Autumn Silver Birches. oil on canvas panel palette knife painting

Autumn Silver Birches

Oil on canvas MDF canvas panel
Palette knife painting

18x24 cm (approx 7"x10")
SOLI have slightly altered this autumn painting as the right hand tree was bothering me and never looked quite 'right'. I also added more oranges and reds to the central area and using heavy impasto with more colour on the silver birches to reflect those autumn colours.

Tip

For the bark, I used underpainting white for mixing the colours on the trees. This white is very thick and dries quickly and gives a lovely impasto effect.

Collage of some close-ups and previous painting

 Here is a collage showing some closeups of the knife work and the older painting for comparison.

Companion painting
 Autumn Explosion a painting in the same series can be viewed HERE

Update on Autumn Mist rework of Zorn Palette painting WIP

Autumn Mist WIP

This is the progress on my Autumn Mist painting. I have roughly placed in a dead tree on the left hand side by picking up any colour on my palette just to get the shape and see how it would look. I like the effect of this multi-coloured tree so may incorporate some of this in the final tree. My hubby says - "Why would you want a dead tree in a painting?" but with a bit of work I feel it may work.

Still a lot of thinking and painting needed on this painting. It's resisting most of my attempts to finish it LOL.

Read the previous update HERE

Olive Tree Trio oil painting - SOLD

Olive Tree Trio

30x24cm (approx 12"x10")

Oil on gessoed panel
palette knife painting 
THIS PAINTING IS SOLD
and finding a new home in South Carolina

Iris Dancing Queens oil painting for auction on DPW

 Iris Dancing Queens

Palette knife painting

18x24cm (approx 7x10inch)

oil on canvas MDF canvas panel
For auction on DPW SEE HERE 
Starting at $85

Tourettes-sur-Loup Courtyard corner palette knife painting.

Tourettes-sur-Loup Courtyard corner

oil palette knife painting

15x20cm/6"x8" on box canvas

This courtyard is in one of my local villages. The old villages have high walls that cause the shadows to move very quickly across. So I used my artistic licence to recreate the lighting I wanted.

Olive Tree Trio oil painting - Rework

Olive Tree Trio

30x24cm (approx 12"x10")

Oil on gessoed panel
palette knife painting 

SOLD

Another rework from the 30 day challenge. I felt the painting (see HERE) was a bit cold and had a lack of breathing space in the foliage. I added a hint of red poppies and reworked some of the foliage. I added more yellow to the foreground tree to warm it up and bring it forward. I also warmed some of the tree shadows and worked the negative space around the trees. I am much happier with it now.

Provence Landscape minis SOLD

These three Provence landscape paintings were purchased by my neighbour and here they are hanging on her wall. They make quite a nice grouping. They were all 6x8 inch and painted with a palette knife.

Autumn Mist rework of Zorn Palette painting WIP

This is as far as I went with the last painting using the Zorn Palette.

In this last session we added highlight colours to use such as cadmium orange, viridian and cobalt blue.
This just wasn't working for me so, after leaving it for a while, I had another look and decided to tackle it again. I redid the sky and obliterated the pine tree on the left hand side and loosely mapped in some trees.

This is where I am with it at the moment. Sorry I can't get the colours quite right even after fiddling in photo shop, it's not quite as bright as this but it gives you an idea.

You can see that the right had trees have gone - the painting took over LOL as it sometimes does.
I will post an update in the next couple of days.

Amber Glow oil painting - Finished

Amber Glow oil painting

24x30cm (approx 10"x12")

oil on unstretched canvas

palette knife painting
click on photo for a larger view
FOR SALE 145€
international shipping included

I put the finishing touches to the painting yesterday. I liked how the 'Z' eye flow through the painting worked.

Here is a collage of some close-ups

 See the WIP for this painting HERE

Contact me about this or any other painting HERE

Winter Light oil painting for auction on DPW

Winter Light oil painting

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

oil on unstretched canvas

palette knife painting
 Painting 16 in the 30 days hath September challenge
is now up for auction on Daily Paintworks, 
starting at $65

Amber Glow, Autumn trees oil painting - work in progress

Following on from yesterday, here is the progress and some process pics along the way.

Amber Glow, Autumn Trees WIP

Oil on canvas sheet

24x30cm (approx 10"x12")

Started with a brush and finished with a palette knife

I still have to do some finishing touches to this - the lower part of the tree trunk doesn't look right and I think I need more depth under the trees in the background. I also need to push the middle autumn foliage back. If anyone can see anything else that needs a change, please leave a comment.

Here are some WIP pics
Stage 1

I started with a pink acrylic ground and very roughly blocked in some of the masses. I didn't block them in completely as I want to leave quite a bit of the pink background showing through. This block in gives me an indication of where the lights and darks will go. As you can see, I started on the sky before I remembered to take a pic.

Stage 2

Blocking in with local colour, trying to maintain the cool verses the warm balance. I used viridian, pink and blue (all mixed with lots of titanium white) for the sky.
Stage 3

More blocking in and starting to break up the masses. I used more pure titanium white over the colours of the sky. Because it is wet-in-wet some of it blended, but I did not blend all over (I was tempted though!)

Here is a close-up of the sky

Preparation for another autumn painting

Yesterday's painting Autumn Morning was painted onto a canvas sheet from a block I purchased along with my last art order. I thought I was ordering canvas paper for practice, but this lovely canvas pad of 10 24x30cm sheets from Belle Arti in Italy arrived. I was a bit hesitant about using it at first and used it for my Sunset over the Vineyard painting on Day 28 of the 30 day challenge.

I liked working on it, so I gave it another try yesterday for Autumn Morning. It has a medium weave and is universal primed. I did not add a gesso layer to it like I normally do with all of my supports, to see what the difference would be. The first layer of paint soaked in somewhat, but I find this with every surface, I used paint thinned with liquin for the first layers which I scumbled in. This was quite  a good way to start and suited this canvas beautifully and I was also able to add more layers on top. The final layer with a palette knife also worked well.

I am going to use it again today for another autumn painting - maybe seeing if I can use thicker paint with a palette knife.

Octobers landscape challenge on wetcanvas had this photo

Quite green and with a spring feeling. I imported it into Photoshop Elements, changed the saturation and removed the foreground tree. I now have this as the basis for my next painting

So stay tuned for tomorrows post to see how I tackled it - I already have a pink layer to give a warm background and help with recession.

Autumn Morning, Fall Landscape 10x12 inch

Autumn Morning

24x30 (approx 10x12inch)

oil on loose canvas

For auction on DPW 

A different style for me. After the challenge I wanted something soothing to paint. I've had this photo for a while but normally don't do 'soft'. However, after the tutorials on the Zorn palette I decided to use some of the pointers picked up during the webinar. As you know, if you have read some of my earlier posts, I am not a fan of the Zorn palette, so I went with the colours I know.

Here is how it started out, first I had a pink ground and then massed in the shapes - definitely an ugly duckling stage

30 paintings in 30 days Challenge Collage

Da-Dah! Here is a collage of the 30 paintings featured in the 30 day challenge

30 paintings in 30 days Challenge Collage

Sorry - in no particular order

Contact me here about any of the paintings

Some of these will need some finishing touches and I will keep you updated. Others have sparked some ideas for larger paintings.