Art Journal

Here's another cat, Minsy. She's three-legged, but you can't tell in this pose.

I was once again going for the 3 values. Here's the original plan, the underpainting and the final painting.

Minsy, 8 x 10

This was a plein air done along side a snowy field.  As I stood there painting, the snow slowly melted off erasing the furrows that had attracted me.  Not a great composition but fun to paint.

Around the Corner, 9 x 12

Here's the second painting of Oliver looking very regal. This one is also a three value study. It was particularly tricky with all his faint stripes and markings.

Oliver 2, 12 x 9

Oliver is a very aloof beast, an acquaintance cat. If you pet him he tries to bite, but not really seriously.  It's more of a "don't annoy me".

But he's gorgeous. Here again, working on  three values if possible. This is the first painting of Oliver; will post the other one next.

Oliver 1, 10 x 8

Noodle is another cat portrait.  Noodle is very talkative and compliant. Once again I was working on cutting down the values to three if possible.

Noodle, 10 x 8

I did this one on a late afternoon in March looking east near Union Reservoir. The clouds were very dramatic ranging from super bright to golden to very dark.

March Clouds, 8 x 10.

Here was another nice day for painting. I could not have asked for better painting weather.

There was still snow left along the banks of the St. Vrain River and I went there to paint water, ice and rocks.

The scene I chose was complicated and I had some doubts about whether I should choose something simpler but decided to go for it.

Streamside, 9 x 12

While wandering around Sandstone Ranch looking for something to paint this scene caught my eye. The light was streaking down over a snowbank at the upper pond and I decided to go with that. The light was soon gone so I had to try to remember what it was like as I worked on the painting for the next hour and a half.  I ended up going back the next day to look at it again, touch up the painting and adjust some colors.

Making Way, 9 x 12

This was my attempt to get out and paint something while we still had some snow left. It was perfect weather for doing some plein air painting. Now I hear we are about to have a massive 20-40 inch snowfall this weekend. We will see.

This painting is a small 8x10 plein air done at Rogers Grove. The stream bed of the St. Vrain River used to go past this tree but then we had a flood in 2013 and everything changed. The river moved farther east leaving this old tree stranded and it has since fallen into a bad state.

Left Behind, 8 x 10

Here are two cats belonging to my daughter.  They are yet another pet painting exercise. Once again I was trying to stick to three main values and get a likeness down of these two characters.  Here they are sitting in a backlit window area. I was also trying to get the backlit effect to work.

Mister B is in front, Mister Mu is in back. B is for "Brilliant"

The Orange Crew, 12 x 9

I did a couple more pet paintings as they are great practice. It's kind of like doing portraits of people, only with pets it doesn't quite matter if you know the "person" being painted.  You might not want a painting of your next door neighbor but might indeed like a painting of the neighbor's cute cat. At any rate I've been doing some pet paintings as exercises for value practice and to hone my skills at capturing likenesses. This cat painting was from a royalty-free photo but looks amazingly like a cat of ours called Luna, who is now sadly departed.

Luna 2, 8 x 10