Day #20 - My Cat

Day #20 "My Bengal Cat"

12x14 cm (about 5x5.5 in)

 oil on wood

A small painting of my Bengal cat. She lays down to pose for me just perfectly without moving hardly any. Such a good model! :)

Day #19 - Juanjo

Day #19 "Juanjo"

The original reference photograph is taken in Seville, Spain (barrio de Triana) a couple of years ago. This view is a typical street in Seville.

In this painting I was after color harmony and interesting greys mixed with ochre to get warmer street look. Always wanted to paint the streets of Seville after living there one year earlier in my life.

30x20 cm, (about 10.5x8.5 in)

oil on wood

Days #15 .. #18

 More experimenting with winter scenes. These are plein airs and photo reference paintings.

Day #18 "River"

Experimenting different colors for a winter scene.

17x20 cm, oil on wood

Day #17 "A scene to the sea in Helsinki"

Small rocky islands in the sea. Some of them have small buildings on them. I don't know what is their purpose, maybe they are summer cottages.

20x15 cm, oil on gessoed paper

Day #16 "Thick Snow - Plein Air"

 An other snow plein air in the garden. Just branches that are hanging over the fence. My fingers got quite frozen after this 2 hour plein air although the weather in general was pleasant and quite warm.

22x22 cm, (8.5x8.5 in)

oil on wood

Day #15 "Trees"

Painted from a photo reference. This painting might need more color. I used mostly just white and blues. I could add some snow on the black distant trees on the left hand side. I did add snow to the right hand side but forgot the left ones without in a hurry. I think this would be an ok painting to keep if I could get more looseness with brush strokes somehow. (Maybe color will do it?)

22x15 cm, (8.5x6 in)

 oil on wood

Day #12 .. 14 Color Studies after Velazquez

The following are color studies after Velazquez. Reds show a bit too red but there is only one layer of paint so far so might later go and adjust by adding more layers. Wood almost requires it, in my opinion.

Day #14 Velazquez 3

 15x22 cm, oil on wood

Day #13 Velazquez 2

22x15 cm, oil on wood

Day #12 Velazquez 1

 this man in the painting is his father-in-law

 15x10 cm (about 6x4 in)

I'm thinking of painting a big copy of the original 'Los Borrachos' and it includes these faces. I recently saw the original painting in Prado, Madrid, and purchased a big book of Velazquez paintings.

Day #10 - Color Study

 Painting #10 of the 30 paintings in January

"Color Study of an Old Man"
6x7 cm, 2.5x3 in
oil on gessoed paper

Day #6 ... #9 - Snow Studies

Day #7  "Rock Under Snow"

 
Miniature size, oil on gessoed hard board
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Day #8  "Snow Bank"

Miniature size, oil on gessoed hard board
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Day #9  "Great Spotted Woodpecker"

 Miniature size, oil on gessoed hard board
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Day #6  "Snow Study 1"

Miniature size, oil on gessoed hard board
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Day #5 Barn - Aitta

Day #5  "Aitta"

22x15 cm, (8.5x6 in) oil on wood

Below is a reference photo I took a year ago. These barns are located here in a museum area on an island. They have a cute form and are tempting to paint but they are in the forest so there never is much light.

Day #4 - Plein Air I

Day #4 "Plein Air I - Snowy Branches"

14x11 cm

oil on gessoed paper

The weather is loco here right now, one day snow melts away, the next day it's cold again and snowing. Mostly we have snow on the ground. This is an hour plein air in the garden. Lovely weather outside, not too cold but fresh and pretty with snow - perfect to paint snow plein air.

Day #3 - Hyasintti

Day #3 - Hyasintti

22x15 cm, (8.5x6 in)

oil on wood

This is my daily painting effort for today, didn't have time to go any further. The painting itself is a little bit bigger but needs to be continued later, there are more flowers around as you can see the drawing. This is a typical Christmas time flower around here.

Day #2 - Christmas Ball

Day #2 "Christmas Ball"

 22x15 cm, (8.5x6 in)

 oil on wood

Trying out a new (new to me) painting method that I learned recently. While painting I was using the Christmas tree as a reference. Logical this time of the year. :)

Day #1 Santa's Hat - Tonttulakki

 January 2015 Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days

Day #1  "Santa's Hat"

12x14 cm (about 5x5.5 in)

oil on canvas

Starting the first day with a simple and easy subject. :)
Spent about half an hour with this sketch.

Portrait of Marisa

"Portrait of Marisa", 24×30 cm, oil on canvas
(1st varnish layer added)

Life model about 68 hours of painting, a two-week-pose

You can see the painting process starting with drawing and transfer to canvas below:

This portrait was a lot of work and so much patience and long hours for Marisa to pose. We had excellent teaching, demos & lots of patience our teacher with us. ;)

The portrait above is the first life model portrait I've done.

Snowman

Every year in the winter time I make a snowman of snow and paint it. When making a snowman I need to wait for a perfect snow conditions so that the air and snow are humid enough to able the snow flakes to stick together and form a ball. ;)

The painting can be a plein air in the garden/at the terrace or painted through the window depending of how cold it is outside. I also need to think what kind of a hat to put to the snowman. This year's hat is pretty much chosen so that's a good thing.

Here is last year's snowman:

"Snowman", 24x33 cm, oil on double oil primed canvas

Pine Cone

"Pine Cone"

minuature oil painting on gessoed paper

# 24 Mystical Winter Forest

"Mystical Winter Forest"

30x40 cm, oil on wood, still working on this one!

 (wip - not quite finished yet)