Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Curiosity might just kill the cat...




You all know me as a pretty detailed painter. I sharpen my pastels to a razor sharp edge and I use 000 brushes on some of my work. Well, I have just joined a challenge called the 60/60 Challenge with 27 other artists. The goal is to do 60 paintings in 60 days from life...not photos.EEEK! It runs from March 6th to May 6th and we will be posting online throughout the 2 months.
I decided to grab my big brushes and start warming up to do quick studies. I plan on doing pencil, pastel and oil pieces for the project. I also want to make them within an hour, two at the most. This will force me to loosen up and play with more color. Because I live in Minnesota and it is really cold out there, I will probably set up still lifes here in my studio and work from some sketches done from life at the barn.
This is my cat Burbank. While setting up a still life of marbles, he hopped on the table and started to play with them. This is the resulting painting. I did not do this from life, I grabbed my camera and took the picture. Remember it is just a warm up.
One thing I did for the first time was work on a black gessoed board made for me by Ray Beyl in Montana. His board are the best I have ever worked on. I will include more information on the boards in another post and give contact information so you can try them.
This is called "Curiosity" oil on board, 5x7

2 comments:

Linda Besse said...

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. Great technique and superb execution. Just plain...WOW. I look forward to seeing your 60/60. Quite a challenge.

Kathy Cencula said...

Love your work. This painting IS awesome!