Burnsville Paint-Out

Watercolor with Colored Pencil, 8x10ish"

A few weeks ago, I participated in a paint-out held by the Toe River Arts Council (TRAC) in Burnsville, NC.  This is  NOT the painting I did for the paint-out!  Actually, I painted two similar starts, and the underpainting for this one was the first start.  The second start, I completed for the Paint Out, and it has been hanging in TRAC gallery for the month, until recently when the show ended.   Another artist was kind enough to pick it up for me when the show ended, since I live further away, so I still don't have the painting back.

It has been very odd for me to not have easy access to that painting for the past month, and I realize now that a big part of my painting process is looking, looking, looking at my painting after it is sort of finished.  In fact, I can be in the middle of doing something completely different (laundry for instance) and suddenly take a notion and be compelled to drop everything and go look at a recent painting.  More than once.

After a couple of weeks of not getting to look at my paint-out painting, I realized that I had the original start at home and could play around with it.  I took liberties with the grasses in front of the trees, obviously embellishing the colors, with the intention to play and see how the colored pencils worked with the paints.  Playing and learning, great fun! 

Thank you for looking and for being with me through these experiments...

Look Mom, No Shadows

                                                                                                                      acrylic, 8x8"

Several times this painting actually had shadows, and several times I actually painted them out.   Thank goodness May 9 is the start of Lorelle Bacon's class on painting shadow and light.  I need that class!

I find I have a much easier time painting shadows on objects than painting shadows on surfaces the objects sit on.

This was painted yesterday.  I didn't paint at all today.  I painted longer than usual yesterday, maybe because I painted larger than usual yesterday.   Or maybe it was those shadows...

Painting on an 8x8" support instead of 6x6" was fun.  The brush fit better.  Who knew?