Rainy Dark Night on El Toro Rd - SOLD

I had in mind for a long time to do a night scene and that too when it is raining. Last time when I had the urge to click a picture of such a scene,  about an year ago, I did not have my camera on hand. About couple weeks ago, as I was returning back from the First Thursday Art walk from Laguna Beach, I got a perfect opportunity to click pictures. It was dark and rainy, but I was driving. I pulled out my camera from my purse, and clicked many many pictures while driving. After coming back home, I uploaded all pictures on my laptop and sorted through until I found the best picture I wanted to paint. Here is the result:

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Rainy Dark Night on El Toro Rd - 11 x 14 inches, Oil on Canvas Panel

SOLD

This picture is clicked as I was slowing down at the signal at the intersection of El Toro Road and Rockfield.

Looking back - 30 paintings in 30 days Challenge Jan 2014

Looking back at the month of Jan - first can't believe that the month is over!! I started the year very excited about doing this challenge a second time. The last I did was in September and had really finished 30 paintings. This is what I expected from myself this time too. But guess what... turned out that I had not anticipated that this month will be so busy. Sometimes feel like saying "the damn life came in the way". But on the other hand, I learnt that there are other things that can take priority and had to let go of the painting for that day. Also learnt that I had to catch up with some good sleep to get some fresh painting ideas and to be able to enjoy my painting process. I could not finish 30 paintings, but I still accomplished 17 paintings which I consider still a SUCCESS!! All of them are oil paintings except 2 are watercolor florals. My aim in doing this challenge was to paint something new that I have not done before - different subjects like the pomogranate and pear that I had not painted before; different materials - like cloth, glass, ceramic, silver, gold (couldn't get to few others that I had thought). To think about it... it was very interesting to start off with a blank canvas and come up with a finished painting. Here is a collage of all 17 paintings I finished this month.
The best I liked are pomogranate, onions, carrots, peppermint candy, the watercolor floral (floribunda), and the grand finale - Peanut M & Ms.
Which ones did you like the best?

All in all I had a WONDERFUL experience - will repeat the challenge once again..

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Day 30 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - M & M Peanuts

Today is the final day of this 30 painting in 30 days challenge. I am calling this last painting as my day 30 although I finished it over a period of 4 days - little by little as time permitted. I am so glad that today is the last day and tomorrow I get to showcase all the paintings done in this month! Now I will be starting some bigger paintings and although I will be painting everyday, I will not be able to complete each one in week or 10 days! I will try to post the stages for the next ones so that I can review my own progress later on...
HURRAY!! here is the last one -

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M & M Peanuts, 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Canvas, using palette knife

 As I was painting the M & M peanuts, I remembered the exercise I had done couple months ago in my basic shapes sketching class. This was an exercise in rendering spherical objects that appear as 3 Dimensional. There are 5 elements that make a sphere look as 3D - Core Shadow, Cast Shadow, Midtone, Reflected light and Highlight. Take a look in in the picture below to see them labeled - you will have to click on image to view larger. You an take a look at any object sphere or not, under light, and observe these 5 elements. When you color or sketch with this observation in mind, you will be able to get excellent results in your paintings.

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M & M Peanuts, detail - click on image to view the writing...

Day 25 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Peppermint Candy for You

The other day I went with my daughter to an Alterations shop to get one of her dress altered. The lady there had bunch of these peppermint candies nicely kept in an attractive container. I had seen few paintings of candies in the 30 in 30 challenge, and I found a different subject to paint! The candy itself would not be a different surface for me, but the interesting part would be to paint the "wrapped" candy. Hope I am able to capture the effects of wrapper... What do you think?

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Peppermint Candy for You - 4 x 8 inches, Oil on Canvas

Day 24 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - My Favorite Scarf

Here's an experiment in painting fabric - it is my scarf and it reflects double colors - purple and green under light. I hung it over a cardboard box and got quite interesting folds. Hope you like it!

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My Favorite Scarf - 6 x 6 inches, Oil on Canvas

Day 22 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - Scentimental Floribunda

My favorite flower - Rose!! This rose is from my front yard, I had clicked a picture of it some time back and bookmarked it for painting. Finally, I got to it this morning... after painting a flower yesterday, I was in a mood of Roses and that too in watercolor. This type of Rose is called Scentimental Floribunda. Although it is called "Scentimental" it has very mild fragrance, at least compared to the roses in India. But the color is just phenomenal!! A newly blossomed flower has very strong Red and Yellow color. But as it grows, the yellow and Red fade away - it is wonderful to watch different phases of its growth. The flower I have painted is middle aged - the color has faded a little bit, but still is in full glory. The roses grow in bunches of 5 or 7 on one single branch - probably that's the reason it is categorized as Floribunda.
Looking at the petals it feels like the flower is doing a Flamenco Dance!!

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Scentimental Floribunda - 6 x 8 inches, Watercolor on Arches Paper

Day 21 - 30 Paintings in 30 days Jan 2014 - From a Bee's Eye View

It had been long time since I worked with watercolors and I was tempted to paint my favorite subject - flowers. This time it is a view I presume bees or butterflies would be able to see through their eyes as they fly for honey towards the center of the flower. It turned out to be very soft colors, I like it!

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From a Bee's Eye View - 6 x 8 inches, Watercolor on Arches paper