Month: November 2014

This painting is a smaller and more worked version of No. 242 from Barbara’s class.  I was rushing on the first one and wanted to slow down and try to be much more deliberate here. For some reason, this was the painting where I finally started putting together a process for how to lay it all down. You can see from the detail image how some parts of it aren’t even fully painted but the image still reads right.

Note: This painting was done as part of a class I take with Barbara Jaenicke.  The photo, composition and direction on this piece was from Barbara as a part of the class. 

This painting was done in the September class with Barbara Jaenicke. The foreground was a real tangle of small bushes and trees and it was dizzying to see the “big shapes.” This frustrated me enough that I attempted it a few more times.

Note: This painting was done as part of a class I take with Barbara Jaenicke.  The photo, composition and direction on this piece was from Barbara as a part of the class. 

I wanted to try this one more time to try and gain a little more control over the colors and the balance of it all. I had let my background trees get a little too dark on 240 and wanted to see how it reacted if they were pushed back.

Note: This painting was done as part of a class I take with Barbara Jaenicke.  The photo, composition and direction on this piece was from Barbara as a part of the class. 

This past August I had the opportunity to begin taking painting classes with Barbara Jaenicke. Each month she holds a class where we watch her do a demo and then paint together as a small group.

This painting is the one from August. The core theme was around “greens” and how to the handle warm, cool, close and distant tones. I finished this one at home after getting a base laid down during the class.

Barbara is an amazing painter, and I feel very lucky to be a part of the class.

On the last day of our California trip, I decided to climb one of the larger hills and paint an oak tree. It was over 102º that day and the heat, combined with the fact that there are apparently rattlesnakes everywhere, made for a very challenging afternoon. I think I was starting to experience heat stroke and called it a day before finishing the painting. Once I got back to the house I experimented with my block-in and ended up with this.

Here’s another one from California. There are these amazing oak trees in my sisters neighborhood and I wanted to paint one as the sun was starting to set. My brother-in-law came out with me and it was a fun time of painting and taking in the last light of the day.