3 via Delle Cascine, florence, Italy

3 Via Delle Cascine, Florence, Italy. This is the second painting I did for The Virtual Paintout. I think I like it better than the first one. I will submit it also. I don't know if that is allowed, but I did see another artist that listed two paintings earlier in the month. There are some really nice paintings that have been entered. I hope that this challenge will help me improve my skills in painting buildings.

Viale degli Olmi

Here is my first attempt for a new painting challenge I ran across that is called "The Virtual Paintout". At the first of each month a new city is listed from Google's Virtual map. Any artist that is interested can click on the map link that will take them to the vitual map of that particular challenge and use the little yellow man to walk the streets of the city to find what they would like to paint. The artists then have a month to finish and submit the paintings.

I found several places, printed them and chose two to paint. I will post this one today and try to finish the other one and post it either tonight or tommorrow (it is turning out to be the better of the two paintings). This one is a 5 3/4" x 4 1/2" oil on canvas and is for sale for $49.95. Email me at pyrmom@yahoo.com with "painting" in the subject line to purchase.

Cowgirls progression

Here are the results of last night's class. We are just a little futher along in the underpainting. Mine is listed first, then Debbie's, and then Sharon's.

Cowgirl

We started this painting a couple of weeks ago in the Monday night painting class, but I didn't get pictures the first night. This is where we were in the second class and I only have the pictures of mine and Debbie's at this stage. Sharon was in Japan last week and missed this class, but I got her caught up in last nights class which I will post the results of next.

We found a picture in a magazine of this cowgirl done by Doreman Burns. My two students, being born and raised in Texas, just love anything along the Western lines. So naturally, being girls and all, they wanted to learn to paint this cowgirl. Doreman Burns does his paintings in watercolor and we work primarily in oil, so it will be interesting to see how our interpretations turn out. We are just at the underpainting stage right now. Mine is the first picture and Debbie's the second picture.

Gunfighter progress

Sharon and I started the gray underpainting of the skin tones on Friday May 15th. I forgot my camera that day and didn't get pictures of it until last night. We still have a lot of work to do before we can get to the details. This is a rather large painting and will take some time to finish.

Mine is on the right and Sharon's is on the left.

Gunfighter - Work In Progress

This is the beginning phase of a new private painting lesson for Sharon. It is an ambitious undertaking, but I feel that she is ready to learn the steps it takes for portraiture. I will be taking her through the old masters' techniques of under painting the flesh areas in grey tones (known as grasaille) first, then add skin tones in transparent veils of color. When that is accomplished we will work on the background, clothing, etc. This is just the first posting and I am sure it will take quite a while to complete as we only have three hours once a week when our schedules permit. It will be interesting to see the final outcome of this one. Sharon's painting is on the left and mine is the one on the right.

Companion to Diana

I have been following the "Differnt Stroke From Different Folks" which is a bi-weekly challenge for any artist who wants to participate. A subject photo is posted every other Wednesday and each artist can do their interpretation of it and email it to be posted. It was started by one of my favorite artist, Karen Jurick. She posted the first photo the week of September 3rd, 2008 and there were 55 participants for the first challenge. Of course the number of participants has grown since then. This is week 27-28 and I decided to take a few hours off from sculpting (I am very behind with a portrait commission) and try my hand at this. I do hope that my painting will be accepted. I would like to be able to participate again in the next challenges. Anyway, here is my little painting of Diana's Companion done in oil on a canvas pad.