Monday, February 16, 2015

Going to the Birds.

I've really been enjoying birds lately. I painted a photo of a bird I'd taken at my in-laws home in Evergreen, a chickadee, I believe. Then I used my brand new camera (birthday gift from my hubby) to take a great photo of a blue jay enjoying our bird bath. Really had fun painting that one so then I went out with my camera looking for more birds to take photos of. Today it was a grackle. I think this all started with the peacock whose picture I took at Mayfield Park last year. I painted it in pastel and it won an honorable mention at the Central Texas Pastel Society Show last August.
"Blue Jay Bath" 6x6 oil on panel

"Grackle" 6x6 oil on panel

"My Little Chickadee" 6x6 oil on panel

"Show Off" 8x10 pastel on paper

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

30 in 30 The Final Tally and Moving Forward

Although I forgot to post it to my blog, I did complete the 30 in 30 challenge, having painted all 30 paintings in a square format. Most were 6x6 but I had a few 8x8 and even one 12x12 in the line up. By the end of the challenge several had already sold which was gratifying.

The last day of the challenge Leslie Saeta gave us instructions on how to build a collage of all 30 paintings to post online.

Here is mine:


Overall I was very happy with the results. There were a few that I felt might have been better given more time, but for the most part I was satisfied. The challenge was a wonderful way to start the year and spur myself to paint every day. I also loved looking at everyone else's paintings. With almost 900 artists signed up for the challenge, if they all produced 30 each, a lot of new art was generated. To get a closer look at my 30 please check out my gallery at www.jfrederickart.com

Today was Qiang's mentoring class. I found a large Bombay Sapphire bottle and built a still life around that. Bombay Sapphire was my husband's favorite gin for a very long time so I've seen a lot of those bottles. They're a beautiful shade of blue. I'm not sure why I never tried to paint one before.

"Apple, Gin and more..." 8x8 oil on panel  for more information click here