A Trio Of....

I'm a tad obsessed with 4-value paintings of cats. Since it's good to switch things up (even though I am doing the same exercise on the same subject matter, so the irony is not lost on me), I decided to switch a 5" x 7" format and play with background colors. My thought was that if I liked any of these, I could put them into Art 4 Shelter next year.

Here is my work since my last post. Painting in the morning for a few minutes and fitting in additional time when I can has kept me painting each and every day. I've gotten over feeling like I need a big chunk of time to paint. As a result, I paint more and finish more, even though life is very busy!

#162 - Ella In 4-Values - 5" x 7" paper - alternative blue

I am just going to call this one a warm up. My darkest paint color (my second darkest value) should be lighter. Especially when viewed from a distance, the two darkest values merge together. Also, I had trouble using a #8 sized brush. Things just did not gel with this one.

I took several in-progress photos of the next one.

While I really enjoyed the beginning stages of this one, I'm only okay with the finished result on this one.

#163 - Chandler In 4-Values - 5" x 7"on paper, - alternative blue

I was still using the #8 size bright brush on this one. For this one and the last one, I felt as though I regressed away from just doing the shapes and ignoring the details. Plus, it was more difficult to work smaller.

I finished this this morning and like it the best.

#164 - Marvin In 4-Values - 5" x 7" on paper - std palette

I used a #6 brush and that helped. I tried to be less fussy. The picture had the dramatic lighting that has been working well. Working in this way has been a valuable experience and I feel like I am learning tons. It will be interesting to see what creeps into my color paintings when I switch back to those. Although, I'm not quite ready to go back to that. Next, I want to try a few of these paintings using a different color than gray.