Thinking on the Bus

This is my second submission for July 2011 Virtual Paintout challenge, Channel Islands - Jersey, UK. It's oil on 11x14 canvas panel.

Since the first painting I did for the challenge this month I didn't have to travel virtually too much, I decided to do a little bit of virtual traveling in Google Map to check out the island. This bus scene (ref photo) caught my eyes since I could immediately identify with the lady in pink, who was looking out the bus windows, oblivious to people getting on the bus or other riders. It reminded me of when I was commuting from New Jersey into Manhattan, riding on buses into Port Authority, and looking out the window thinking or day dreaming. This scene is also kind of Hopper-ish : very little interactions among the people in the painting. You wonder what the lady in pink is thinking about, is she lonely, troubled, or just day dreaming.

To start the painting , I prepared the canvas panel with an acrylic ground of black. There are a variety of colors I used here, such as yellow orchre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, van dyke brown, sap green, cobalt blue (left over on my palette from previous paintings), white, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, cadmium orange, coral, Paynes grey, ultramarine violet and white. I even changed one of the bus rider to look like myself in there (the one with pony tail on right), although I kept skin tone darker not to be too noticeable. Now the painting is done, I need to pack up my gears for all the driving and flying I will be doing over the next week.

Three Tall Trees

This is for Rookie Painter July 2011 challenge. It's oil on 11x14 canvas panel.

I really like the vertical effect of the reference photo (ref photo), the bright and dark contrast, so I had to do this challenge, even with crazy summer travel schedule. The relatively simple palette included cobalt blue, van Dyke brown, burnt umber, sap green, white, cadmium yellow. I added a pop of orange family, including cadmium orange and burnt sienna, to compliment the mostly blue tone photo. I also lightened up the shadow portion of the trees a tiny bit since in the reference photo the shadows were a bit dark.

Bonne Nuit Beach, Jersey, UK

This is for July 2011, Virtual Paintout, Jersey UK challenge. It's oil on 11x14 canvas panel.

Since I've never been to this part of Europe, I just randomly checked out the north shore of the island of Jersey off the coast of France, and dropped the yellow man in google maps, and viola, I saw this nice bay scene. (ref photo) The sky, the ocean, the beach, and mountain, makes this scene beautiful landscape material. In addition, this scene also reminded me one of Ray Ellis' paintings. The colors I used included cobalt blue, cerulean blue, sap green, van dyke brown, cadmium yellow, cadmium yellow deep, yellow orchre, ultramarine violet and white. I also kept the strokes relatively large and loose. In addition, I took out shrubs from the originaly photo so to see more of the beach.

Edgartown Lighthouse and Sailboat

We have been on Martha's Vineyard almost every summer. This year I finally decided to do a painting on the famous lighthouse in Edgartown. This is oil on 18x24 stretched canvas.

We visited the Edgartown lighthouse in mid afternoon, so the sun was starting to cast a side shadow. The summer beach roses were in full bloom. I took a few pictures, and the pictures reminded so much of a painting of Edgartown Lighthouse by the great Ray Ellis, who lives on Martha's Vineyard. The color and composition for this painting was inspired by an Ellis painting.

We were fortunately enough to have met Ray this summer at a gallery on Water Street in Edgartown. He was even nice enough to tell me the palette he typically used. Of course I had to get his autograph, took a picture with him and bought a few of his books, which I'm going to study some more in detail!