115. After Paul Cezanne: Detail from The Card Players (1893-96)

(After Paul Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 4" x 4"

Original Painting by Paul Cezanne

(Work-in-progress images are beneath the text.)

Hi Everyone, we're on the last stretch of Leslie Saeta's 30 in 30 Challenge now! Thank you Leslie and congratulations to you all - everyone has done really well and it's been great to meet some new friends along the way.

This is the painting that Qatar bought in 2012 for $250m!!! (That was £160m in our money, at the time anyway.)

This time, I thought I'd just pick out a detail from the original and chose the hands as it is such good practice. Oh my! This painting was so hard. At first, although happy with the fingers, I could not get the flat shape of the back of the hand right - it just looked swollen. I took heart from something Tom Coates said at a workshop I attended; he said portraiture is about painting mistakes and then correcting them until you get it right. So I persevered.

I started fiddling then remembered hearing that Paul Cezanne had reduced his work to painting the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. So I removed some of the paint and focused instead on the shape of the knuckles (I noticed diamonds), the base of the wrist and the middle of the hand (looks almost like a Ferrari symbol). Once I got the knuckles right, the 'swollen' look disappeared - merci, Monsieur Cezanne!

Have a successful, productive and happy weekend, everyone!

 Smoother

Household lighting!

Before eliminating some of the 'black' and tidying up the sleeve (in daylight)

(Schminke Atrament Black and MH Magenta)

114. After Paul Cezanne: House in Provence (1885)

(After Paul Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 4" x 4"

Hi again, above is my finished painting with the original below. I've now straightened the front door and this is a re-post. Happy painting everyone!

Original painting by Paul Cezanne

113. Cezanne Work-in-Progress

(After Cezanne)

Oil underpainting on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 4" x 4"

Good morning everyone, today, I'll just keep posting as I work as I'm a little bit behind; shame on me! Above is an underpainting for one of Paul Cezanne's houses in Provence and below left is the primed panel - I prepared them all over three months ago and just pulled the first one off for today's painting.

Again, huge thanks for all your comments and to my new follower, Jane; I will go in and thank you all individually - hopefully, before the end of the challenge!

More shortly...

Primed Pebeo Linen Canvas Board Panels, 4" x 4"

109. After Paul Cezanne: Apples, Peaches, Pears and Grapes (1879-1880)

(After Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 8" x 8"

Original Painting by Paul Cezanne

Phew!

108. After Paul Cezanne: Painting - Still Life with Apples (1890)

(After Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 8" x 8"

The original painting by Paul Cezanne

Hi All. I've really enjoyed looking at the entries for Leslie's 30 in 30 challenge and can't believe how many people are involved this time. It's great to be part of it. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to visit and comment on my blog, especially to Art Maine who added some verse - I love that!

Building on yesterday's drawing, above is my completed copy of Paul Cezanne's Still Life with Apples (1890), together with his original. Immediately below are some images of my work-in-progress.

106. After Paul Cezanne: Still Life with Peppermint Bottle, 1893-1895(?)

Still Life (after Paul Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 8" x 8"

Draft Sketch, Mars Lumograph Pencils: 2H and 7B, A4 sketchbook

Hi Folks.  I hope you are enjoying the challenge. I decided to copy another Cezanne painting (above) and it was just as enjoyable. He worked with all those tones, colours, shapes and patterns yet still he achieved a harmonious image - genius! Just for fun, I exaggerated further the cubic shapes of the two bottles and quite like how they turned out. Also above is my random sketchbook drawing (above) which I did simply to get a feel for the shapes and flow of the design. The original painting by Paul Cezanne is below.

The original painting by Paul Cezanne

105. After Paul Cezanne: The House of Doctor Gachet in Auvers, 1872-1873

(After Paul Cezanne)

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 8" x 8"

Well, once again, Leslie Saeta, thank you for setting us another '30 in 30' challenge. It forced me to get my paints out and I chose to do a copy of a Cezanne. It was much more complicated than I had anticipated but I'm really glad I did it as I enjoyed trying to work out how the master might have tackled his original.

The original painting by Paul Cezanne is below:

The original painting by Cezanne

Happy painting everyone; I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's work.

104. Landscape 2

Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

102. Blue Landscape

 Oil on Pebeo Linen Canvas Board, 20 x 20 cm

93. Earth Colours

Oil on canvas 20cm x 20cm (approx. 8" x 8")

70. Day Thirty: Gerbera from Bouquet

Still Life, Griffin alkyd oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

This is my submission for Day 30, painted a day late but the post-date is the 31st (when I actually painted it). Thank you, Leslie Saeta, for giving us an extra day to post - I didn't manage 30 but thanks to your challenge, I painted a whole heap more than I might otherwise have.

Another benefit is that I've spent less time doing tight drawings (don't get me wrong, I love drawing and detail) but instead have had to dive straight in with the paintbrush. 

Below, is this morning's work in progress.

Ugly stage - I'm sure I can see monsters!

Colour, phew!

Colours:  Burnt Umber, Magenta, Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Lemon. (In the final painting (at the top), I used a mix of BU and UB surrounded by Naples Yellow Light for the centre of the gerbera.

More Alizarin.

More colour and a few tweaks to go.

The back wall is a mix of BU and TW.

It's good to be thankful, don't you think? So, here is my Oscar speech!  :D :D :D

Thank you to Leslie Saeta for setting another great challenge to push us and make us better. Thanks to my cousin Alli for sending me the Boxing Day photos of Melissa, et al. Thanks to my friends in JJ's group for the truly beautiful bouquet of flowers when I came home from hospital. Thanks to all of you who have visited my blog and sometimes left a comment - all so encouraging! Thanks to my husband for understanding that art keeps me sane. Finally, a really special thank you to my cousin, champion and adopted 'sister', Marjorie, who has been a constant source of encouragement to me but who has managed never ever to be critical. Love yah, Sis!

(The next post will be a collage of all my paintings for this challenge.)

69. Day Twenty-Nine: Bouquet from JJs

Still life, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

Day 29, goodness! I hope you have been enjoying painting every day; I've really enjoyed looking at the work of so many talented artists - it's been a joy.

I'm pleased with this as it's the second painting I've managed to do today (this time for Day 29 of Leslie's '30 in 30'). However, in no way does it do justice to the actual bouquet sent to me by my lovely friends.  There is nothing to relate to the size of the vase but it is a smidge over a foot high.

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

(Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island)

68. Day Twenty-Eight - Rose

Still Life, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

The beady-eyed among you will have noticed that the date of this post has changed.  I quickly painted the WIP below this morning and posted it under Day 28 then back-dated the schedule date to the 28th. It's been bothering me since then as, in truth, I was not able to do any painting at all on the 28th so it now shows the date it was actually produced.

I'm going to try to knock out one for Day 29 and post it shortly while there is still some daylight left.

Work in progress

I wanted to post something for Day 28 and had only got this far with a rose from a bouquet I received.  Better post and photograph very soon!

66. Day Twenty-Four: Man with a Dozen Eggs

Urban landscape, oil on Loxley stretched canvas, 10" x 8"

Hi Everyone, he's now finished and I wish I knew his name. On the day we were having the car fixed, I saw him between two buildings, holding his dozen eggs and looking very serene sitting on a bench, softened by an old car seat! However, he was actually complaining to himself in a low, consistent mutter, completely oblivious to the rest of us. 

I loved the way the he was in silhouette, with the sun streaming in beside him from between the other building, bleaching the grass so that it hurt your eyes to stare at it. The upper part of the image is actually another building - it was generally grey but had lovely pastel colours reflecting from it in the heat. In the foreground, there was a carpet mat precariously strewn across the large concrete step but I left it out - everything else is as it was.

Warning: nerdy element follows...

Have you guessed yet that I love Michael Harding's paints? They are beautifully intense as they contain no fillers or driers but are worth the initial layout as you need only use a fraction compared to other brands. However, initially, I used various mixes of MH Ultramarine Blue for the jeans but, even tempered with Burnt Umber, it was too bright. I had to scrape it off and pull out my Schminke Delft Blue, which is Indanthrene (or Indanthrone Blue in other brands), PB60. I love the indanthrone pigment and have used it a fair bit in watercolours and acrylic over the years. It's a lovely compromise between the very bright ultramarine (PB29) and the sometimes dull Indigo (various pigment mixtures depending on manufacturer). 

I always replace my paints according to pigment colour to ensure I get the same hues across manufacturers and, if the name changes, you are still OK. A few months ago, I wanted an opaque yellow to lighten mixes so did a hunt for PY35 across W&N, Royal Talens Rembrandt and Schminke Mussini (have you tried Schminke soft pastels? Yummy!).  In the end, I chose Schminke's Cadmium Yellow1 Light, simply because the price was best in that particular store.

Does anyone out there use PBk60? Schminke Mussini Atrament Black (aka. Perylene Green) is one of my best discoveries and it appears in all my Caribbean palm and coconut 'tree-scapes'.

64. Day Twenty-One: Work in Progress - Man with Eggs

Urban landscape, oil on 10" x 8" stretched canvas

I have been 'umming and ahh-ing' about posting this as it is not a new piece but a work in progress (see post number 60, Day 9).  However, since posting last time, I've added paint to the underdrawing, doing a little bit on it each day.  Eventually, I hope to show the gentleman in shade with the sun streaming in beside him on the grassy area.  For this, all the tones will have to be absolutely right.

I used MH Burnt Umber to put the darks in the foreground; isn't the colour rich and fabulous? I could have used Raw Umber but I'm hoping the intensity of the BU will make the subsequent blues look more vibrant. Seeing how luscious his RU and BU are, I am so tempted to buy his Burnt Siena, simply to experience the vibrancy of that colour in his range but maybe that's not a good reason to splash out on a tube of paint, even if it is only Series1. The website says: "Its tint power is noticeably stronger than the more opaque Earths." Gimme, gimme!!

63: Day Eighteen: YS Falls

Waterfall, oil on Pebeo canvas board, 10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

I did this quickly to avoid missing out on posting yet another day. (I've been in hospital so am somewhat out of kilter and hoping to catch up soon.)

In case you're interested...
YS Falls is in Santa Cruz, Jamaica.  It's a beautiful, peaceful spot where you can take the family, swing across and/or have a swim and it consistently gets good reviews.  To gain access, you park then travel on an open-topped, long vehicle. (Sorry, I don't know the right name but it's very safe and you shouldn't feel ill going to the top.) The tour guides are polite and helpful; they'll take photographs if you ask and won't hassle you.  So pack a picnic, your shades and 'cozzie' and give it a visit.

Initially, I used fast-drying alkyd white for the waterfall but my husband couldn't tell what it was supposed to be so I scraped it off and re-applied it - no better.  After scraping it a few times, I remembered my Robert Gamblin Radiant White!  What a difference!

For the dangly foliage that drops down to the water, I scraped back to the warm yellow imprimatura layer.  I have quite a few colours but for each painting only normally choose a handful (as you would with pastels) - my choice is different every time - but, as I wanted to complete this quickly, I used pre-mixed greens.

Colours:   MH Permanent Sap Green and Schminke Atrament Black (for the deep darks), MH Oxide of Chromium, MH Bright Green Lake and Schminke Turmaline Green (free sample!).  Also, MH Burnt Umber, MH Unbleached Titanium, MH Yellow Ochre, W&N Naples Yellow Light, Gamblin Radiant Blue (to cool the water; also in the leaves directly above the fall) and, as mentioned, Radiant White.  The water at YS Falls is very clear but that's not obvious as I used RB and YO, opaque colours - very nice, but opaque nonetheless.

Phew! Can I go back to bed please?!

62. Day Fourteen: Road to Harpenden

Landscape, oil on acrylic-primed Pebeo canvas board,

10cm x 10cm (approx. 4" x 4")

Good morning fellow painters, I didn't envisage having time to paint today but woke up at 4:30am and, still wide awake an hour later, decided to do this little study using only a palette knife to apply the paint.  It's fiddly to work so small with a knife but, like most things, I guess it just takes a little practise.

The colour you can see peeping around the edges of the image is Quinacridone Magenta acrylic.  It was left over from something else so I used it as an imprimatura layer on a few little supports.

Off to work shortly; wishing you all a successful day.

61. Day Eleven: Negril Beach Painting

Seascape, oil on W&N stretched cotton canvas, 14" x 10"

As I mentioned in post No. 59, this is the little version of a larger painting I have been doing for my office (see below). I may add writing to the billboard on the right (on both); it advertises a bar so should enhance the scene but I just wanted to get it done and posted so I can move on to the next one.

We've got sunshine today which is lovely.

Rather than use a lot of words, I'll show you the stages of this painting.

Initial sketch/drawing in pencil, pen and ink

Blocking in the sky and foliage

Blocking in the sea and sand

Painting around the edges

... and the RHS

Mini me!!!

There are quite a few differences; can you spot them?  Who said "One's bigger!"?  :D

I have a little bit of fiddly work to do on the larger one, such as the billboard signage, tidying up a small part of the background foliage which I had wiped out and painting a small fence. Whenever I go back to it, I enjoy painting it as it is so big and I feel like I'm actually in the scene.

Have a lovely weekend and happy painting everyone!

60. Day Nine: Drawing of Man with Eggs

Landscape, Mars Lumograph 100 2H pencil and Staedtler 0.1 'Fineliner' 

pigment pen on 10" x 8" stretched canvas

This is what I did on Day 9 of Leslie Saeta's '30 in 30' challenge but I shan't be posting it to her blog as I intend to do that when it has been painted; however, as I did some art on Day 9, I am posting it here.  It's proving difficult to complete a painting every day, go out to work and get a bit of sleep but I'm still 'as happy as Larry' because this challenge is again forcing me to create something every day - thank you so much, Leslie Saeta, you're a diamond!

I love drawing and this was no exception.  This time, however, I did use a ruler to get accurate lines on the building; I probably won't be too rigid with the paint though.

NB.  You may remember from post No. 56 that I'd ruined my salon picture by adding paint to it. Well, I had nothing to lose so I took a big brush and loosely painted over it with much warmer colours (W&N Cadmium Red, W&N Indian Yellow, W&N Naples Yellow Light, MH Unbleached Titanium, MH Phthalo Blue, MH Cobalt Blue (Christmas present!! :D :D :D) and some fast-drying Titanium White) and when my husband saw it later, he said "That's much better!"

Exodus 31:1-5 - Your art is a blessing and it's important - enjoy it. xx

59. Day Seven: Negril Drawing - No Rules

Seascape, Derwent Onyx (dark) pencil and Staedtler 0.1 Fineliner

on W&N stretched cotton canvas, 14" x 10"

This is a section of a scene I have sketched and painted many times.  I painted a 4ft x 3ft version of the whole scene just over a year ago and have since painted little versions of part of the scene.  

In order to get straight lines for the buildings without a ruler, I held the pen securely whilst running my little finger along the length and width of the support.  It's easier if you have a 'plate' surface but can still be done on something as 'notchy' as canvas if you go carefully.  It's impossible on a larger support, of course, as you'd have to have really long fingers.  Again, it needs to be re-photographed in daylight.