Thinking of joining the "painting a day" movement

An artist tipped me to the "a painting a day" artist movement and I am thinking of trying it. The deal is that you do a small painting every day and post it on your blog for sale. I searched under "a painting a day" and discovered some really great artists. The paintings go for $100 each - sometimes less, sometimes they are placed on e-bay and bring in higher fees too. In my case, if I do it, I would start slow with a painting a week! We'll see.

"Joe's House"... ready for shipment.

Framed and ready for shipment - "Joe's House" [on a July 4 morning]. All that's left now is a note to the client with photos of the painting in progress and a few inside stories, like the seagulls representing this home so close to the sea, or the small beam of light on the neighboring house of light through Joe's big bay windows that say how this great restoration "reflects" on the neighborhood..and more "artsy stuff" that motivated me a bit. Loved doing it. Now on to the next. I hope there is a nice "wall space" in it's future. Home is where your memories begin.

Those seagulls are too big - right?

I'll get to "downsizing" the seagulls this morning. Too bad because I like them very much and they are important as they indicate that this home is so close to the sea. The plein-air gold frame should arrive this week and then it's off for this home to find a home in Newport, RI.

Getting there.....

After some time away from the brush to let it rain and the cold weather to pass, I am back at it adding more details, under-painting for the landscape areas, and then there's the roof line and "morning sun" golden-glow colors to do in the sky, clouds, & on on the sunlit surfaces.

Adding color to underpainting...

Day #2...These are short days of painting - more like hours more than "days". Working on adding underpainting colors this session, now that the basic shapes are in. The suggestion of underpainting was one from Mitch Albala's LANDSCAPE PAINTING book - and I like it. If you are painting plein air you need to be pretty fast, but painting this from a photo supplied by the homeowner I can take my time.

Beginning sketch for RI Home...colors are next.

Style development for RI house painting...

It's called "simplification & massing", a style Artist TIM HORN [painting LEFT] works in so well. It's a style I have enjoyed too, & I plan to do more of it as part of the Tomales Fine Art [www.tomalesfineart.com] series of plein air classes hosted by Tim in this rural, CA wine country location. Tim's art takes basic forms & shapes and simplifies them using great colors. The RI house I am doing at the moment will borrow from this "simplification" style - and can be seen in one of Tim's fine paintings that I have attached here. Look for more on Tim's site on-line. "Simplification & Massing" is part of Mitch Albala's great lesson book on plein-air painting I have really enjoyed titled "Landscape Painting" [go to amazon.com]