Following the Masters Assignment #3 - Completed

My following the Masters Assignment (#3) is finished barely ahead of the deadline. This month our challenge was to paint our choice of landscape, copied from a master painter. This is my rendition of View to the Almafi Coast, by Carl Frederic Aagaard. I chose this painting because I enjoy the subject matter and because I knew it would be a challenge for me. Painting foliage is something I'm still working on.

Camping at Mt. Madonna

Even though the weather has been so cool, we decided to get the summer started with a local camping trip to Mt. Madonna. Even with the cold weather we had a good time. We met some nice people camping next to us and got a kick out of all the Boy Scouts camping there, too. The nicest surprise was when we found out that Jeff's sister and hubby were the docents for the weekend! So we got to see Russ and Jan and Ron perform at the amphitheater. My friend, Jill, and her family were there as well! Small world!

Here is a plein air I did our accommodations!

Backyard Mural

After years of talking about it, I am finally going to attempt to paint a large mural in my backyard on the exterior of our house. We have a large blank wall and just a few height-challenged plants in front of it. I started by sketching out some ideas, rejecting them and finally settling on the one I deemed to be the EASIEST. It depicts one of my family's favorite vacation destinations - Sand Harbor, Tahoe.

After I got the thumbnail sketch fleshed out I transferred the simplified design to a gridded paper. The challenge was how to transfer this image to my very heavily textured stucco wall. A couple years ago I painted some butterflies on the front of the house just to get a feel for how difficult painting on this material would be -- VERY! Well, drawing on it isn't any easier! I ended up using a large piece of graphite and resigning myself to the fact that my "drawing" would be very "loose" indeed. Hey, if it doesn't work out I can always just repaint the wall, right?!!

I used white tape, a yardstick, a ladder and a large level to help me "install" the grid on the wall. Then, using the large chunk of graphite I started to draw in my design. Here are my efforts so far.

Ink Blossoms

This is an exercise from a book. It started out fairly well until I got to the actual flowers. After repeated attempts and too much color (these were meant to be "white" flowers), I ended up dashing it all and added ink outlines - sort of makes the flowers look like they are sitting on top of the rest of the painting.

Plein Air - Almaden Lake

Another nice day, albeit a little windy, spent painting with friends at Almaden Lake. My goal today was to do a bunch of quick, loose studies and just have fun.

Yupo Roses

This week I was trying my hand at a loose interpretation of some blossoms - Charles Reid style - but wasn't having any luck. For me, loose equates to sloppy. I guess I'm just not confident enough for minimal strokes. Anyway, after a couple of attempts, I remembered I had a brand new pad of Yupo that I'd been wanting to try out. Having no experience whatsoever I decided to just jump right in. I didn't know if you could draw directly on Yupo, or use liquid mask or create layers. So, of course, I tried all three! I am actually pleased with my results. I will confess that I did wipe the entire thing off once and sprayed down the center to remove excess paint twice - that's the beauty of Yupo! Now, just one question - is there anyway to "fix" the artwork so it doesn't melt during the next humid day?

Plein Air - Anna's Garden

I finally made it out to meet the plein air group today - it's been a while for me. Anna was gracious enough to invite us to paint her garden. Her garden extends around the entire house and it is stunning! She has murals and facades painted and built into exterior walls and fences, statues, a waterfall, potted plants galore. Even her driveway and side yards are magnificent! I started out in the driveway looking toward the house and planned to work my way to the backyard, but being a slow painter and having so much to look at I never ended up moving locations! I did take a tour of the back though and it is a painter and gardener's paradise! Thanks Anna!