loose" but it's a rose in a vase.. ;-) 10"x12" c&c

Bruce you have been hanging around with JJ too much .....you're beginning to sound like her ....just sayin'

I have been painting .....I just haven't been bothered to photograph them until I came here and listened to all the nagging ...... ROFLOLPIMP
I have painted a puffin and I am working on a portrait of my brother ....2 actually ...one in black and white and the other in colour .... so there .....

Everyone is very quiet?

So where is all your sketches and artwork peoples? All except Bruce of course who has posted a painting and a sketch this week. Can't le one man show us up girls!!

Toddler Hijinx

My next portrait project for later. A whimsical shot I took one day after I pulled the boys' shirts up over the back of their heads.

They love this and run all over the house screaming and giggling. My source pic is blurry but I have pleanty other shots of the faces. It is just too much fun to ignore.

I will eventually do a group shot with me and my dad, if I survive the surgery next week.

A Rose is a Rose?

A Rose by any other name is still a rose, unless I paint it in acrylics on a 3X4 card. I did this to prove I could do it in impressionistic style for JJ. I failed miserably. I wanted to show you I was doing something, but I think nothing is better than bad work....hmmmm....

Whose turn to post Challenge? (in this order)

REE


ANNE


MIMI


COLLEEN


BRUCE


JJ

Challenge! Add your ideas here!!!!!!!!!!

How about really stretching ourselves, like we did with the self portrait. What else can we think up? Put your thinking caps on.... These challenges should be fun, and something totally out of our comfort zone..

Choose one artist and paint a picture in his/her style

Cubism

Abstractism

Surrealism

Classical

Pointillism

Monochromatic

Specific palette

Drawing instead of painting Graphite - pastel - ????

Found objects

Mixed media

Specific medium

Plein Air

Whimsical cats, or animals of any kind.

A Day at the Market in Gusting winds.

It blew and it blew!!!! First the back wall caved in. My neighbour Bela tied it back with string. It gusted some more, all the paintings had to come down as they were getting damaged and the side wall caved in. My neighbour behind me tied that one up with rope for the remainder of the day. I sat there for 8 hours and no sales..

Next week will be better!!!!!!!!!

A Firm Foundation

A word to JJ first, grrrrrrrrrrrr.......I have never had such a bad time trying to do a painting. I figured a B&W study would be a good start. I didn't have the luxury of other colours to bail me out so if its a bit muddled, you'll know why.

This is my favorite pic of me and my dad, just a few months before he passed on. I plan to do a family man group, with my two sons added to this pic, one on each side of dad.

A portraitist, I am not......... But I finished it.

c&c welcome of course.



The painting is not finished, and I don't know if I have the heart to finish it. I guess I could finish the shirt, but I wont subject you to another photo lol

I painted this on a canvas 10"x12" I told Ree off for painting hers too small, (you can growl at me Ree-I think hers is 7" x 9") and then I go paint mine too small. That was my first mistake. Second is painting it in acrylics.
I should have started it at the beginning of the week and painted it in oil, or watercolour, for that matter. Not that it would have looked much better mind you, but at least the oils don't dry so fast, and the watercolour is manipulable. But, having said all that, I have to admit, this is the most dreadful painting I have painted in a long time. :-D ........... that is ok though, as I have gotten portraiture out of my system for awhile.

Another should have; I didn't even glance at my portraiture colour mixing book I have here, and I should have! sheesh. I stayed up until the wee hours of this morning painting this mess :-D
I really admire the portraitists on wc like Tali.

So. I hand drew this and painted from a photo on my laptop (printer was out of ink) I had taken with my webcam earlier last evening.

I hope this makes you feel much much better about yours Bruce!!! hehehehe

Third time lucky!!!!!!! .......The good thing about doing a self portrait .....

The good thing about doing a self portrait is that you can leave out a
line or ten, make the eyes bigger, bluer and whiter, the lips a bit
fuller and get an instant hair colour ....no grays showing ..... make
myself look sexy even .....well that was the plan ....somehow it
didn't go the way I intended .....but it was fun trying .....

Roses finished?

I chickened out on putting in big shadows. If anyone wants to photoshop it and show me how they would do the shadows go right ahead..

Tomato Juice

This is an experiment I'm working on for the upcoming minature show in Quebec, so I gave it a spin. This is acrylic on bristol board card, 3X4"

I prepared an AECO card (buisness card size, 2.5X3.5") to do this again. I have so much painting to do and so little time and enrgy.

What do you think?

Quirky Cats & Roses

I had some fun this afternoon. I painted quirky cats in acrylics. I paint these in watercolour, the are well liked, so I thought why not try them in acrylics. It was a hoot. 15 minutes for each painting. I love to let loose and paint something totally crazy once in a while.
The roses took me about 5 hours all up, from the initial sketch in my sketchbook, to the painting, which isn't quite finished, I have yet to put the shadows in.

Veggie-Fruit Juice ver 2.0

The pic of this darker than in real life, so I apologize. i did fix the elipses, sharpen the lines and darkend the background to allow the glass to shine. Whchya all thinkÉ

My Son Michael

Acrylic on Canvas, 8X10"

This is my first ever portrait. My wife liked gthe rough acrylic sketch more becasue it showed his droopy eyelid, like mine, and his eyes are darker, two things I must fix on this one, but here it is.

Todays painting (3) Florals

These paintings are from my imagination. 2 are 10"x 12" and the pedestal one is 12" x 16" This is my first attempt at painting impressionist roses.

Veggie-Fruit Juice Part Deux

Late I know, but with all that is going on and only having limited time due to my health..etc, etc, excuses...excuses...excuses.....Not nearly as clean and crisp as JJ's entry, but I finished this amid a near nervous breakdown and in a funk of depression, wah wah wah...even I can't stand it anymore..

Sorry I haven't been around much lately, fighting something I'm not used to facing...fear... I go for another heart operation on Apr 2 in Toronto. So bear with me please...

Todays Paintings (4)

I painted four 10"x12" paintings today, for my market stall. I gesso'd the background before I painted the picture.

Say a prayer for me .....

I'm not sure why I painted this but I felt I wanted to. It's not that I'm into religion! My mother would turn in her grave if she knew how nonreligious I was!
She was the exact opposite. She was the type of woman who went to mass every day and said the rosary often. When we were kids we had to kneel down and say the rosary every night before bedtime......I hated it .....
My step grandmother tried to talk me into becoming a nun ..... I didn't ......

CHALLENGE for 14th March - 21st March SELF PORTRAIT!

Have fun peoples.


Please post on the same day, Sunday the 22nd of March.


I can't wait to see all the paintings all together..


:-))

Sketches 15.03.09

I did a couple of sketches while I was sitting in my stal at he market. One is of one of the gum trees across the road, the other of the garbage bin at another stall across from me..