Assignment One: Monochromatic Painting from a Newspaper Clipping
I was assigned this newspaper clipping and was told to paint with only black and white...but you can't use black out of the tube! You have to make your own black. Well I have done that before, but I never did a whole painting with just black/white. I really was pleased with the results. I just had a hard time keeping the black consistent...sometimes it was browner...next day bluer.
This is a close up shot of Michelangelo's "Pieta" marble statue where Mary is holding Jesus after he was taken down from the cross. You can see Mary's hands holding her son.
Monochromatic "Pieta"
Oil 16" x 20"
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Assignment Two: Still Life in Local Color
Basically we were assigned to bring in whatever we wanted for a still life or use the teacher's set up. I brought in some of my stuff and used some of the classrooms stuff. One thing I learned was to have a backdrop of color in your set up. I usually just pretend to see a color or use the wall color...DUH...it is so much better to have a color behind to sort of unify the objects. I didn't finish this one...came close, but had to leave for a week for our family vacation. I think I would like to finish the grapes and maybe strengthen the highlights on the pitcher. Oh Yeah..local color is just what it looks like. The class did a second painting the week I was gone of the same still life, but the next one was to be done in an "Expressionist pallette"...meaning whatever color strikes your fancy!
This was my set up before I started...Still Life: Grapes and Pewter Pitcher
Oil 16" x 20"
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Assignment Three: In the style of ...
The assignment was to pick from a list of Expressionist painters and paint an original painting that would look like another painting by that artist. Well I picked "Utrillo". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Utrillo
I started this one...didn't finish, because I just wasn't getting the colors right because Utrillo didn't have sunsets like this. This was from a photo I had taken from an apartment we had stayed in in Paris. It fit the style of the painting, but the not the color scheme. So instead of trying to paint it all again,
I just started over and the second painting is more
"Utrillo-ish".
This was our view from our apartment in Paris
...see the beatiful sunset
...well not Utrillo-ish!
Rue de Madeleine
Acrylic 16"x 20"
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Assignment Four: Landscape Pastiche
"pastiche" means....
work of art that combines themes and styles from various sources in such a way as to appear obviously derivative. Pastiches are frequently passed off as works by the artists from whom the motifs and figures were taken.
We were to take several plein aire landscapes and combine them into a new painting. I used the plein aire piece I did at my friend's property. I combined it with a vase of flowers from my garden and a pie dish I had.
It is not always easy to figure these things out, but this is what I came up with.
Summer's Kitchen
Oil 22" x 28"
I love to Learn...
I love to Paint...
I love to Enjoy Summer!
Vasona Lake
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Vasona Lake
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Yes...the smoke was here too! 
This was after about an hour.
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"Di Ja Voux" Houseboat
Dale made me a drying rack...last minute...but it worked out great. You can't just let oil paintings sit around a houseboat with 12 people and a dog!
"Di Ja Voux" 
Point Pinos Lighthouse
After one hour....
