Yes, in these increasingly hard economic times, you can save money by painting snow scenes!*
With the soaring cost of paint nowadays, why waste too much of it on your paintings? We artists need to economize and a snowscape is just the ticket! Simply remember where NOT TO PAINT!
Have a happy new year and remember: waste not, want not.
*this economic painting tip applies to watercolorists only. If you paint with any opaque medium, you may be sh-t out of luck!
I wasn't quite satisfied with this acrylic so I added some more yellow hues into the truck, barn, pipes, and tree, added blue violet hues into the shadows, some more texture and lighter values into the barn, added white to the sky, lightened the top of the seed spreader, and lightened and simplified the ground a tad. Now I'm done...time to move on!
Terry Miura's (click on his "studio notes") oil painting here is a done deal as well. He is a fabulous painter and is very good at writing about the process of building a painting. I strongly urge you to check out his blog and read about his "Lobentruck".
I have also posted Mike Bailey's wonderful watercolor "Lobentruck" iteration that he painted for my water color class. Enjoy.
And finally... the reference photo that we all painted from.
I most always demonstrate art assignments to my class. Talking and lecturing is fine but demonstrating is finer, and my students can see that I practice what I preach. Here are a sampling of student charcoal self portraits on newsprint paper. They worked from photographs. I told them to take photos with as much value contrast as possible. Most students will pull out family snaps where automatic flash units totally obliterate any strong value contrast. Some even tried to work from their driver's license! All of this, of course, handicaps them significantly. I also instructed my students to take a photo with some sort of attitude. Some did, some didn't. Unless you threaten your students (mostly the college age students) with an F grade or bodily harm, many will ignore the parameters of the assignment, and will work from flat lighted and unbelievably boring poses so as not to embarrass themselves. Apparently the embarrassing and sexually lascivious poses are saved for the social internet sites.
Mike Bailey, who came all the way up from Santa Cruz to do a most fab. h2o demo for my Sacramento City College water color class, is carping about his less than well endowed rudder (see his comment in the previous post). I say be proud of what your mama gave you, Mike! The last assignment for my college drawing class this winter semester was to do a self portrait in charcoal on newsprint paper. Fill up the page. I did the assignment with them... this one's for you, mama.
This "Lobentruck" painting is like the Energizer Bunny...it keeps going and going and going. Ever visit Mike Bailey's blog? A fab. and passionate painter indeed. Last Friday, he traveled up to my neck of the woods (Davis/Sacramento) from Santa Cruz, where he lives, to do a demo painting of said truck for my City College water color class (who, of course, are also painting the Lobentruck as one of their last assignments for the winter semester!) We painted on the vertical and side by side. I did not complete my vertical version as I wanted to watch Mike perform his magic. Mike composed his painting so as to have the truck in a backyard-like corner with a garage or barn behind and a fence on the side. He slyly stuck a post in the ground to cast a marvelously contoured shadow across the hood of the Lobentruck!
I also have posted one of my small Lobentruck h2o studies and at last, my completed acrylic painting.
