Oh look! Pictures!

My friend Dave came over last night to baby sit the dog for a while and when I came home, I found he was kind enough to bring over his wire for his digital camera.  What this means is, that I was FINALLY able to upload the images of the paintings from my camera onto the computer and post them here.  DAVE IS A HERO!

So, here are my paintings from the Painting a Day exercise

Painting a Day - Day 1

Like all the work I did, this was based on a photograph we have hanging on the wall.  This was my first oil painting since college and I didn't think it came out too badly.  The picture is dark because the flash just kept reflecting on it and the light wasn't working with me.  (I have my logo and the text in the pictures because I've had to deal with some art theft in the past - I'm not a famous artist but I feel like I have to do what I can to protect myself and my art.  I mean, these aren't masterpieces and they are at low resolution and all that... but people are weird on the internet...  So, I apologize if it looks annoying to have that stuff on there, but forgive me...)

Painting a Day - Day 2

Keep in mind that I hadn't found subject matter to paint before starting a painting.   I was trying to keep my feelings on doing the painting fresh and so would think a while before sitting and doing it.  While looking through a book on animals, there was an image of two... emus I think, walking with a red sky and the sun behind them, all in silhouette.  Wanting to do something fantasy, I used the image and made it a dragon.  I won't say this is brilliant or anything... it isn't my favorite.  But again, this was also after a full day of work and trying to work with a medium that I was not yet comfortable with.

Painting a Day - Day 3

So, I hadn't done a person yet, but I didn't know what to do for it and was feeling pressured.  I looked at another artists work and tried to figure out how they had done the figure and used the paint.  This is another ok piece.  I think I had worked till 6 p.m. and hadn't been able to sit down till 8 p.m. to do it or something.  Looking back on it, I was probably rushing myself.

Painting a Day - Day 4

I had gone to Barnes & Nobles and gotten a book on castles which was very inspiring.  This painting was really the first one that I REALLY liked and was very happy with.  

Painting a Day - Day 5

I have a book on Geishas and there are a lot of beautiful photographs in there.  I wanted to do a sort of landscape/person image instead of just landscapes.  This was a little difficult and again, the oil paints don't always work with you, but I was happy with this as well.  I liked a lot of the textures and the feel of it was good.  

Painting a Day - Day 6

Again, this was from the Geisha book.  My mother asks me about my fascination with the Japanese culture and I think it has a lot to do with the graphic nature of their world, the bold patterns and colors.  I was very happy with this one as well, because I think her face came out well and she looks Japanese - not like a white woman pretending to be Japanese.  I was also happy with the how the robe came out.

Ok... Here is where I should have the 7th painting.  Because I really didn't like it, I didn't have it where the other paintings were, so last night when I was taking pictures, I didn't take that one.. and so didn't upload it to the computer.  I didn't realize I didn't have it on there till this morning when I started fiddling with the pictures to put in the post.  I'm sure there was some sort of subconscious thing going on there....

I plan on going out and buying a new wire today if I can.  And I will post it after that.