Slate "Canvas"

I scavenged a random piece of slate from a local thrift store for something like $1. I wanted to try it as a unique canvas for an oil painting. It sat in my closet for months until I finally got around to digging it out. To prep it I simply masked the perimeter and painted a base of white acrylic. It took 3 coats of the acrylic to give a solid base. After drying, I freehand painted the barn in black and white acrylics; then masked off the barn. The only oil paint colors I used for this were ivory black, ultramarine blue, and titanium white. Combination blends of those colors gave me all the elements for this night scene. I did add a touch of cadmium red deep in a light glaze on the barn after all the other aspects were done. After pulling off the perimeter masking, the rough edged black slate really looked nice. I'm happy with the result. Something like this would make a nice gift. Now I just need to keep an eye out for random pieces of slate.

Lone Goose

Below is a painting I did months ago. Good experiment with water and reflection.

Today I did the same goose but did some trees on a distance shoreline and tilted a square canvas to a diamond orientation.

Minimalistic Display

I needed a place to put my paintings to dry (they take a week or more). I have limited wall space as my house is quite small. A simple board with some tacks was just right. It looks nice, simple, and takes up practically zero space. Plus it's portable if I ever want to use it at a craft event.

I'll add an extra perpendicular brace on the bottom to help minimize the chance of tip over if my cat decides to use it as a scraping post.

Spring Is Coming

Today's painting was a PBS livestream (recorded) by Wilson  Bickford. A nice spring meadow with a lone tree. Distant mountains and a misty base.

Fishing

Below is the painting I did for this weekend. It's on a 16x20 stretched canvas. The painting is wrapped around the frame instead of masking a border. I really enjoyed this painting as I've wanted to do a bear for some time. The birch forest background is something I've done in other paintings before. The trout was added to give the bear a purpose of why he was in the water. 🤔 I did the bear and some of the background foliage in acrylics first. Then started with the oil painting.

Canadian Geese

Today was a typical winter day; snow and cold. Instead if a seasonal painting I went with a spring theme this afternoon. Watching the Canadian Geese return is a sure sign of changing seasons. But that is not today. 🙁

This painting was done on a canvas panel and then put in a matted frame once completed. I bought the frame at the Urban Mission thrift store. The geese were first painted in acrylics and then taped. The foreground trees were masked as well. Next came the sky and water with various mixtures of ultramarine blue and cerulean blue oil paint (after prepping the canvas with white medium). Then I put in the distant fir trees in tones of gray, black, sap green, and some cadmium yellow for a bit of highlight. Peeled off the masking from the foreground trees and did those two. Finally I removed the masking from the geese and re-painted them with some oils to try to give them more depth. I'm not thrilled with the geese, but lessons are learned whenever experimenting like this.

Winter Sunrise

I've been posting multiple paintings per day just to build an archive of my work. Eventually that will slow down to once a week or so. Many of my paintings shown in these posts have found new homes. I gift quite a few out and I've sold a couple too.

My painting below is sticking with a winter scene since snow is in the forecast once again. I'm not sure if this is a sunrise or sunset. Either way, it was a fun learning experience. This was one of the first paintings I did at home once I gathered some supplies.

Classic Sunflower

Today is Groundhog Day and apparently he saw his shadow... so six more weeks of winter. Not that I put too much stock in a big rodent predicting the weather, but it sure felt extra windy and cold today. So I'll post a sunflower painting I did last year. This painting was donated to a local Rescue Squad that was doing a fundraiser.

Forest Fawns

One of my favorite paintings from last year is shown below. This had a lot of acrylic prep painting prior to the wet on wet oil paint. The acrylic prep included the deer painted on with brushes and the background leaf canopy sponged on. It gave a very flat and dull scene. But that's the plan. After the acrylic was dry, the deer were masked and the oil painting started with green and yellow glaze to give color but also retain the depth from the acrylic undertones. The sunbeams were a first for me. Once all the oil painting was done, the masking tape was removed from the deer and they were lightly scrubbed with an oil glaze to give a bit of color.

This was done on a stretched canvas which was 12x16. Instead of masking a frame, I painted completely around the sides gets to "wrap" the painting around all four edges.

Acrylics used for canopy: summer forest green and black gesso. (sponge) moon blue for background birch trees (small flat brush)
Acrylics used for deer: black and white gesso (applied with small flat brush and detail liner)
Oil paint for background: sap green, cadmium yellow hue, and titanium white. (2" scenery brush for canopy and ground cover. Fan brush for sunbeams, with mop brush to draw out.
Oil paint for birch trees: ivory black and cerulean blue. (small flat brush and painting trowel knife) titanium white for extra highlights. (painting trowel knife)
Oil paint for deer: van dyke brown and titanium white. (small flat brush and detail liner)