HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is 2011!  Can you believe it?

MiraBay Art Classes resume this week:

Acrylics - All levels
Tuesdays, 2 - 4 pm or 6:15 - 8:15 pm

Drawing with graphite, conte crayon, and charcoal
Fridays, 2 - 4 pm

Gyotaku
Saturday, January 22, 10 am - 12 noon

Sign up by calling the fitness center. 

Not a MiraBay resident?  Maybe you have a friend who is a resident and is taking the class that interests you.  Give me a call and I'll run interference to help with the signing up process.

Hope to see you soon!

Grace

Redo of Painting "Outrunning the Storm"

ne wonderful aspect of acrylic painting is if you don't like something, paint over it.  Just wait until the first version is dry.  This is essentially the same composition, but color, simplicity and subtlety make it quite different.  And negative painting has improved the shapes.

1. Softening the overall painting makes the scene more tranquil, emphasizing the ensuing storm.
2. Enlarging the boat and heading it more to shore better communicates "outrunning the storm."
3. The simplification of the sky puts more emphasis on the focal point.
4. Reworking the palm tree also softens the scene.  The trunk is smooth and gray; the leaves no longer form a lollypop tree.
5. The lightening of the hammock's color and the reshaping are more indicative of an empty hammock indicating the person who had been there is also outrunning the storm.
6. The shadows are more interesting shapes and point to the focal point as do the hammock and rope.
7. Removal of the seagrapes on the water's edge allow the soft laciness of the waves on the sand.

I like it a lot better.  Do you?  Click on Comments and let me know.

Palm Tree with Bird is Closer to Being Finished

My painting is closer to being ready for submission and a good thing it is!  TOMORROW is the day!

So I will submit this, "Palm Tree with Bird," and "Bird of Paradise."  Wish me luck!

Golden Gate Bridge - Seal Rock Perspective

(Double-click on Image to Enlarge.)

Here a painting done in about five hours using a technique offered by my art instructor.  Painted really quickly from a postcard.  Painted air or the "empty spaces" first paying lots of attention to shape and filled objects into the blanks afterward.

LOVED DOING THIS!

What's next?  Same process painting UPSIDE-DOWN!  Can't wait!

Grace

"A Painting is Never Finished; It Simply Stops in Interesting Places"--Paul Gardner

Here is my latest painting.  Not completely finished, but getting closer still.

Those of us from Florida have often seen the rain in the distance with a perfectly beautiful day around us.  The name of this painting is "Outrunning the Storm."  Just as we do in our lives, this sailboat is enjoying the beauty around it while attempting to stay ahead of the rain that is coming.

Close-Up: