Rail Songs - Finale

Well, I think it's finished. I say that because I often sign a painting and then wind up working on it some more. Let me know your thoughts on this one.

Our Daily Bread Revisited

After looking the painting over and having my best critic (my wife, Mardon') look the painting over I decided to make a couple of changes. First, I moved the window over just a bit because it was doing what the late Helen Van Wyk called "kissing" the pitcher handle. Second, I decided to paint a different goblet. Right at the moment it's just a flat gray under painting. Third, I darkened the wall behind the table and did a gradation from the upper left side down toward the bread, grapes and goblet. I'm hoping it gives a since of the light coming through the window and will move your eye down to the main point of the painting.

There's still a ways to go on this one and probably more problem solving before it's done.

I'm going to be away from my easel for the next couple of days so I probably won't get much done until next week.

Our Daily Bread - Progress Report

This is the next step in the development of this painting I'm calling "Our Daily Bread". It's going pretty good so far. I did most of the work up to this point with a large palette knife to try and get as much paint on as quickly as possible. The white area is actually a window that is suppose to be the source of light for this painting, we'll see how well I handle that. I'm also going to be painting a hint of landscape viewed throught the window but haven't decided what exactly yet. There's still time.
I do have to get cracking on this again so we can get it hung later this month. I hope it's at least touch dry by then.

Our Daily Bread - Under Painting

This is the under painting I did a couple of days ago. You can see a few more shapes beginning to appear.
This is a little unique for me in that I'm painting this for a specific room in the church with a specific color palette in mind. I just hope I can keep things on track as I move forward with it. The other thing I'm dealing with is a deadline of the 22nd of February so I got to get to painting on this. Well, gotta get busy.

Our Daily Bread - Commission for the UMC Parlor

I've decided to log another painting as it progresses. Mainly so that those at the First United Methodist Church in Wellington, Kansas, want to peek into my studio and see it as it comes to life, they can.
This is a large painting for me, it measures 26x38 inches. It is linen that I stretched myself (I don't particularly like stretching canvas but this was kind of an odd shape.) I did a wash of thinned down Transparent Oxide Red and let it dry for a week or so. This is the initial sketch, as you can see it is pretty basic, just enough to get the correct scale and placement on the canvas.
That's all for now, I'll post after each painting session so stay tuned.

Everyday Matters No. 1 through 6

I have enjoyed doing these little assignments from the Everyday Matters list. I've just been doing one every day and they typically only take fifteen to twenty minutes to do so, I do them during my lunch hour. These little sketches were done with a Pentel ballpoint pen in a small Moleskine sketch I keep with me at all times. I'm sure that the ballpoint pen ink is not archival so one hundred years from now these sketches will probably disappear or eat through the paper or something.
Now just a little about each of the drawings:
1. Draw your shoes
2. Draw a desk lamp - This is actually a lamp that sits on an end table in our basement. The shade is out of proportion to the rest of the lamp.
3. Draw your wallet, purse or bag - This is actually my camera bag.
4. Draw a mug or coffee cup - This is a giant mug I got at Disney World. It actually holds about a half of a pot of coffee. Needless to say I don't actually use it, but I thought it was fun.
5. Draw your bed - This is the side of the bed I sleep on and yes those are my feet in the corner.
6. Draw your favorite well-loved object - I love a well squeezed tube of paint.
Well, that's it for now. I actually have completed fourteen of these sketches but I'm only going to post 6 at a time so, watch for more. Give it a try yourself, it takes the guess work out of trying to decide what to draw on a daily basis.