Bowl of Fruit Painting 9×12 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
Still lifes are not particularly exciting for me to paint – though I paint them. Painting still lifes is good practice, however, because of the varying shapes, textures and colors involved, along with the challenge of complex composition. Painting still lifes actually helps in painting portraits. In fact, painting in any style assist with painting any other style. You can look at this painting and see all the separate elements I had to paint. There were decisions and layers of brush strokes involved with each item.
I’m working up to the 10,000 paintings said to be necessary before one can expect to claim “mastery” in oil painting. I’m still under 1000 paintings, so I have a ways to go. It’s time for another portrait. Have a wonderful weekend. Winifred
Colorful Portrait 3 – 11×14 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
I’ve attempted a similar style of painting a couple timed in the past. They were smaller – 5×7 and were good – however, I felt I’d only been lucky and felt no confidence in my ability to create such paintings. This painting represents a step forward for me. I certainly feel encouraged to try more. Next time, I hope to use fewer strokes and to make every stroke count.
I said, I’d see you on the other side of the election. Well, we have a new President. As you know, he is not the one I wanted. Courts have determined him to be a RAPIST and a convicted criminal. He’s been twice impeached and documented as a prolific liar and fraudster. Regrettably, e’s completely lacking in character. But, it is what it is. I won’t mention him again – he’s not worth it. I’m here to share my paintings.
Lady in Fancy Dress 12×16 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
I actually enjoyed creating this painting and it’s emotional content. There was no appreciable suffering during the painting process this time – as is certainly the case with many of my paintings. I even was able to create some energetic brushstrokes in her hair, background and attire. No doubt. it’s a function of experience and growing confidence in brush and paint handling. I am determined to be able to include some level of abstraction into realism. I think the combination is pretty wonderful.
Well, we have a big week ahead. See you on the other side. Have a great weekend. Winifred
apes White Cloth Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
What a journey this painting has had. It was intended as a little practice exercise – to paint something I would not particularly care about. To allow that the painting would not be “precious” as they say, allows one to be more comfortable experimenting – such that what or how one paints just doesn’t matter. So that was my mindset which carried throughout the painting process – as you will see. Below is the reference image – a little yellow plate with grapes on a brown surface.
Grapes – Reference Image.
Below is a crop from my initial painting of the plate and grapes.
When I stood back to look, it was apparent I was doing my same old realism and I didn’t want to do that. So, I scraped the paint off the plate. I think it’s rather pretty but I wanted something different from just pretty. It’s getting less hard for me to to paint something relatively well (the plate) and then decide – NO – scrape it off and try again. I maintained the grapes throughout. Below was the next attempt.
Grapes on Blue, Winifred Whitfield
Above, I painted over plate and the background and started adding random colors. Again, I decided NO and scraped off the paint. Then I decided I would approach it differently. I would find my little yellow plate and set up what would be a background and table covering and work from this structure. Below is that photo of what would be my background reference image:
Yellow Plate with Background and Table Cover
Above: I thought that having this reference would assist me with what I wanted to accomplish. I found a piece of stiff cloth I like to use because it will hold stiff folds. It’s actually a piece of house painters floor protective covering which has vinyl on one side. I set the little yellow plate on it – no grapes – and I photographed the plate against the cloth which gave me a reference background and table covering. Below was my first attempt using the reference to form my background.
Grapes on Tan Cloth
Above: Rather interesting colors and shapes but not what I wanted. Here again, the plate shape is painted with a sense of realism reflecting of the original shape than I wanted, if not the color. Thus, I’m heading down the wrong path again. I struggle with this. Below, I try again.
Grapes with zig-zag background.
Above: Not so bad except that the color turned to mud because I hadn’t sufficiently dried nor scraped off the tan/gold paint you see before it. This time I would allow it to dry over night and reapply cooler paint colors during my next paint session. Below- the final PERHAPS.
apes White Cloth Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
In actuality, the light colors in this painting are very neutral – not so warm hued as they appear in this photo of the painting. (It could just be my screen.) I intensified the grape color, added deeper reds to the grapes and added a couple additional grapes as I always enjoy doing. I admit I never took the grape stems too seriously. I succeeded in a looser background with lots of texture, random abstract strokes and lots of energy. The background is not necessarily pretty but it’s not BORING. That’s important to me. To have energy and not to be boring was my only objective for this little exercise – which turned out NOT to be such a “little” exercise. In keeping with the intention to not make this painting “precious”, I’m going to sand down the background as soon as this painting dries more. I have found that the result of sanding a painting during the painting process or after, most often enhances the painting. It allows some of the underlying colors to come through and it affects the edges in some way. I expect it to become more interesting. I’m not sure what will happen. If the results are particularly interesting I will show you. If you actually made it this far – thank you for sharing this journey with me. Winifred
This past week, rather than creating a completely new painting, I decided to experiment on an existing painting. Painting backgrounds is an ongoing challenge for many painters. This is certainly the case for me. A background should be an integral part of the painting, created within the context the development of the painting, not as an after thought or a final thought. I was not happy with my original background of this painting, even though it resembled the original reference photo, I thought it could be more interesting. I’ve been practicing swerving lines and small floral and foliage elements during the past year. As someone explained on YouTube, painting is a physical exercise, and it requires effort and practice to teach the hand how to make different brush strokes. Think of the gymnast who has practiced and can perform a certain technique very well – but has no facility in another technique and must work hard to get her body to perform it. So it is with brushstrokes. It is few painters who can paint any subject matter very well. You should see how awkwardly my hand moves when painting the petals of roses or a cluster of petals in a lilac or hydrangea. Portraits over all are hardest to paint, (the nose. eyes, lips) but floral elements, require the most complex brushstrokes. For me, painting fruit is easiest. For a while now, I’ve wanted to add decorative floral elements to the backgrounds of my paintings. Last week I added some floral decorative elements to the portrait I painted. It was subtle but it was there. This week, I added floral elements more substantially to this still life painting above. I made quite a few other changes as well. The original painting is below. You may well think the simpler version is preferable. Important to me was giving my hand practice adding graceful swerves and floral elements which you see in the painting above – and there will be more because I am still practicing.
Oranges and Grapes Still Life 11×14 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
I think of the destruction and terror which must have been experienced by the hurricane victims – now trying to rebuild their lives. I also think of the terror of the Haitians who’ve been placed in harm, accused repeatedly of eating their neighbors cats and dogs. All very sad. Have a good weekend. Winifred
This painting was challenging and enjoyable. I couldn’t think of a good or clever name for it. This is the same young lady with all the curls I painted and posted a couple weeks ago. In the end I cropped my painting because I had an issue with her hand which was not right in the reference photo and I just couldn’t correct it. That’s fine – as paintings get cropped all the time. Not a lot to talk about today – probably a good thing. Have a great weekend. Winifred
Angel Curls 9×12 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
She’s my neighbor and for the past two years, since she was 4 years old, we’ve explored crayon, watercolor, colored pencils, pastels, paper cut outs, and now her latest fascination – clay. Initially, I thought I would “teach” her but I quickly found out I had no idea how to do that. Instead we just play – mostly I watch her. She’s pretty happy if I just give her 100% percent of my attention during our half hour or max hour together once or. twice per week. I’ve seen so much progress. She is totally focused on the activity of the day and happy to take the day’s activity home with her.
She has learned that I don’t like to do smiling photos and she has no problem with this. Normally her hair is in braids or one or two pony tails, hence and on the day she arrived with her hair down in curls I decided to photograph her. I could complain about some of the colors as they shifted in the photograph of the painting – but what’s the point.
Today, I began cutting back my strawberry plants and adding the foliage to my compost pile. I say I’m tired of gardening but yesterday I found myself buying large bags of container soil to transplant my many kale plants in another week or so. Cabbage worms decimated my many kale plants a couple years ago. It was so depressing I haven’t tried since. This fall I will. Have a wonderful remainder of your weekend. Winifred
I took a break from painting portraits the past few weeks to paint still lifes. I’m so glad I did. It made this stylistic shift in my portrait painting much easier. I looked at the original version of this painting this morning – fresh eyes. It had a solid blue background with a deep shadow on the left.These attributes were reflected in the reference photo I took recently – but it wasn’t working. Her name is Cinnamon. She’s a pretty girl with beautiful cinnamon curls. But overall the entire painting was just normal – quite boring I thought. The only thing I was happy about was her face. I had avoided over blending her face – it was painterly, but I needed to do more. I made paint mixtures of orange/gold and burnt sienna and started creating big, loose swirls of curls, alternating the colors and moving all over her head. Can you imagine my fear! However, I liked the effect right away. Energy was emerging. Then I envisioned adding green and gold as background colors rather than just blue. I mottled in the new colors. The painting was transformed. I enhanced the highlights of the face and it was basically done – for now. Abstracting portrait elements for some reason is scary for me but it’s my intention to move beyond my fear. As days go by I will likely make more changes. That’s what usually happens. Thank you for looking. Winifred
I’m going to explain what I’ve been doing. It’s been fun. I can’t use solvents in my studio and the use of solvent in oil painting is part of the traditional painting process. It’s used for brush cleaning, to create a thin wash to work out the values of the painting or to paint the first layer with a thin wash of color and to thin oil paint throughout to one’s desired consistency. Mixed with oil paint, the paint dries faster. Sometimes a solid layer of the mid color of the painting is applied overall to the surface and shapes are wiped out to create initial shapes in the painting.
Fruit Bowl Practice Painting Original Painting by Henri Latour.
for these reasons, I feel a little handicapped in not being able to use solvent. Many people can’t use it. There can be an allergic reaction which causes head aches, nausea or whatever. The adverse reaction can develop over time. Some of these products are odorless – which I think is a terrible thing. You can’t even tell if solvent is building up in the studio. Without going too far into this. I heard someone mention an alternative. The suggestion came from a very experienced oil painter who post lots of technical info on YouTube. He said †hat for quite a while now, he has used a watercolor wash as a background or first painting layer. Originally he used Acrylic. It “dries” quickly, but the fact is it should cure for 1 to 2 days before painting on it in oil, so he changed to watercolor. So, I decided to try watercolor A normal person would likely have tested this process using watercolor from a set they may have at home, or might purchase inexpensively on Amazon. Not being a normal person, I decided I would make a set of watercolor colors – specific to what I might use for subdued background colors. I probably looked at 30 YouTube videos to learn how to make a watercolor binder. The process is more complicated and requires more ingredients than in making oil paint which I’ve made for years. The other thing is that after grinding the watercolor it has to dry which can take 2 to 3 days curing before using the product. I guess you don’t have. to let it dry but its harder to control the amount on the brush if it’s wet. I initially thought I would make 3 colors. however, I made 12. I couldn’t help it. I had the pigments already and in fact, I had all the ingredients I needed – gum Arabic, glycerin, honey, and clove oil. There are many recipes which can affect the functionality and artistry of watercolor. It’s been fun to learn about which is why I couldn’t get a painting done last week. I spent days studying, and days making the watercolor. I could have gone a much simpler route but I really enjoy making stuff. For my purpose they’re fine. Whether or not they’re really any good – I have no ideabut they will work for me.
Then I selected a painting to test my new watercolor as a background and an initial wash.The painting was interesting to copy. It’s not really a copy but I certainly copied many of the elements from the painters work. I like the fact that I used bristle brushes only. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. In addition to creating texture which I love, it keeps all the edges soft. I’ll have to try that with a portrait. Actually, I did use a small sable for those delicate little champagne grapes. I then added a border and allowed a couple pieces of fruit to roll out the frame – something I like to do – most often with grapes.
Professional WC is most often in very small containers. My watercolors are large allowing me to insert a large brush into the containers for large strokes rather than small sable brushes most often used in WC painting. Notice my name is not on the painting. I don’t think the artist would like his name on it either. Well, that’s my story. Have a great weekend. Winifred
Three Heirloom Tomatoes Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
This is the second time I’ve painted a group of “three tomatoes. I waited until I was finished with the painting above before I looked back on the painting (below) created 5 years ago or so in order that it not influence me. I remembered my first tomato painting, below, was very blended and pretty realistic. I worked hard to make sure this latest painting (above) was more textured and loose. It was taken outdoors with a blue sky shining on them giving the cool highlights and creating significant contrast. Evergreens, form the background.
Neither painting was easy. I remember how difficult it was to blend the slight shifts in gradients in the first painting, below. This latest painting, the one above, should have been easier and it probably would have been had I not worked so hard to be true to the many shapes, ridges and color variations of the heirloom tomatoes. It has much deeper in color, more burgundy with green variations.
Red Tomatoes Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
I like both paintings for different reasons. I definitely like the background and tabletop of the painting above. Choosing a favorite is always complicated. Have a great week. Winifred
