Portrait of Delia, and Hanford Cloudscape by Laura Gable

"Delia" oil painting sketch on 8x10 canvas, ©Laura Gable

"Clouds Above Hanford" 8x6 oil painting on oil paper, ©Laura Gable

Working on the daily paintings allows you to paint all manner of things. My artist friend Delia popped by the studio yesterday, so she sat for a quick portrait sketch. The light from the window shifted quickly, so we wrapped it up after about 1.5 hours, but it was fun to capture the nuances of color on the beautiful high cheekboned planes of her face. She did a lot of chatting, as she filled me in on her life, so I'm not quite sure that I got the smile on her lips to move to her eyes. Oh and as John Singer Sargent said, "There's something about that nose that's not quite right." (Or did he say it the mouth??) Yah I do like portraits and will give it another go soon.

The other painting is a small one I did on a piece of Arches Oil Paper, which I mounted to gatorboard.  It's from a photo I took up around the Hanford site near the Ringold entrance... a great spot to go do some storm watching. Working with the paper is interesting. It has a soft vellum texture and holds up to oil paint and washes surprisingly well. According to a few "how to" sites, it's best to put a thinned wash of oil paint down first which seems to keep the heavier strokes of color from absorbing totally into the paper. I've got a few spare pieces sitting about, so let me know if you want to practice on it. ;-)

Happy creating!!

What's New With Painter Girl? [day 13]

I've been lurking in the wings this year. Though this is my first post this year, I have been diligently painting daily with paint under my fingernails and even on my pajamas to show for it. Here's a quick showcase of my 13 finished paintings to date, in a grid format from my cool Layout app. Some of these images are just snippets of the actual painting. The full sized images are represented on my blog: http://ldgablepainter.faso.com/blog. Most are small (about 6x8) with 8x10 as the maximum size.

I'm also participating in Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. She hosts it every January, encouraging the masses to paint or draw daily (just like Bobi encourages us to do something creative daily). She hosts a regular podcast on AHA (Artists Helping Artists) Radio, so reaches a lot of people. http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog

I know our blog here has a good many viewers from looking at the page stats (with 50-100 views per day), even though we don't get as many participants. Here you can learn in depth, the process that goes on behind and inside the creating. Encourage your fellow artists to participate and follow along. And I'm enjoying what each of you are also creating in your own studios. It's great fun.