Classwork and old paintings

Now that we have unpacked and settled down somewhat in our new Idaho home, we took a brief trip to Idaho City through the foothills outside of Boise.  I decided to try a painting in my Friday morning class with Kevin McCain.  This is water mixable oil paint on canvas board, 9" X 12". I think it's done now. At least it's done for me as I got tired of working on it.

I have been mixing colors and testing them on a paper for my next class project. I'm going to do a fall painting of my house in Manchester with the bright New England colors of fall. I've never painted an image of my house, so that should be interesting.  It is just for me. 

I have been giving away paintings to my family here. One of the desert to my daughter who moved from Mojave to Boise. Another of the horses from Mojave for the granddaughter who moved from there to Oregon (and still has some of the horses).  Another granddaughter loved my phony Van Gogh painting that I did from an internet video and my other daughter loved my sci fi type painting with multiple moons.  So now, I need to do some paintings for myself, and later on some that can possibly be sold.

View from Sharon's house in Mojave.

Gregory and his mares

sunflowers Van Gogh style

Many moons

This one was based on real scenery as seen in Valley of the Fire State Park. I just changed the colors and added some moons.


Interruption: Mac was staring at something so I got out my camera and took a picture of the squirrel on the fence who was staring right back at him. I'm not sure what he has in his mouth since we don't have acorns and oak trees by this house. The squirrels here in Idaho seem to be a little different in color from the gray squirrels in NH. Very cute though.

Rosh Hashanah 5778

This new design and others for the Jewish new year are now available on my web site. The new year of 5778 starts at sunset on September 20th.

Here is a link to my gallery with Jewish holiday designs: https://linda-feinberg.pixels.com/collections/jewish+holidays

May it be a sweet year for all.

Online classes

I signed up for wet into wet oil painting classes with Alexander Art. I learned that I don't have the patience for this technique.  I wasn't happy with any of my paintings and they take way too long to dry. The paint is excellent though as are the brushes and I will probably get some use of these items in the future.  Meanwhile, I signed up for regular oil painting classes near my new home and those start next week. I'm looking forward to the classes and meeting some new people.

Here are some of my failures from the classes. I also learned that I don't like painting from other people's photos.  I like to paint what I have seen in my travels. That way it has some meaning for me.

I was glad I had leftover canvas to experiment on so I didn't waste good materials. I just taped up some to a board. The trees lesson (above) just taught all different kinds of trees.  I did pick up a few techniques that I will use in the future.  

The mountain with clouds was on an old board that I gessoed and painted.  I couldn't get the technique right with the palette knife. I was very unhappy with that one.

The mood painting (3rd up from bottom) was kind of fun and I wouldn't mind doing something like that in the future. Again, I just taped leftover canvas onto a board to practice.

The top one I actually used a stretched canvas to see if that would help my attitude, but it didn't really.  I used the palette knife on that one too and it was a little better than the first mountain painting, perhaps because that was canvas and the other was a board. I would have to practice a lot to get it to look better.

Meanwhile I've pulled out some photos from our recent drive on Route 21 to Idaho City and also from our previous trip to Canada (Waterton in Alberta). I hope to do a better painting of one of those when my class starts next week.  I didn't feel that the online classes were a waste of my time or money as I did learn some new techniques and I have some supplies to work with in the future.  I've taken other online classes in the past and felt that they were a better match with my level of art and my patience.

On the positive side, some of my past customers found me and ordered Jewish new year images and cards.  It was nice to feel appreciated. I made this image using a photo of the glass mezuzah I made in a class last year.