Sunrise Oil Painting Work in Progress, by Jimmie Bartlett

I haven't posted a work in progress (WIP) in a long time, and this painting will make a good one to talk about as I work on it.  My Daughter took a picture of a beautiful sunrise over a dark landscape.  I loved the colors of the sunrise in the sky, but not the landscape.  I like to paint seascapes, so I came up with a vision to put the sunrise over the ocean, so I used another reference photo for the water.  (more about that later)

The canvas is 2 ft. by 4 ft. a perfect match for the panoramic view.  I had already painted in the first layer for the sunrise before deciding to use it for a WIP.  The second picture shows a base of light to dark greys for the water in the foreground.  The horizon has to be perfectly straight and should not placed in the middle.  I used masking tape and measured to make sure the tape was straight.

In the next picture, the reflected sky colors are being laid in over the gray base for the water. Note the reflections are mirror images of the sky.  The painting is starting to resemble some reality. Two reference photos are used to paint from: one larger and one smaller with different exposures to see what looks best for the work. 

01/11/18

In the below picture, wave movement has been added to make the water come alive.  Here, blending a darker gray for the wave shadows can be done on the palette and on the canvas.  More color is needed in the water and will be added in the next session.  While the water section is drying, work on detailing the sky shapes and colors will be done.  I plan to add more pictures as the painting progresses, so check back in a few days if you want to see what happens.

01/12/18
Another great day at the easel with more progress made.  Take a look at the below picture to see the changes in color intensity which is a result of adding more layers and finding things to improve and correct.  The rising sun is to the left of the painting's center and creates a brighter gradient on that side vs the right side of the canvas.  A nice effect.  I will be painting more this weekend and hope to have another update posted. 

I hope you find this WIP interesting and helpful.

02/02/2018  I finally finished the 'Winter Sunrise' oil painting today. It took a bit longer than expected. The photo is a cell phone snap shot. I am hoping the weather will let me take printable photos tomorrow. The painting is 2 by 4 foot and mounted in a black custom built floater frame.

The palette consisted mainly of the primary colors mixing with white and payne's gray to obtain the varied intensities of light and colors.  The main chore was to obtain the harmony of reflected light on the water with the colorful sky.  I also deviated from the reference photo to make the painting more believable and easier for me to paint.  Actually, I used two references to create the painting: a photo for the sky and another for the water.  I pasted the water from one photo under the sky of another to create the refence seen in the work.  Probably why it took extra time to finish.

This painting brought back memories of my youthful days in the navy looking out over the expanse of the ocean and how clear the skies are there.  Also, the many great fishing trips, when we left before daylight, to fish offshore or in West Matagorda Bay.  

I hope you have enjoyed the posting of a work in progress.  I would appreciate your comments and especially if you would like to see more work in progress postings.

God Bless You,
jimmie@bartlettpairart.com

Blue Heron on the Hunt

Blue Heron on the Hunt is a 24 by 12 inch original acrylic painting on a gallery wrap canvas.  The painting is of a Blue Heron at Matagorda, Texas on the inland waterway feeding in the shallows.  These birds are very interesting to watch and are hard to get a good picture of them.  A textured rocky shore line is in the painting using a pallet knife to give the painting a realistic effect.  The vertical canvas was perfect for this work and ready to hang out of the box.  This is a real fine art painting to add color and nature to the home or office.  I am very pleased with the outcome and hope you enjoy it also.  The original has sold, but you can purchase prints from our website: bartlettpairart.com

Blessings,
jimmie@bartlettpairart.com

Artful play painting Colorful Hydrangeas

I painted this patch of Hydrangeas yesterday using the wet on wet technique with no real plan in mind.  Just wanted to relax and have fun. The back ground was already prepared so to speak as I had been painting it with leftover paint from prior paintings.  The background was created with lots of texture as I just spread the paint  on with the palette knife.  Leftover paint can always be salvaged for some use later.  Saved in little seal-able cups is one way, and painting edges of galley wrap canvases is another place, or practice painting strokes as I did in this painting.  The canvas board here was 14x11 inches by .25 inch thick.  You may think I am a crazy old painter as some colors may clash, but most make harmony.  I picked places on the background that seemed to already look like the shape and color of a flower, and from there let the painting evolve.

I hope you enjoy my art and your comments are always welcome.

God Bless You,

jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Yellow Iris Oil Painting

Yellow Iris Oil Painting, 20 by 20 inches Gallery Wrap

I finished the painting as realistic as I had time to allow and still have a few adjustments in color I will make to the greenery.  The edges are also painted and it comes ready to hang.

Irises have many folds and wrinkles and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.  Thanks for visiting.

God Bless You,

Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Purple Iris Oil Painting, a work in progress

I am working on several paintings this month and have reached the final stages on two of my iris's.  The purple iris is in the evaluation period before it can be called 'finished'.  I already see a couple of items to rework: the beard on the right and darken the shades in the background on the upper half to have more contrast between the white petals and the soft yellows.

I could have simplified the petals  but I couldn't resist the challenge of the twists and folds real iris's have.  The idea is to use a photo reference and paint it the way it looks best to you and omit the irrelevant components.  And use the colors more fitting to your tastes.

I am also considering putting in a few green blades in the background.  For now, we will let this one dry some more and work on the other paintings.  Thanks for visiting my blog.  I would enjoy your comments.

God Bless You,

Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

See all of my painting and prints for sale on thebartlettpair.com

Bluebonnets Fields in Texas Original Painting

Bluebonnet Fields in Texas is an original acrylic painting on a gallery wrapped 16 x 20 inch canvas.

I completed the painting today and feel great about the outcome.  I could continue to include more components in the painting, but I liked the open distance it projects with no man made objects.  The painting is impressionistic with a lot of depth in the background.  I enjoyed building the cloud movement.  Dashes of light pinks and lavenders were used to build body and interest.  Receding hill tops in the background grow fainter with distance.

I hope you enjoy the bluebonnets.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

www.thebartlettpair.com

World Blog Hop! by Jimmie Bartlett artist in Van Vleck, Texas

I am excited about The World Blog Hop event and want to thank my good friend Vernita Bridges Hoyt  for the invitation to participate.  Vernita is a very accomplished  and well known artist in Spring, Texas.  Her art and blog has been an inspiration to me.  I encourage you to visit her great blog at http://TXsauce.blogspot.com.

Before I start answering the questions below, I want to introduce you to my beautiful wife Carolyn.  Without her support I would never have achieved my/our goals and become a full time artist.  She is the pretty one on the left.  Carolyn is a very talented artist and creates beautiful crafts from vintage jewelry and repurposed items.

1. What am I working on?

Currently I am working on two oil paintings of roses and planning projects for 2015.  Carolyn and I have ten shows scheduled for next year and plan to add a few more. We also create and maintain our websites and sell our art on Fine Art America.

The picture on the left is our booth at Angleton Market Days.  We also do The Peddler Shows in Rosenberg and Corpus Christi (Robstown), Texas.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Probably the biggest difference is that I like to work on a variety of art for the challenge and elimination of boredom. I can easily go from painting birdhouses to work on a portrait. We also produce a line of crafts for our shows.

We started our business (The Bartlett Pair) in 1993 making furniture and crafts. Our business evolved over time to become a diverse offering of arts and crafts. 

I paint things that catch my eye or from my imagination, and don't specialize in any particular area of painting; but, want to make each one of my works special. I enjoy it all.  Some works come from photo references, and others just the brush, paint and me. My goal is to paint as well as I can, as much as I can, everyday.

3. Why do I create what I do?

I love arts and crafts, the processes, and the creation. As a child growing up I had a natural tendency to draw and build things. Most of my working life was in the technical field, but my desire to create art was strong and with the gracious support of my wife Carolyn, painting full time became a reality. For me, painting is a gift from God, and the ultimate release of creativity.

4. How does my creating process work?

Oh boy!  This is a wide open question for me, but here goes.  My main source of inspiration comes from within.  What do I want to paint or build next?!  Most of my ideas comes from seeing beautiful things or interesting subjects from real life and taking pictures.

When I have a great photo I want to paint from, I use it for reference to sketch it on the canvas.  If it's fairly complex, I grid it off or use my projector to save time. Some of my paintings come from planning them in my head for long periods before starting.  I don't really watch TV at night - I am usually thinking about art.

 Before I call a painting finished, Carolyn critiques it for me.  She is unbiased and gives me the good, bad and ugly. LOL!  Also, I take a photo of it to review for improvement opportunities.  The camera is another set of eyes. 

Next on the World Blog Hop:

My friend, Dorothy Berry Lound will post on January 12th to continue the hop at  http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/dorothy-berry-lound.html?tab=blog . Dorothy is a great visionary artist, writer, and teacher fromUmbria, Perugia - Italy and I encourage you can see her extraordinary work on Fine Art America.com.

Thank you for stopping in and putting up with my ramblings.  I hope you enjoyed the post and will visit my art blog again.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

St. Mark's Lighthouse Painting

St. Mark's Lighthouse painting is in acrylics on a 14 x 11 inch gallery wrapped canvas with edges painted black.  The lighthouse is located in Florida and there is information about it on the internet via our good friend Google.

In my rendition of the lighthouse, I took the liberty of condensing the scenery to basics and painting only what is needed to represent details, now I am an impressionist! I added some birds, oyster beds in the marsh pool, and painted the roof aqua green to face lift the ugly black.  I also like high clear skies and never ending distances in the background.  The egret fishing in the pool adds to the interest even though not a detailed figure.

I hope your like the results.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com
http://www.thebartlettpair.com



If you are a new painter starting the journey, here is a couple of tips that you may like:

Pure white in a painting should be used sparingly as it represents the brightest light available.  As Bob Ross used to say in his TV demonstrations, "white is your sun".  A pure white lighthouse would be yugly.  Notice how the use of white in varying values creates the roundness and gives it a dimensional look.  Likewise, the use of pure black can be yugly, but by adding varying amounts of white very nice greys are created.  Suggest studying the use of "value" and experiment by making your own model of 10 shades of grey.

Please leave comments if you find the tips helpful or interesting.

Roses, A Couple of Oil Paintings

Above are a couple of oil paintings I haven't shown on the blog before. These were done as studies in 2007 on 14 x 11 inch gallery wrap canvases.  They are free style 'off the cuff' compositions without use of references.  Painting from photos and sketches prepared me to be able to draw, visualize and create paintings without references.  I hope you enjoy the roses.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

My first feline painting! Kitty Cat

 

My first feline painting!  I had planned to start a series of cat paintings, but was always working on other subjects. Now that the cat is finished, I want to paint more of them, maybe a panther or tiger?

I  painted 'Kitty Cat' in acrylics on a hand stretched 12x12 inch gallery wrap canvas. The piece was a commission with the only request by the customer, was to have  'slate blue' in the back ground.  It worked out well with the black and whites of the cat.  I embellished the background with some pink to  match the ears and nose. The black markings on the head were easy, but the shades of whites to give the body and fur shape, took some work.  Hope you like it.

Merry Christmas,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Texas Heartland, Original Painting

I finished Texas Heartland today with the addition of the lettering to the barn.  I made several additions and changes to the painting since my last posting to bring the sky and landscape in harmony.  I planted more blue bonnets and trees, and also made the sky brighter.  This painting was done as a commission.

Comments are welcomed.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Purple Flowers, Original Oil Painting

Purple Flowers is an original oil painting on a 12 x 9 gallery wrapped canvas.  I painted the scene on a black gesso background to make the flowers pop.  I used the freestyle approach without use of sketch, pattern, or references.  Hope you like the painting.

God Bless You,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

My Mandolin, Original Acrylic Painting

My Mandolin is the second of a series of three string instruments I am painting.  (See the previous post about the Viola)  All three will be painted with fine acrylics on 24 x 12 inch gallery wrap canvas with edges painted.

For artists that may be interested in shop talk:

The little mandolin turned out to be an interesting challenge as it has many components to deal with each having unique surfaces or shapes.  I hung a blue snuggy for the background material during the still life setting which added some nice folds and wrinkles and make the painting more interesting.  The palette requirements were a tidbit of this and that, but the mainly was : white, black, raw umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, burnt umber, red, cerulean blue, phthalo blue, naples yellow, and acro gold.  To get the light amber for body I used washes several times using more or less glaze for the lighter and darker areas.

Today, I did the still setting of my grandson's guitar and will start painting it tomorrow.  I like to paint things that are meaningful to me.  This painting reminds me of my younger days when I played the guitar and mandolin.

I hope you have enjoyed the post and will refer me to your family and friends.

Let us pray before we paint,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Cotton Candy Rose Oil Painting

I finished the Cotton Candy Rose today.  I enjoyed toying around with the different shades of pink and reds.  Subtle shadows make the body of a light colored rose pop and I hope I got there in this one.  The background is a very dark green.  I used a photo of the rose to follow as a guide, but I didn't like the leaves in the photo; so I took license to grow some.  My palette in this 16x16 oil was mainly:  white, aliz crimson, red, blue, green lt, sap green, cad yellow lt, red lt, orang, paynes gray, and some I probably forgot.  LOL

The new year has started off well for us.  I hope the same for you.  You are invited to follow my blog and email me if you have any questions.

Happy New Year,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Monarch Buttlerfly Painting, Work in Progress

Made some progress today on the larger butterfly painting by blocking in the color portions of the wings.  (Scroll down the page to see the previous stage of the painting.)  I did a bit of shading and highlighting which brought the painting into dimension.  Nothing has been done to white portions of the canvas.  Notice how the smaller whites on the wings stand out even though not painted.  I will add shades of white later.  Next step is to add the floral background.  I will work on the other butterfly tomorrow and possibly finish it, but we did talk about going fishing tomorrow.  Your comments are appreciated.

Let us pray before we paint,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Second Butterfly Painting in Progress

 For this 11x14 inch oil painting, I have a great picture reference to work from.  Thanks to Janet for the picture.

This post follows the work I talked about in the last post.  I blocked in the black areas and a quick impression of the foliage.  For the foliage, I used sap green, yellow light, white, and some of the black to mix for shady green.

 Amazing how adding the sky background adds so much to the painting.  This was a mix of cerelean blue tinted with titanium white.  I used a small flat brush to block in the sky next to busy spots and a larger flat to cover the rest of the canvas including the edges.

Here the painting is shown with the completed sky hanging from a short wire I put on it for easier handling while it is wet.

The next step will be to add the beautiful color to the wings and body.  I could have done more to this one today, but had a broken chainsaw that also needed fixing.

The other butterfly painting will be more of a challenge as the background has beautiful flowers for him to feed on.  I will work on him tomorrow.  Your comments are welcome.

Let us pray before we paint,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

New Painting in Progress, Monarch Butterfly

Those of you that follow this blog have probably noticed I usually paint several scenes of new subjects.  Recently, I finished the two butterflys mentioned in the previous posts and now starting two more.  I thought it would be of interest to show some of the process and will post some of the stages during the painting.  I was fortunate to obtain some wonderful pictures from my friend Janet to use for reference.  Much appreciated.

Start by transferring the necessary parts of the image to the canvas.  This can be done by drawing it freehand, using the grid method, enlarging and using carbon paper transfer, or by tracing using opaque projector.  I have used all of these methods.  I like to draw my images, but the biggest time saver is the opaque projector when tackling a scene of many lines and shapes important to the composition.  I use a soft no. 2 lead pencil sharpened to a fine point to lightly trace the outline onto the canvas.Heavy pencil marks are more difficult to cover during the painting.  Suggest only tracing the major boundaries to keep it simple.  (The minor details can easily be found and put in once you start painting)   After the image is penciled in, lightly spray the canvas with a fixative to keep it from smudging during handling and painting.  The fixative dries fast so you can start painting within a few minutes of application.

As seen in the pictures, I started with the black parts of the image because it is the biggest area and will maintain the borders for the insertion of the other colors.  Also, by working from one side to the other keeps your hand off painted areas.  I worked from the upper left to right and downward.  Some artists will paint in all areas with color as they go.  Sometimes I do depending on the composition.

Now that the black is blocked in, I can work on another painting while it dries. 

Your comments and questions are welcome.  I would like to hear from you.

Let us pray before we paint,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Tall Sunflower Oil Painting

Sold

Tall Sunflower is the oil painting I finished today.  It is painted on a 14x11 gallery wrapped canvas with edges also painted for hanging without a frame, although I think paintings look much better framed.   I wanted the sunflower to stand alone much taller than the rest backlit with a beautiful blue sky.

I used two photos from www.wetcanvas.com reference library of images for artists to make up the composition using the best features of both.  I like to paint flowers especially a single flower in portrait mode so we can focus on the great beauty and anatomy each and every flower has.  When several are bunched in nature, or an arrangement, the view becomes multiple and sometimes the focal point becomes one flower anyway with the rest in varying degrees of importance to the composition.  I placed the flower to the left side of the canvas and located the leaves to maintain the overall balance of the painting.   I hope you like the painting.

Let us pray before we paint,
Jimmie@jimmiesart.com

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A Summer Sunflower, Origianl Oil Painting

I finished this little painting today.  It is in oils on a 14x11 inch gallery wrap canvas.  I like painting single flowers on dark backgrounds as the contrast is strong and the flower stands out vividly.  Also, putting in strong highlights and shadows on the flower and leaves makes up for not putting in a colorful realistic background.

I used the following colors in my pallet:  black, white, yellow, yellow pale, red, orange, sap green, terra verde green, van dyke brown and prussian blue.   I have three large tool boxes to put all my paint and brushes in.  One is for oils, one for acrylics, and the last one is for the glass paints I no longer use.  I stopped painting on glass several years ago, but I keep them anyway.  I sold a lot of window paintings back in the day, but got tired of painting on glass and cleaning up old windows.  I prefer painting on canvas or board.

Your comments are welcomed.
Let us pray before we paint,
jimmie@jimmiesart.com

Texas High Sky, Acrylic Painting

Texas High Sky was the second painting I worked on at the Burr Trade Days (See the prior post) and finished it in the studio.  It is also a 14x11 inch acrylic painting on a canvas hardboard.  This is no place in particular in Texas, just a place I imagined I like to go to.  Hope you like it.

Let us pray before we paint,
Jimmie@jimmiesart.com