First Portrait in quite awhile!

Using a photo I found on Wetcanvas.com, I painted this small 9"x12" portrait.  I really struggled with it.  It's been some time since my last portrait attempt, and my rustiness is evident.  As I post this photo, I see several areas which still need work...so I may have one more session with the  painting before it's done. 

My effort here was typical of what happens when I let too much time go by between painting sessions.  Rather than laying down a correct drawing and block in and then refining it to catch the final likeness, I found myself constantly correcting and repainting areas.  That's a sure path to failure...or at least frustration.  Well, there's only one way to cure the rust....PAINT! 

Learning From Ruth...Knife Painting

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Ruth Andre set off on a new pathway during our workshop in Ft. Bragg and Mendocino.  She did a marvelous palette knife painting (actually, several) and that started a whole series of such paintings.  You can see her work on her Painting Day blog at http://apaintingday.blogspot.com/


Ruth inspired me to try my own, and while it is much less successful than Ruth's paintings, I did enjoy doing it once again.  (I previously posted the only other knife painting I've ever done.  That was a year or so ago, I think.)

Pines on the Edge  Oil on Canvas panel  12" x 9"

And for the heck of it, here's the one I did some time ago.  The difference in these two paintings is that Pines was done from the start with a knife, while the Bodega Bay painting was a plein air brush painting that I didn't much like.  Some time after returning to the studio, I picked it up and when to work on it with a knife...surgery inference intended!