The Practice Session

In this attempt, I really wasn't looking to complete a painting. And I struggled pretty much all the way through it. I tried to practice a couple mountains, starting out on the highlighting of them is rough. All my paint seems to stick at once at the top and there is nothing left for the bottom. I'm not applying any presure either. I ended up getting frustrated with trying to make the mountains look decent, so I went onto other things. Didn't put any shadow highlights, or even try to get them to look decent.  The bushes came out better, but they still aren't individualized. I tried a tree or two in this painting and had the same problem. It all ended up being one big bush type look. Nothing individualized. I did like the shape of the tree I made on the left. Waterlines, water and reflections came out great again. I was happier with my evergreen to. I tried making some fence posts with the knife at the bottom, but they turned out dreadful so I just tried some different techniques of creating grassy areas. The fan brush seems to work well. I just filled up the bottom with grass cause I was pretty exhausted at that point. I also randomly dotted some green areas into my sky to try out the oval brush (wasn't planning on keeping this one) And I wasn't able to get good effects with it either. Gonna need to watch what Mr Bob does with this brush, how he loads it, etc... I call this super fail on the practice session. I planned on throwing it away, but certain un-named parties wanted me to keep it. Not happy with this one at all.

Woot! Time isn't a factor!

My painting rack arrived today. I have to say its absolutely perfect for what I needed. It'll hold up to 25 paintings. And it takes about 3 weeks for one to dry. So unless I quit my job to be a full time painter, I don't think I'll have a problem. The width on the shelves is just enough to comfertably fit my canvases as well. It may have been pricey, but I'd say its worth the investment.

First one is pretty dry.

WOOT. Got up this morning and checked on my first painting. I can touch it without color rubbing off now. So that was 2 weeks and 2 days. I'll probably give it till 3 weeks before considering it complete. I also need to find some varnish for it.

The Drying Rack

So I've been waiting for these last 2 paintings to dry. The first one still isn't dry. It's been atleast 2 weeks. And I've had a hankering to paint more. But I can't cause I have no where else to stick these paintings. Then I got to thinking that I need a shelf with short spaced deviders I can stick these paintings on to dry. Come to find out they make them. So I ordered one, its got 25ish shelves. 1 inch high each. I'm hoping this is enough to fit the 3/4 inch thick canvases in comfertably. If not I'll probably end up trying to sell it and buy a cheaper one that I know will hold them. It was pricey, but I think that it'll be worth it when I can paint without worrying about limiting myself due to drying time.

Mountains

I had a hell of a time trying to paint the mountains in the last painting. I think my next try I'm going to do nothing but mountains to get me some practice with them. I need to master this whole knife/paint breaking thing.

In the last attempt I had trouble with having 2 much paint when I first started at the tops, and then uneven breaking  later on. I think I'm putting to much of an angle on the knife when I just need to lay it flat and let it glide down with the paint bairly touching the canvas? I dunno.

We'll see how I do. I'm thinking my next attempt wont be for a week or two since I have to let the first 2 paintings dry.

Another thing I've learned pretty quick is that you run out of light colors a lot faster than you run out of dark colors. I've ordered me 3 more tubes of Titanium White and 1 of Cadmuium yellow.

Enjoying A Calm Sunday

I was excited to give it another shot, so I found a new place for my first painting to dry and decided to give it another go. Initially I was trying to do brown and white in the mountains to give it a more rugged "rocky" feel. But I kept messing that part up over and over again, so after a bit I just decided to try making the highlights with the fan brush, I think they came out ok in the end. I was pretty happy with how the clouds turned out. I absolutely hated my pine tree to start out with :) They aren't as easy to "drop in" as they look. I was fairly pleased with how the highlighting on them came out. I'm far from satisified with my bushes still, they are coming out muddy, and I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I think I'm killing to much of the black areas. Others say they look fine, but I'd like to see me improve in that area a lot.  The foothill, twigs, and reflections I thought came out pretty good. All in all a decent effort for my second try.  It'll probably be a couple weeks before I paint my next one. One thing I did notice is that I made a lot bigger mess on this attempt :)

One other thing to note is I haven't started painting on canvas yet. Just canvas boards for practice. I've heard that canvas boards soak up paint, which maybe causing me some of my grief.

Prepairing

Halfway through.

Final Product. Note you can click on the picture to see it larger.

My First Painting

I figured I needed to do something I enjoyed in the middle of the week so I cranked this out on Tuesday 01/04/2011. It was a hurried effort as I had work in a couple hours and there was an inspection of our apartment that day, so I was trying to get done before that. I'm sure it makes the apartment owners nervouse when I have drop cloths and paint everywhere. :) It started out as an excercies in painting a bunch of different skies, but I ended up with my entire sky filled before I knew it. So I just winged it from there. While I'm happy at how good it came out (for my first attempt) There are many things I don't like about it. I had trouble getting the clouds and bushes to stick. I think they came out ok in the end. The only ones I'm really not satisified with are the closest ones. They came out muddy. I believe I put to much blue on at the beginning which caused the majority of my problems. I'm pretty happy with how the reflections turned out, though you can't really tell how good they came out by the picture.

An Accident Waiting To Happen

Welcome

I've created this blog to chronicle my journey with learning to paint. I haven't taken any classes, just watched a lot of Bob Ross. So here we go.