Enjoy the Beauty That Surrounds You

          I have been painting since childhood and have been sharing my experience with other painters by teaching and mentoring for 30 years so I would like to expand this experience by blogging about art, painting tips and exercises to help you stretch your creative self. 

I love painting from life, figures, landscapes en plein air, and still life set-ups in the studio, but there are times when photos are the only source.  This is one way that I use photos with out copying them.

This small painting is a study I used as an example for my students of using a photo for the design, but choosing your color scheme -- this is a monochrome of yellows with black and white.

  This is the same image painted with a warm analogous plan using red-orange through to yellow-green with black and white for tints and shades.  We also worked with the cool analogous scheme, complimentary, and split complimentary.  I suggested that the photos they chose should be printed in black and white so that they would not be influenced by the colors in the photo but still  have clear value patterns.

  This is the 20 x 24 version that I then painted from the small analogous study. Belle Point Park is part of the National Historic Site, the first Ft. Smith on the edge of the Indian Territories.  This is the River Trail that leads down to the Arkansas River and looking across to Oklahoma. 

Hope you will join me again.  Have fun painting the beauty that surrounds you.   Pat