Back to School Part 3

I was getting tired of looking out my window and seeing snow, so I pulled out an old photo and made a small painting. This one is an oil painting, 8" X 10" on canvas board.  I was pleased with my teacher's comments. He said my painting was an improvement over the photo. :)

I posted it on my website and you can order a card or print here.

I finished the painting I was working on earlier and gave it a title: Valor and General Stark, those are the names of the horses. This one is 16" X 20".  I'm enjoying the oil painting class and learning more than I was learning on my own from DVD's and books.

My acrylic painting of the bridge is now up on the conference room wall at Webster House and I stopped by yesterday to deliver more paintings and had my picture taken with my painting. Seeing it this way gives a better idea of the scale of the painting. It is 4' x 5'. I'm very happy with the way it looks and I changed my image at the top of the blog to this one.  My smaller painting of the same scene is on display locally and I'll be bringing it back home next week.

I didn't work on my painting of birches this week, so I still have to finish that one. I decided to start a new painting instead, one that I felt more emotionally connected to.  I picked out two photos I had taken in Tsfat (Israel), just as the Sabbath eve was beginning (not quite sunset yet). Last week I brought a sketch to class since I had to combine photos and rearrange them a bit to get the image I wanted.  This week I started with a color study on oil painting paper. I taped the paper to a white board. This was the first time I had used this paper and I wasn't really comfortable with it.  (Also the teacher suggested I do a value study next time as well as a color study.)  

I liked the way the composition worked out from my combination of photos. I worked on it more in class and will continue next week with more detail.

Still learning about values - the sky is the lightest light (even though it was getting to be sunset). I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with my brushes and oil paints now.  Some of the other students thought the image might be from France or Italy. I will probably title it "Erev Shabbat" which is Hebrew for eve of the sabbath.  That is Mount Meron (Israel) in the background.