It's Raining Fish

Spent the weekend painting, until I felt burnt out on it. On Saturday, I continued to work on my seven koi painting, this time working on texture. My idea is to make the painting so that when you stand a little back, it looks like you are looking down on the fish...in the rain. So far, I don't think I'm successful at this little idea of mine...but of course when painting, what is in my head rarely comes out on canvas just as I see it inside me. But I'm going for it and seeing to what degree I succeed or fail. Here is a close-up of how I am gobbing the paint on and making little "peaks":


I also finished up my 24x30" barn painting, which felt great. I spent a lot of time on the texture of the grassy field, both close-up and further in the distance. I'm not so good at painting grass up close but I wanted to generate a strong feeling within field- the light, the clumps. I think I succeeded and I like it but we'll see how others respond to it. It's in the drying stage now.

I also worked on 6 more miniature oil paintings (4x4" canvases), so it was a FULL day of painting.

Today, Sunday, I was a little fried from painting so long yesterday so I only painted 3 hours. Made some final tweaks to a 24x30" abstract painting, so that is done and in the drying stage now. I like it very much. But mostly I worked on a 24x30" vineyard painting. Made great progress on the field where the vines are, but have not gotten to the layer yet when I paint in the actual vines. This will be a vineyard from Sonoma in the autumn so there will be lots of oranges, browns, and yellows. This one also happens to have a barn in it but the vineyard is the focus. So far so good on this one. Next session will be painting in a large oak tree that sits in the vineyard amongst the vines.

Still haven't made it back to work on my encaustic pieces but I will.


Technorati tags: art , painting , oil painting ,koi fish ,vineyard painting