Day 21 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Loved Seashell

I placed this shell in my setup and thought that this is fifth one in the series and the last shell I have. What should I name it !? With these thoughts in my mind, I started to sketch it on my notebook. When the sketch was complete, I noticed a small heart shape in the center - YES! I found the name - Feeling Loved Seashell! And of course, I made up the heart shape colorful so that it shows. In the original shell the shape exists but is not pink as in my painting - used my artistic license to change objects here!
Hope you enjoy it!

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Feeling Loved Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Day 20 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Grateful Seashell

I am having so much fun with this sea shell series. After the fact, I think I picked up a bit tedius subject. It took me longer for each of the shell series paintings and got behind.. As I painted, it felt like each shell has its own personality and that is how I arrived at the title. It feels like this shell is so very grateful for its beauty and glow. I looks majestic!

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Feeling Grateful Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on canvas panel

Day 19 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Abundant Seashell

Feels like this shell is sitting there with wide open arms, as if it is open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe!

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Feeling Abundant Seashell - 8 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 STAGE 1: Putting down the first color notes. Usually I tend to use Purple for the darkest dark, but here I used Green instead to try out how it works.

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 1

 STAGE 2: Working with actual color of the object

Feeling Abundant Seashell - STAGE 2

STAGE 3: is about developing color variation within each area. But I forgot to take picture of this.

Day 18 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Blessed Seashell

As promised - here is my #2 shell - Feeling Blessed, first for having this shell in my collection and second for being able to paint it! I am throughly enjoying these painting days!

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Feeling Blessed Seashell - 6 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Setup picture - now that I look at it together, I think I took my setup picture in a different angle. Anyways.. you get the idea:

Day 17 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Feeling Happy Seashell

I am posting for 17th day, but missing one painting from yesterday - I had a glitch :)) I will squeeze in one painting for 16th day before this challenge ends to make up for it!
But today I could not resist picking up this happy looking sea shell for my set up. Just look at it, doesn't it appear smiling !? (the photo came out blurry, I will replace with a better one later)

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Feeling Happy Seashell - 6 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

 Below is my setup picture and how I got started with this painting:

Feeling Happy Seashell Stage 1

Feeling Happy Seashell - my setup

Day 13 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Pumpkin Candle

Last night I looked for fall decorations in my boxes and found few small things. This Pumpkin Candle has been with me for few years, I use it for decoration but now that I have painted this candle, I think I should use it this fall! 

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Pumpkin Candle - 6 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Setup for Pumpkin Candle

Day 12 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Dried and Fallen

This dried leaf is from my backyard and such leaves have started falling just about last 3-4 days. It is something new and our puppy thinks they are treats of what! She goes crazy over these and its hard for us not to let her eat those...

After doing yesterday's colorful fall leaves, I thought it would be a nice contrast to do a dried leaf!

Dried and Fallen - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 11 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Fall Glory

After 5 Christmas Themed paintings, I changed the theme once again. Some of the next ones will be on the theme Fall/Autumn Season. This is the most colorful seasons of all and I used to love the fall leaves until recently... Our new puppy - Lily,  goes in the backyard and although the leaves are not so colorful, she still likes to chew on them. Its not fun for us because we got to constantly watch out for her not to eat those leaves. Any ways here is my painting, hope you like it!

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Fall Glory - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel in daylight

 Below is how it looks in Studio Light:

Fall Glory - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel in Studio Light

Day 10 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Purple Ornament Glow

Here is another experiment with Purple ornament and complimentary colors under my light setup. See how fun shapes are created when the object is kept under light. If you have never observed, this Christmas, after decorating ornaments on your Christmas tree and turning ON the lights, look at one individual ornament closely. I guarantee that you will have fun looking at the shapes and colors created!

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Purple Ornament Glow - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Day 9 - 30 Paintings in 30 days - Green Ornament Glow

I was inspired by the glow of these ornaments under my light setup and felt like experimenting with complimentary colors. However simple the object is, I feel it is always fun to play with effect of light on the object. Under sunlight (plein air), the experience would be much different. When I get more time, I would love to do plein air paintings (i.e. painting outdoors), but until then setting up objects under light is fun and good practice too!

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Green Ornament Glow - 5 x 7 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Down the Shady Path

I painted this from Susan Sarback's book titled - Capturing Radiant Light & Color. It had been long time I had not tried out any demo from this book, so it was fun doing it.
After finishing and signing the painting, I felt I should have painted the first tree on the right, a little more shady; Painted a man sleeping under that tree with a basket on his side; and a few monkeys on tree with caps on. It would be a perfect illustration of the story "Cap seller and the Monkeys". Do you know this story? Ok, see the painting first and I have the story below it for you to read.

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Down the Shady Path - 8x10 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

Here's the story:  Cap seller and the Monkeys
Once a cap-seller was going to sell his caps in a village market. He was going through a forest. He was carrying a basket of caps on his head. It was very hot and he was tired, so he lay down under a tree to take rest. He put his basket on the ground. He fell asleep.
There were monkeys on that tree. They came down and took the caps. Then they climbed on the tree. When the cap-seller woke up, he was surprised to see that all the caps were gone from the basket. He looked up on the tree and saw monkeys were wearing his caps. He became sad. He thought of a plan. He threw his own cap on the ground. The monkeys also threw down their caps. He collected his caps and went away.
Moral: Wit works where strength fails.

White Cactus Bloom - SOLD

Cactus plants are to be found all around in the wilderness trail behind my backyard. I am facinated by the colorful blooms on these plants. The most common ones on our trail are currently bearing fruit - an oblong red kind of fruit. One day I am going to paint that too... But this one I painted from a photo reference on Wetcanvas forum (thanks to whoever posted the beautiful pictures!).
I painted this using the palette knife and using the new techniques I learnt during the January Workshop (see earlier blog post). I have the pictures of stages 1 and 2 below. I couldn't take a picture of stage 3 because it progressed so slowly, and somehow it looked so ugly to me that I was about to quit doing this painting. But filnally! I am so happy to be done with this. Hope you like it!


White Cactus Bloom - 11x14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

Following are pictures of Stages 1 and 2. By the end of stage 2 as I progressed further, my flower was turning colorful. I wondered, is this thing ever going to turn out white... !?  :) :)

White Cactus Bloom - Stage 1

White Cactus Bloom - Stage 2

Here's the inspirational picture I used for this painting. As you can see I have changed things around in my painting, specially the background.

White Cactus bloom - reference from Wetcanvas forum