Hollyhock Paintings

Why hello there!  Hope you are enjoying your summer.  It has been divine for the most part!  I am finishing up two of my FINAL masters classes and then I should be DONE!  Hooray!  It has taken me three years but I have almost done it!

Anyways...so I have been super duper busy this past year with Little "I", teaching art full time, finishing up my masters and MOVING!  Yes, we sold our lovely Cleveland Cottage and have moved into a WONDERFUL place.  It is not permanent but it is perfect for us right now until we buy or build our dream house (because I am never moving ever again!)

So back to being busy.  I have had no time at all to do artwork for myself.  I have only been able to work on things that pertained to school.  My school art style is different from my own personal style seen in my store.  High school kids are very picky about art.  Everything has to look semi realistic.  That is generally not my style but I have tweaked it so that I can assist my lovely students.

So that being said, here is a painting exercise I did to show the importance of completing an underpainting.  The underpainting I used here was burnt umber.

Here is my final hollyhock painting I completed using acrylic paint.  I used the monochromatic burnt umber underpainting for this one as well.

I actually gave this painting to my mom for her cottage on Lake Erie.  The reference picture I used was actually a picture I took on the island my parents have their cottage on.  It is one of my most favorite pictures!

If you would like to see how to complete a monochromatic underpainting you can check out a video I made on doing one here.


Well I hope you have a lovely rest of your day!  I am hoping to go to the cottage this weekend and hopefully take some great pictures for more paintings!

Animal Paintings: Student Artwork

My painting class just finished their animal paintings using a limited palette. Students were to use only three colors plus black and white. I encouraged students to use the primary colors so they would be able to mix any color they needed. Some students did, some didn't.

These paintings were done in acrylic paint on a canvas board. Students started the painting by underpainting the canvas board with a color of their choice-anything to get rid of the white of the canvas board. An underpainting is the initial layer of paint applied to a ground (like a canvas board, canvas and paper.) I usually recommend painting the canvas with a complementary color of whatever is the dominant color in the picture. For example: If the picture has mostly greens and blues I would paint the canvas a peachy-red color. I think it just gives the painting a lot of depth and I like the underpainting to show through in spots to provide some interesting contrast. If you want to keep your paintings more natural and realistic a black and white or brownish underpainting works really well.

Next up we are doing a watercolor landscape, I will post those when we finish!