100 Paintings by Adam

Month: July 2011

Cheekwood Walk II

With 129 I wanted to build off the study from 127 and do a larger version of that same image. The proportions were a little different so it’s not as tall but it’s mostly the same.

It’s interesting what translates when going from a smaller study to a larger version. Instead of viewing the canvas as small you can look at it as the brushes being big. Everything is a little more crude and overstated. With a larger canvas you have more room to work and can give it a little more finesse.

One thing I like about this one is the rock steps to the left. In 127 those got totally lost but here it actually feel like they have some volume.

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Listada de Gandia (Green)

Leslie recently went down to visit her mom and brought back a bunch of these little light purple eggplants. They were probably 1/4 of the size of what you see in the grocery store and had these white stripes all through them. I looked it up and they are an Italian variety called Listada de Gandia which sounds much cooler than eggplant. Italians are great at making everyday things sound amazing.

After all those sepia toned paintings from last month I think I wanted to get some color on the canvas. Same issue with the loose nature of this one. I was tired of making things so tight and wanted to give this a little more life.

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Cheekwood Walk

After my trip to Nashville I felt like painting again and got right back into it. In Nashville we stayed with Cousin Kay who in addition to being a wonderful host also works at Cheekwood.

For those of you not in the know, the Cheekwood is a wonderful museum right outside of the city. They have a great sculpture garden and that Saturday we took a stroll around the property.

The painting above is of the path around the grounds. I was able to get lots of great images and will do a few more. It’s a really beautiful place.

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Short Term Memory

This painting is the result of a misunderstanding. I had been reading The Art Spirit by Robert Henri and in that book he talked about working from memory. His contention was that looking directly at a model (or a photo) made you less creative and that to really express a subject you needed to paint it from memory.

So I was driving one evening and saw two people walking on the greenway and thought – that would make a great painting. I will paint it from memory!
The only problem with this is that Henri intended for you to intensely study the subject prior to painting. Not glance at the subject while driving by at 50 mph. I figured that out after I painted this. Lesson learned.
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Awful House

Still trying to paint myself out of whatever it is I have gotten into. Not sure if it is stress or what. I have at least one more like this to post and then I think we are out of the woods. I was able to take a little trip last weekend and I think the 7+ day break on painting helped a lot. More this week.
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Challenged Painter

I was in a funk and had run out of things to paint so I decided to take a look at the Daily Paintworks Challenge a couple of weeks ago. They had this one where you painted a photo of a metal bowl and some watermelon but you did it upside down. So that is what this was.

It’s sort of a mess but I’ve found that if I am in a creative rut I have to paint my way out of it. Which means some not so hot paintings but it’s the only way out.
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About Adam Houston

Adam Houston is an American impressionist oil painter. He lives outside of Athens, GA and paints the landscape of the surrounding country. In 2010 he began the blog 100 Paintings by Adam where he documented his progress as an artist.  

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