Studio Notes
Still Lifes Three and Four, Values Studies April 13, 2025These two still life paintings are complete as value studies. Next is to work through the colors, and the values of each color. The bowls are different, the vase is the same, and each has the same …
Learning to See Values April 6, 2025The difference between this second pass through a value study for a still life and the first is dramatic. Here's the earlier value study. Workable, but not consistent throughout - the changes I saw …
Website Image Scripts April 5, 2025As part of working through designing a new website and learning to use HUGO static website generator I worked through a process of how I wanted to manage and optimize images. This particular note has …
1st Still Life Tone Painting April 2, 2025I'd forgotten how much fun tone (value) painting is. It's sketching with a brush. In some ways even easier than charcoal or pencil, because you can overwrite any lines at will. I started with a …
1st Still Life in Oils March 31, 2025This is to track the work on the first still life I've done in oils in a very long time. I painted in oils for a couple of years when I started painting again in 2004, and one of those was …
Ground for Still Life March 31, 2025Initial canvas, primed with Windsor-Newton oil primer, and then initial raw sienna ground edges work are above. I've loved still life since my first monochromatic tone paintings in oils using burnt …
After - Color Panels Completed March 26, 2025I completed the twelve color panels for the Gamblin (ten) and Windsor-Newton (one, Terra Rosa) oil paints in my basic palette. The first panel is all eleven colors with pure color and then four …
Alla Prima II (Richard Schmid) March 24, 2025The photo above I took of one of Richard Schmid's still life paintings in his book *Alla Prima II*. The crispness of the paint around the petals of the rose contrasted with the almost-abstract …
First Color Panel March 19, 2025First panel. What did I learn? I learned the rose tones that can come out of three very different reds just by adding Flake White. I can see the flesh colors used by a master painter. I’ve recently …
Color Panels March 18, 2025Oil paints eventually get old and if not used, need to be discarded and replaced. I have some Windsor-Newton tubes of oil paint that are 22 years old, colors I've used but not finished out of the …
Samantha Keeley Smith March 12, 2025I was looking for inspiration for the (re-)design of my website. I searched for things like "best artist portfolio websites" and "examples artist website" and variations on that. That search turned …
Sunflower Watercolor February 18, 2025## **Photograph** I have a bird feeder post in my backyard. One of the three feeders is a cardinal feeder, and it holds black sunflower seeds. The cardinals, and sometimes other birds, tug the seeds …
Acknowledgements February 16, 2025This website is built on Hugo, a static site generator written in go. It is largely the work of a conversation - well, more of a series of thousands of questions asked, answered and then tried out …