Lily on the pond

my not very successful painting

This month's painting challenge on http://paintanddrawtogether.blogspot.com/  was a photograph of a beautiful water lily on a pond. It looked simply enough until I tried it.
I thought I would have a change and do an oil painting on a larger canvas but didn't reckon on the oil paints having dried out considerably during the hot summer months when I had been painting with mostly water colors. I had left the oil paints out on the side and in my hot studio room with only occasional air conditioning ,some of the paints must have become so hot the tops came right off and the tubes went hard. I didn't think an oil paint would do that. Also my linseed oil had gone into a jelly like mass so even though I started the painting I gave up pretty quickly with it.
So I went back to the water colors and really just didn't like the results I was getting. The reflection on the water was difficult to do and no way could I find the correct pink/mauve color for the lily. 

Original challenge photo

So this is not one of the painting I like very much.
There's always next month's challenge to look forward to.

Changing out the Firescreen

Changing out the Firescreen

New painting of Beach Cove

I am tired of my original painting that I made for my fire screen. It was okay but a change is as good as a rest I think. O I set to and Painted a scene form my latest vacation at Monterey.It is pretty large -2.5ft by approx 2feet all on a very bumpy piece of wood . I did prepare the surface by slapping on a couple of coats of gesso and then went at it with thick acrylic paint.

Old painting ,sunlit pool in snow

It was a challenge as the original photo was very gray looking and I wanted something brighter. Not sure I really like how it came out.

I might have to find another piece of wood I think

Poppies AGAIN!?

My painting

I finally got around to trying a watercolor of a poppy scene that I had photographed in the yard. Poppy scenes and poppy paintings are all over the internet. I guess the vibrancy of the red poppies just draws you in.
My poppies in the yard are finally all gone. There are a few pastel pink ones appearing in the flower beds but these don't look like the cabbage type ones that came out in the woody area.

I tried this time to work in a looser fashion with not so much detail and to let the water do most of the work for me and I really like the effect on this one.
As Mike says this looks more like a watercolor.