Azure Dragonfly Meanderings

February 12, 2014

Sketchbook

Here is the finished ink drawing:

February 10, 2014

Sketchbook

A work-in-progress using a variety of pattern within a larger design. I'm hoping to use the larger design for several pieces in a series.

February 7, 2014

Sketchbook

Maybe it's the frigid temperatures lately that have me cocooning at home, but I've been enthusiastic about homemade soup and bread this past week. This was a recipe I made a couple of days ago – easy enough that I really should do this more often:

February 5, 2014

Sketchbook

I repainted a portion of the flag line in order to experiment with how impasto I wanted the image to be. It was a good exercise – I'm going to make the painted canvas a more abstracted image, with large blocks of colour. Next, I need to screw up the courage to go out in this frigid weather and buy supplies... Yikes!

February 3, 2014

Sketchbook

Another plan for (one half of) a colourful, impasto painting duo of a nautical flag line:

January 31, 2014

Sketchbook

I'm working on a colour study for a future painting of Peggy's Cove. This photo jumped out at me as the perfect reference image because of the great complimentary colours in the buildings and terrain:

January 29, 2014

Sketchbook

To finish this painting I put a bit more colour and texture in the foreground. I keep looking at the canvas and thinking I could just add a bit more here or there, but I am dangerously close to violating my 75% rule, so I signed it, photographed it, and called it done!

January 27, 2014

Sketchbook

I've been nit-picking away at the painting all day, trying to fix all the tiny issues of detail and colour that needed to be addressed. It wasn't until I put in cool and warm shadows in the dog's fur and the boy's shirt that I began to see the vibrancy I was looking for - what had been missing until that point. I'm not quite ready to call this done, but I need some time away from it to see it with fresh eyes.

January 24, 2014

Sketchbook

There have been many changes in the painting within the last few days. I've been working on trying to preserve the vibrant light coming through the spaces in the fence, while keeping the contrasting darker midtones of the fence itself. There is still work to be done on detailed areas, but the values are coming together now.
I added a lot more detail in the boy and the dog, and now I'm working on reclaiming the intensely lit patches of grass in the foreground. There's still more work to be done in terms of increasing the contrast between darks and lights, an essential element in getting the eye to read a scene as brightly sun-lit.

January 22, 2014

Sketchbook

This was where the painting was, at the interim stage, after I adjusted some of the colour temperatures with washes of blue.
My next post will show the quite considerable changes the painting has gone through this week. I've done a heck of a lot more painting than photographing my progress! (Oops!)