THE VIRTUAL PAINTOUT

729 Keizergracht (9x12 Oil on canvas panel)
This is my first entry to The Virtual Paintout blog site, created by Bill Guffy. Bill creates wonderful lose plein air paintings. I hope he keeps this blog site going, and think it will grow in popularity.
I spent the first three weeks in a virtual walk though the streets of Amsterdam, and getting familiar with the google map system. The most valuable information on the use of this system was Bills suggestion to Email locations you like to yourself. I zoomed in one click for my selected site, and famed my image noting how the reflection of the grey building fit in the bottom left of the image. I thought I would need this to information to come back to the same view. However, using the email link it brought up the image exactly as I had zoomed and framed it. Another feature I learned after about a week of playing with this map system is you can make the full screen image by clicking the little box in the upper right hand corner.
To see my reference photo click go to the Google Maps and place the following into the find box (729 Keizersgracht, Amsterdam, North Netherlands) and click the Search Maps button. You will see I repaired and relocated the street lamp and removed the sail boat and a white tarp to improve the composition.

DIANA

The latest challenge for Karin's DSFDF is a statue of Diana (Goddess of the Hunt, Roman Mythology). Karin wanted her army of Painters to treat this challenge as an exercise in drawing. I love to sketch people so was excited to get started.


This is my sketch on an old painting, which I sanded down to remove most of the brush marks. For accuracy I drew 1 inch grid lines over the photo and my canvas. I used a sharpie pen for the sketch because pencil would not show up on the old painting.


This is a rough draft use to develop the general shapes and colors. Notice the Sharpie lines show through the first coat of paint. To speed up the drying time I place the painting under a heat vent at night and in the full sun during the day.

DIANA (9x12 oil on canvas panel)
This is the finished painting. It was a lot of fun to paint. With a limited pallet I could concentrate on values and not think much about color. My pallet was: Flake White, Ivory Black, Ultramarine Blue, Raw Umber, and Burnt Sienna. I did try to replicate the cool and warm grays. I think a little more blue should have been used in the cool grays.

BOOGIE BOARDING

Boogie Boarding (5x7 oil on wood panel)
This is another Karin Jurik DSFDF bi-weakly challenge. I liked the reflections on the water in the reference photo. I changed the girl so she is looking to the left, and relocated her to form a group of three.