Morning Paper at Cap Ferrat

This is for Virtual Paintout May 2011 challenge, Cote d'Azur, France. It's oil on 10x12 canvas board.

We visited the French Riviera a few years ago and were just so charmed by the places we visited: Eze, Cap Ferrat, and Nice. So I started by looking in Eze and Cap Ferrat. I came upon this little cafe in Cap Ferrat and thought the scene reminded me of some of the paintings by Edward Hopper. I could either do mountain and ocean, or this scene, and I chose this scene. (ref photo)

I changed outdoor view to be pure harbor scene, as opposed to harbor behind the parking lot, and I also tried to lighten up the room just a tiny bit. This scene is not the easiest composition-wise especially when deciding what elements to keep and what to change. Hopefully I made this ordinary scene semi interesting.

Princess and the Flower Girl

This is for Calypso Moon Art Movement, May 2011 challenge, Royal Wedding (ref). It's oil on 10x12 canvas board.

I watched the Royal Wedding while I was painting "Beyond The Sea" (Hawaiian Sunset). and had to stop many times to stare at the TV because the wedding was just so beautifully done. So when I saw this challenge, I thought it would be nice to paint something from this wedding. Plus, I have a commissioned work I need to start soon involving some portraits, so I thought I would use this opportunity to practice my portrait skill for this challenge.

The scene I chose was from when the wedding party and the families were waving to the crowd from the balcony at Buckingham Palace. The littlest flower girl seemed to be bothered by the noise and also seemed to be bored or irritated. Kate bent down and tried to comfort her. I thought this show of kindness on Kate's part was so sweet and considerate. So I wanted to capture this "Kodak" moment with my paint and canvas. For composition purpose, I actually took two screen shots from the YouTube Royal Wedding Channel a couple of seconds apart, one with profile of the flower girl looking at Kate, and one with Kate looking at the flower girl, as the timing of the two looking at each other were actually not that perfectly timed on YouTube.

To begin painting, I applied a red oxide acrylic base to my canvas because I wanted the figures to have a warm glow. The oil colors I used included some standard portrait colors, such as Rowney flesh tint, naples yellow, cadmium orange, white, madder, alizarin, permanent rose, terre verde, burnt sienna, ultramarine violet, raw and burnt umber, and ultramarine blue as background (I don't have great photography skill, so this photo has a bit of shine in the dark blue background).

Three Red Pears

This is for Rookie Painter May 2011 challenge, three red pears. It's oil on 8x10 canvas board.

This month we are back to painting another fruit I am allergic to - pears (I think they're pears from the picture). (ref photo) I changed the dimension of the original photo just a slight bit so that the three pears would look less perfectly aligned and less equal in size. In this exercise I tried to make the fruits look as real as possible, and kept the red and green contrast but made the red a bit deeper than the photo. My main colors were cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, cadmium orange, Winsor red deep, alizarin, madder, ultramarine violet, burnt umber, permanent green light, viridian and white.

Beyond the Sea

This is for Calypso Moon Artist Movement, April 2011 challenge, Art in Music challenge. It's oil on 10x12 canvas board.

When I saw this challenge (ref), the first song that came into my mind was Beyond the Sea (La Mer). Everytime I look at the ocean, Beyond the Sea always comes into my mind. The ocean always has a calming and up lifting effect. I chose Bobby Darin's version of Beyond the Sea (music on YouTube) because this was quite humorous. The picture I chose to paint was from a photo we took a few years ago when we visited Hawaii, in the Makena area of Maui. It was quite breathtaking watching sunset with the ocean crashing onto the volcanic rocks.

The main colors for this painting include cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, prussian blue, ultramarine violet, burnt umber and white.

Zoe

This is for A Day Not Wasted April 2011 challenge. It's oil on 20x20 stretched canvas.

When I first saw the reference photo of the dog (think it's a bichon frise?) named Zoe (ref photo), I thought the picture was so nice that I had to paint it. Given the amount of detail needed for this dog portrait, I decided to go with a bigger canvas, 20"x20". Plus, my younger son has already put in the order that the finished painting will be hung in his room.

I first prepared the canvas with an acrylic base of yellow orchre for the light parts and violet for the shadows. Then the painting was done with many shades of white. The background is lemon yellow with white. The dog is white plus colors such as raw umber, ultramarine violet, terre verde, gold orchre, cadmium yellow.

As with any portraits, placements of the facial features takes many rounds of fine tuning. The fur color between the light and dark took many rounds of fine tuning too. I think I'm at a point I need to stop tweaking the painting or else the whole thing will turn into mud color. After this very good exercise, I have new found respect for painters who paint animals: they're not easy to paint!

Three Vases

This is for Rookie Painter, April 2011 challenge. It's oil on 8x10 canvas board.

We went away for the Easter holiday, I didn't have time to do this challenge in time. However, I like the reference still life photo (ref photo),with its warm tone, so I had to do it anyway. The yellow is basically a mix of Indian yellow, gold orchre and white. Warm light is a gold orchre, cadmium yellow and lots of white. The shadows include terre verde, ultramarine violet, permanent blue, prussian blue, sepia, burnt sienna, and raw umber.

Morning Stroll in Hakone

This is for Virtual Paintout, April 2011 challenge, Japan. It's oil on 10x12 canvas board.

This month's VP is selected to be in Japan, to pay tribute to the people in Japan in light of the disasters that have been unfolding there. We visited Japan a few years ago, and Hakone was one of the places we went. This scene of a man strolling by Lake Ashinoko caught my eyes because of the bright autumn background in contrast with a shady walking path. The painting itself is actually a composite of two views, not too far from each other. One with the man walking, and the other one with stronger light contrast. (ref photo 1, ref photo 2)

I first started with a thinned down oil paint for the background, including the bright mountain across the lake as seen in between the trees, sky and lake. It appeared from Google Map that it was autumn, so I added in cadmium orange in selective part of the painting. I also wanted to make the skinny pine trees on the left to look like lace, in contrast with the thicker vegetation on the right hand side. Patches of sun light were peeping through the trees, creating more interest for the eyes.