Comparison

I was trying to think of something I could paint with a little free time I had and could not come up with a single idea.  Talk about uninspired!  So, I was leafing through my earlier attempts and hit on the idea of redoing one of them.

I liked my first beach scene and so it was easy to decide to see how much I have learned since I did that first one.

Still a long ways to go but it is better than the first attempt.

Summer Garden

My instructor had us do a flower garden.   It is fitting that in the dull grayness of winter something bright and cheerful is called for!

Actually, the exercise was on the various techniques of masking.  The fence was done with masking tape, which was then lifted and I filled in some shadow and painted vines to make it look a little more normal.

The bird house was done with maskoid which is then lifted with a rubber crepe and then painted.

The sky I played with various colors to see how the paint would move - wet on wet, wet on dry, wet on damp, etc.  Ha-Ha, so horrible but it is a learning experience after-all.

Cardinal

Another wintery scene, but then again it is winter time, so to be expected.

I took a special one day painting class to learn about washes and layering of color in order to do this bird.  Would you believe that there are 15 layers of red paints in this bird - each just a little darker?

The effect this makes is hardly shown in this scan but it is quite an intriguing effect in person.

But, I was to learn about the concept of glazing and ponder how to apply this to my painting attempts.