Paintings #7 and #8

Hi Friends!

I know it has been several days since I’ve posted anything.  I have been working on my paintings and once I get started I have to keep going until they get finished.

This week saw a finish on this painting of Einstein and Jim: There is a slight glare when I took this photo, probably from the flash and the fact that the painting was still wet.  Jim said he looks like he has lipstick, which I tried to tone down a bit and Einstein’s eye isn’t soo scary in real life.

The technique used on this painting is the one where you trace off the outline of the silhouette in a photograph, paint it in Mars Violet, let that dry and then paint it again in color.  I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of the process but it was one our instructor shared with us and so this was my first attempt at this new technique.  I will have to say that it was a lot easier to paint the colors with the under painting established.

Speaking of Einstein, in case you all want an update, we received a letter from CCI that Einstein will be rotating through Team Training come May 7th-18th.  We’ll know about May 9th or 10th if he’s made a match and then we’ll travel to Ohio for the graduation on May 18th.  We are really proud of that dog and we hope everything will work out!

I still want to paint another painting of just Einstein and somehow frame it with his matriculation ribbon but I’ll wait to see what happens…

The other painting I finished is this one of a farm scene:

I don’t know why it looks so dark, it’s not, I’ll have to figure out how to lighten it up a bit so you can see it.  Maybe because I took it this morning indoors and it is not very bright outside?  Anyhoo, I’ll update the photo once I get a better shot.  It is still wet so it might be a few days…

This painting is actually painted on a pre-stretched canvas.  I’ve been painting on canvas panels so far and wanted to try something else.  The subject matter is a farm scene which I guess I’ll have to let you know what that is all about.

Jim cut out a couple of advertisements in the paper about two weeks ago for me.  One was a call for images (paintings, photography) from the Lake County Heritage Farm Foundation.  Some of the past work looks really good so I probably won’t make it into the show but I thought I would try.  So this first painting is my first attempt to see what I can come up with.

The other aspect of this show is to paint a farm in Lake County, Illinois, which the border is just about 2 miles from our house.  Last Sunday I drove and drove and drove all over trying to find a farm in Lake County!  Not very easy!!!! And as soon as I found one I stopped, made some reference photos and then went in search of some more.  I found 3 that I thought might be good but I only saw 2 horses (way off in the distance) and unfortunately, on this one farm I painted above, a For Sale sign on the corner.  But getting back to why I painted this farm.  It was in Lake County and there is a special segment of the show just for Lake County images.  I figure that’s my best chance…so there you are…

Oh, and the other article that Jim cut out for me?  It was for a Plein Air Painting competition which starts THIS Friday!  Yikes!!!  I entered so what the heck!

Talk soon!

~Cathy