New work

Wow! It has been over a year since I have posted here! Well, Life kinda happened, and I set my art more or less aside.  I did accomplish a few things though and I would like to show you the latest oil I have completed and the steps it took to get there :)

I took a class at Howards Art and Frame in Hagerstown, MD to get back into oil painting.  It had been over a year since I had done anything with oils and I felt I needed a refresher before I started teaching again this Spring.

Nicole Troup was the instructor  /http://www.nicolesoilportraits.com/

She provided us with a photo and encouraged us to change as much as we wanted to.  I kept the general idea of a windmill, although I had never seen this type of windmill before.  I changed the doorway to a circular staircase and added flower pots, vines and boulders to the painting.  I changed the look of the water and mountains in the distance and the grass in the foreground.  I also changed the style of window set among the added vines.

The following pics will give you an idea of how the painting took shape.  Needless to say, I fell in love with the new set of palette knives that I bought :)

Original Photo:


 

Drawing with some changes made:



Toned canvas then blocked in main colors:

Hmmm...better soften the colors...

Time to take a black and white pic and check my values...
 

I Needed more dark values, but I was hoping the vines would take care of that.

okay, too much dark. Vines are way to heavy, Thankyou Nicole for pointing that out :)

I added back in the building color to spread out the vines.
I had to wait till it dried to add the flowers back on the new vines, but I think now it is finally done.

 Thanks for looking :)