DPW Old Mill and Tools challenges, etc.

"Neglected, but not Forgotten" 3.5x2.5 watercolor on paper

I'm surprised this painting fell together in an hour.  I had an hour to produce something before I had to fix dinner but I still went ahead and grabbed a blank ACEO watercolor paper (btw a gift from a dear friend Barbara Ann Spencer Jump).  She was kind enough to gift me a variety of watercolor papers in 2.5x3.5 format! This is equivalent to winning the raffle ticket for me because I can only cut trapezoids for some reason!  Check out the submissions "Paint What You Paint With Challenge"

I felt SOOOO challenged by the DPW Old Mill challenge!  It's not so much that the reference photo was low resolution and dreary.  But I admit, I'm not a landscape artist and I'm especially not used to painting with a with a make-believe prettier picture in my head HAHAHA  So I submitted anyway, such as it was....

"Solo Mio" 7x5 watercolor on paper

Finally, I took a picture of myself....rather, I happen to like this one picture I took recently of myself so I thought I'd paint it for the DPW All About Me challenge.  I started painting it before Romel Delatorre workshop, but I think was a mistake not to finish what I had started before the workshop because I was simply dying to paint when I got back!  It would have behooved me more to paint something on a blank canvas.  My saturated brain was not ready to go backwards.  So I'm disappointed in this painting.  I'd like to start painting with more subtlety.  We'll chalk this one up to painting while I'm in transition but I am sharing it here as starting point (fingers crossed).  We'll see where I go from here :)

"Departure" oil on linen 6x6 inches

Umm here is the reference photo don't laugh!  I am the only one allowed to laugh!  Oh of course you can laugh! :D

Calypso Genesis Self Portrait in Oils

"Erika Lost in Painting"
9x12 oil on canvas

This is my submission to a new artist blog challenge hosted by the talented Alice Thompson. The blog is Calypso Moon Artist Movement . This our genesis challenge - to create a self portrait which includes our shoulders because shoulder gestures add insight to the the subject's personality. We were also instructed to choose one color plus black and white in our paintings.

My color choice was yellow ocher by Lefranc. I like that it is both an earthy and warm hue which adds to the mood of my painting. I chose this photo because I've been told people who know me catch me in this position often times. They conclude that I'm a deep thinker :) Actually, if I could step out of myself and see me this way, I can attest that I'm very much in my creative zone and in the middle of mentally painting my next piece or maybe trying to determine a solution to a problem I've encountered on the piece that's been sitting on my easel.

Please visit CMAM blog to view what the other hand-picked artists have done to meet the challenge!