Week 16 - Monana painting is officially finished!

The Montana painting has spent the last few weeks turned to the wall...I wanted to forget about it a bit and then look at it again with 'fresh' eyes to make sure that it really was finished and I am 100% happy with every party of it!

I am happy to say that it passed the test! Finished!



After my self-congratulating was over :) it was time to get down to some more work, so I did a few more small studies for my next commission. Everything is still in the planning stages, but it is quite nice to play.



Painted using watercolours




Painted using gouache

Week 11 - Montana painting 99% done

This week I made the final touches to the snow banks at the waters edge...and then using a wet-in-wet technique painted the water and reflections. I think this painting it is 99% complete?

The few changes I think I have to make are:

• Add in a few more highlights in the water(it is hard to get true whites using wet-in-wet blending)
• Make a few minor changes in the trees

But I certainly don't want to over--work it.
Overall I am extremely pleased! If you have any comments for me, please send them along!
I hope to get back to doing some pottery in week 12 - I have loads of things to glaze.







Close-up of painterly water reflections

Week 10 - Trees = finished

Bit of a busy week, but I have managed to get the trees finished. I had to mix up a whole new set of greens - but I think I've arrived at something suitably detailed and suitably blurry at the same time!

Without further ado...









Tackling that lake and snow bank in the foreground next week!

Week 5 - Oil painting is as much fun as I remember

Slightly frightened but feeling ready, it was time to start the Montana painting today. To my surprise, it went well!









So far so good -- it felt quite natural as I was roughly working from top to bottom. (It always makes sense to do that or you drag your hand through your wet paint.) Having my watercolour to refer to was a great help. But I had forgotten how much oil paint/medium and turp smell. I have left the window cracked a bit for ventilation!

And a visit to the pottery studio today as well:

One of my test tiles was out of the kiln - it looks fab (it is dipped in various combinations of things, hence the three stripes). The lighter green looks great, I will be ready to glaze a few tiles next week!



And I did a test tile with some of the dried up slip that I made - the white braid is white clay pressed into the croxton and there are also dark blue spots pressed into the tile. Dark brown slip brushed and squirted on top for a bit of surface texture. The letters are to go with my other set (which was a bit short on vowels)



And I dipped my braid pots from last week in white slip, the smaller one has a drip on the front. Some slip must have gotten caught in the braid - oh well, I might add more slip to these next week. The were too wet to handle any further today!



The bigger one looks great too!