Slide shows

Found a site,  TripAdvisor TripWow, that you can down load photos to to create a slide show.  It is a fun way to show of art work even though it was set up for travel photos.  Just another way to use the digital shots that are saved on the home PC.  You can check mine out at the link below:  

Original Paintings Michigan Artist Www.mbschiros.artspan.com Slideshow

Create a free slideshow with music from your travel photos.


  May have to do one of my garden next time.

From one to five....

You just start somewhere and keep going….

Do you need some more ways to get your paint brush moving?

     Ok here you go.  Find an interesting photo with a lot of subjects in it and good gray scale ranges.  Then make yourself a view finder, by either cutting a square or rectangle in the middle of a paper, or find an old slide that you don’t care for the photo in it and take it out.  I like to paint my view finder light gray so it does not distract from the image. 

    Now move your view finder over the photo and find a section that looks interesting, and work up a sketch or painting of it.  Next; take that painting or sketch and do four more, correcting or changing characteristics.  At some point the idea will continue to grow and you will have some unique works of art.

1. The reference photo from a magazine...

 2. The section I picked...

 3.  First try...

 4. A little color...

 5.  Another try...

 6. Starting to get a life of its own....

 7.  Where it ended up

Original Paintings Michigan Artist Www.mbschiros.artspan.com Slideshow

Original Paintings Michigan Artist Www.mbschiros.artspan.com Slideshow: "TEST TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Original Paintings Michigan Artist Www.mbschiros.artspan.com Slideshow ★ to Flint. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor"

Finishing Touch

One of the hard points about being a painter is putting down the brush.

Once you get into the swing of painting, and the momentum is rolling, putting the breaks on is very difficult.

One way to stop is when you reach that point where there is hesitation to where the next brush mark should be …. Just put the brush down and walk away. Clean up and leave the painting where it is in plain view to observe.

     I did this with the Pear painting, and noticed the areas that needed correcting. Each time I stopped to look at the painting I ask myself a few questions.

1. Do I like the structure?

2. Is the perspective correct?

3. What is the focal point?

I had the answers before I started painting on it again.

What was changed is slight, color and contrast where the pear and the glass meet. And there is a correction to the base of the glass. But sometimes little changes make a big difference in the over picture. Just thought I would share some finishing touches with you.


First stopping point.




Corrections for perspective and focal point.




Addressing highlights




Finished painting.






 













Thinking on paper

Thinking on paper......

Having a composition in mind is only one step towards painting a picture.
I know what I want to paint, and have an idea of the lay out. That is a good start.
Now I need to decide the mood. To visualize the possible moods, I think out loud, on paper. In this case looking at the subject in positive, a negative and neutral version.
The practice is done on gold toned watercolor paper with black and white for the positive and negative, with neutral colors for the other.
What I decided is …there are 3 paintings to do. Yep I like all three.
Next decision will be what actual colors will work. Sounds like I have more time to play with practice paintings before hitting the canvas.
How long does it take to paint a picture? Not long.
How much time does one spend thinking about painting that picture? A very long time.

That is ok, if you think with a paint brush.

How to watch a DVD

Open package, load DVD, watch. Nope, there is more to it.

I just got through watching, Caroline Jasper’s art instruction DVD called “Landscape Oil Painting on Red Ground”, excellent DVD, highly suggest it. But the truth is this is the second time through it for me.

What I like to do is watch an instructional DVD the first time, relaxed, as if watch a TV show. Put the DVD in the player, put my feet up, and just relax. The second time I am ready to go to work. I have my material ready, and my digital camera handy.

As I start painting along, I will pause the DVD, and take a quick snap shot of what is a good reference point of my painting. The reason I do this is short term memory, yep I will most likely forget what I did along the way. This happens especially if my materials are slightly different. Jasper paint on red ground (red colored gesso) with oil paints. I like gold ground better and use acrylics. So by having references to how my painting develops I can expand on this in the future. If you can refer to how something has been was done originally there is no going back and reinventing the wheel.

There is so much contrast to the start and end of a painting, and both points are extremely important, references are important.

Most of the time I start with gold as an under painting but I also posted a photo of a blue under painting, because I like to break my own rules. But if you follow my blog you have probably noticed that I do think that a colorful foundation can be very helpful with acrylic painting. And Caroline Jasper is an artist that uses that base to make beautiful work. Check out her DVDs and web site to find out more.

http://www.carolinejasper.com

Hey don’t forget to check out my web site too:

http://mbschiros.artspan.com