In progress... oil on 6x8 canvas panel

I've been messing around with this painting for the last 2 days. It is from a photo I took a few days ago on the beach pier. It was the first very warm day we've had, and it was the first chance for people to wear their shorts, and tee shirts and sandals, and take a walk in the sun near the water. I thought I would try to make a painting of these two girls, but every time I try, I wind up scraping the paint off. I'm going to scrape it all off again. Just thought I would take a picture of it first. I actually like how it looks after the paint is scraped off. It leaves a "ghost" of the image, and scratches in the paint. It's kind of interesting... I think I might let it dry that way, before I paint on it again. I don't quite know what result I'm looking for with this, I know it could be a very nice little painting. I just haven't been able to get it quite right.

Green Grapes with Yellow Flowers

Oil on 6"x8" Canvas Panel

"Yellow Flowers and Green Grapes" (in progress)

Oil on 6x8 canvas panel
These little yellow flowers come up every spring around this time, and I don't know what they are. I never planted them, and every year there are more. They might even be weeds, but I don't mind, they are the first and only things in my garden right now.
I have been a little distracted from painting lately since there is alot of spring clean up to do in the yard, and I get restless on sunny days and can't sit inside to think about painting. So, I've been doing other things, and now it's nice to get back in front of my easel and paint a picture.
I used only a few colors again with this one. Two reds, two blues and two yellows( one warm, one cool), plus white. I find it easier to deal with only a few colors lately. It seems to make the mixing easier, and all the colors in the painting match better.

Windy April Day at the Beach 6x8 canvas panel

This is a view of the Lake Ontario shore, from Charlotte Beach near my home. It was a cold windy day, and there were not many people out, but it was a great day to fly a kite. I had a hard time painting this picture, even though there doesn't seem to be much in it. It was a good lesson in color mixing for me.

Chocolate Treat

Oil on 5"x7" Gessobord
I have been having some trouble painting lately. My palette gets messy, I get confused about what colors I'm mixing. I tried 3 or 4 times to paint this little dessert cake, but kept scraping it away. I started to think maybe it just wasn't an interesting subject in the first place.
I have a book by Kevin Macpherson from the library. In it he describes using just 3 or 4 colors and white to start with on your palette, and mixing whatever other colors you need from them, lightening them with white, dulling them with their compliments. I was having fun mixing puddles of pretty colors on my palette from yellow, red and blue and white. I've done this before, but not in a long time. I guess I need a little time getting back to the basics for a while. Once I saw all the beautiful array of mixtures I made, I wanted to paint something with them. So, I painted my little cake over again. And, I think having all those colors already to go on my palette made the difference. I had so much fun. It reminded me a bit of using pastels. All the colors are right there to look at and choose from.

Also, I've been really liking alot of the landscape paintings I've been discovering on some different blogs. It really has me inspired to try it myself. So, today I drove down to the lake and took some pictures of the water and beach. It was the first warmish day of the spring. I didn't even need a jacket!! So, one of these days when I feel brave enough, I'll try a painting of one of my pictures.

Companion of Diana

I wanted to experiment with this drawing a bit more, so I drew it again on white drawing paper with regular graphite pencil, instead of the carbon pencil as before. It wasn't much different. Then I drew it on a piece of light grey/brown pastel paper, so that the highlights would be white pastel, instead of the white of the paper as before. I liked doing that one the best.

Sketch of "Diana"

This is a drawing of a statue of a companion of the godess, "Diana". It is the latest challenge from the "Different Strokes From Different Folks" blog. I love her pose, especially the bend in her wrist that is holding her spear. I thought I would try a drawing of it first. I used my carbon pencils, on 7x10 buff colored drawing paper. I smeared the pencil with a tissue, and used a kneaded eraser to make the highlights. It was a good exercise in judging values, which is what I need. I printed out a copy of the statue, and referred to that while drawing. I think it would have been better if I had looked at the statue on the computer monitor as I drew, I notice now, the values are more obvious in that image than in my print out.

A bunch of bananas and mineola tangerine 5x7

Oil on 5"x7" Gessobord
I've been a bit uninspired to paint lately. I couldn't really find a reason other than every time I tried to think of a subject to paint, I'd ask myself "why" I wanted to paint it. If I didn't have a good enough answer, I didn't bother painting.
I took some time and re read some of my art books, found some new and interesting artists blogs online, and I realized something I already knew. A painting isn't as much about the subject as it is about the colors and patterns and shapes that make it interesting to look at. It at least made me feel like painting again, and I'm happy with this one.