a frustrated artist :: reloaded

This is one of the weekly 6-hour paintings we have been doing all semester. I have liked very little of what I have produced, up until the last few weeks when we have been required to place our figure in an environment. Gee, I should have just been doing that all along, because my figures have improved since she started having us do that. This is oil on canvasboard, about 14″ tall.

This semester is killing me! I guess I am learning a lot. Here are some recent highlights:

A self-portrait, circa 2003, which was beyond my capabilities at the time, but which I did for class this year. Oil on canvas, 18″x24″:

A self-portrait which is current, five years and one child later, oil on canvas 16″x20″:

A painting of Alex at the piano, not finished, 18″x20″:

Woo-hoo, we got to use a full palette! This jpeg, though, really washed out the colors, and I am having a hard time getting it right in Photoshop. Or rather, it looks fine in Photoshop but crappy when I upload it anywhere. 12″x16″, oil on canvas.

This one is larger: 22″x28″. Still the same limited palette of white, burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow ochre. I find that glazing yields effects that look a little like blues and purples. My handling of hands and feet is still weak, but is it really laziness on my part at this point? Probably so. I’d honestly rather be painting interiors or landscapes.

Limited palette again: burnt umber, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, white. I had a bit of trouble with the far leg, the one that is crossing in the back, so maybe it looks a bit awkward?

This is again from Academy reference. It took about 3 hours and it is on a 9″x12″ board. The only colors used are white, burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow ochre pale.

From Academy reference. Oil on board, roughly 16″x20″.

First assignment for portrait painting class, a quick oil sketch of my husband.

I start class again on the 28th. In the meantime, I am mostly trying to get my house in order (and being pretty lazy about that, to be honest) but I am also experimenting with egg tempera. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but never got it all together until. I finally bought some dry pigment and I have plunged into it. In addition to just laying out squares of paint in order to gauge the medium behaves, I’m working on a very simple 5″x7″ landscape as a way of experimenting. When I am happy with it, I’ll post it here.

I may post a bit during the next month, but mostly I am going to be organizing my house and recovering from this hellish semester. Next semester, I will be taking Figure Painting and Portraiture classes, so lots of painting people. Painting people isn’t my best thing, so that should be interesting. My midpoint review is coming up this summer, so I need to be putting that together as well.