Day 30

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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This is the final day of the 30 day challenge.  Number 30 is another little landscape of a broad leaf maple tree at the Beaver Lake Lilly Ponds.  I took this photo while painting their with the Alfrescos last summer.  It was a hot day and the shade from these trees was very appealing.  You can see the pond in the background.

Day 29

8x8 inch oil on panel. 

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I love my sketchbooks and all my art materials so I dedcided to paint the stack of sketchbooks sitting on my table with the paint rags balanced on top.  There were some nice shadows and colour variety to work with.

Day 28

5x7 inch oil on panel. 

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I wanted to paint this blue bowl again so I cut up one of the oranges  to use with it.  Same bowl, same oranges, another day, new painting.

Day 27

5x7 inch oil on panel. 

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Heading into the final few days of the challenge!

Just a little landscape today of the edge of the Cumberland Forest near the entry to the trails through the woods and mountian.  This boggy area is full of Skunk Cabbage, which in spite of it's name and smell when crushed or broken is a beautiful bright yellow water plant.  I love the forest.  

Day 26

8x8 inch oil on panel. 

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I'm using the same glass bowl that I painted in an earlier post, but this time I'm looking directly down on it.  The coloured fruit  is in contrast to the white on white of the glass sitting on the white cloth.  

Day 25

8x8 inch oil on panel. 

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Back to painting still life, I went looking for a subject and found apples.  Lots of apples.  So that what I painted, a pile of apples.

Day 24

6x6 inch oil on panel. 

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For a change of pace I painted a little landscape that I cropped from a photo I took while hiking up Mt. Washington a couple of years ago.  I liked the photo but wasn't sure how to paint it.  A little cropping and it's not too bad.  Back to still life tomorrow.

Day 23

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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Another still life with striped fabric (well sort of) and glass this time.  I've had this milk bottle kicking around for some time meaning to paint it so here it is finally.  This is a woven scarf behind it with shiny gold thread woven through it.  You can't really tell, but there it is.

Day 22

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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This painting is really all about the stripes.  I've painted so many pears that I know how they are put together pretty well by now, but I still love painting them.  They have wonderful shapes and facets  Nothing round about a pear no matter what you see at first sight.

Day 21

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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Another still life using another of my thrift store treasures.  I like this glass bowl because of the geometric facets in the glass and the distortions that it creates.  I thought I'd try more pieces of fruit in the bowl and paint looking down on it somewhat.  

Day 20

8x8 inch oil on panel. 

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I found this lovely blue glass bowl in a thrift shop awhile back and bought it to add to my still life painting props but hadn't yet painted it.  Thrift shops are amazing places to find all kinds of treasures to paint that cost very little.  I've actually found too much stuff there and have nowhere to store it all so these lovely treasures are overflowing off the shelf that I have designated to them and lying all around my studio.  More of them will be coming into use for the remainder of this challenge.  

In this case I decided to put an orange in the blue bowl to make a (hopefully) striking painting using the complementary colours of the two objects.

Blue Glass with Orange  8x8 oil on panel.

Day 19

6x5 inch oil on panel. 

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For the next bit I will be posting some still life paintings.  That doesn't mean to say there will not be other subjects mixed in since I decide in the morning what I feel like painting that particular day.  Today's post is a little study of some fruit I had in the fridge.  I ended up cropping the pear on the left because the panel I chose to paint on was too small for three pieces of fruit.  Anyway here is today's offering.

Day 18

8x8 inch oil on panel. 

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I thought I'd try to paint flowers in oils.  Having painted a lot of flowers a few years ago in watercolour, I had never tried them in oils because I was aware that I would have to use an entirely different approach to it and doubted that I could ever paint them as well in this medium as I could manage in the wonderfully luminescent an fluid qualities of watercolour.  Well I was certainly right in this instance.  I'm not at all happy with the outcome of this effort, but like the composition and lighting enough to give it another try later.  I think it would be easier to paint it more slowly with time to dry in between layers, but who knows maybe I'll get the hang of this alla prima painting and manage well rendered flowers this way.  On to the next one.

Day 17

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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This was day two of breaking waves.  Again a messy challenge and am not as satisfied as I was with the previous one, but I never expected to painted 30 paintings in 30 days that were all satisfactory.  This is supposed to be a challenge, not just to complete the required number of paintings in the set time frame to to challenge myself with something different or more challenging.  As a whole, I'm not unhappy with what I have done so far and feel that I'm learning something every day. 

Up until now I've been painting mostly landscapes so I thought that I might try some still life in this quick painting style for the second part of the month and see how that goes.  Maybe some flowers thrown in since, although I've painted a lot of flowers in watercolours, I've never attempted them in oils.  

Here's Day 17.  This is not a good photo of this.  I will be scanning them all after I'm through to get some good images.  I'll be posting them next month as a group.

Day 16

6x8 inch oil on panel. 

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I thought I'd try painting some breaking waves.  This is the first one taken from Saratoga Beach again on Vancouver Island.  I was covered in paint by the time I was happy with this and changed the forground to simple sand from logs (it was too busy for such a small canvas).  I think I'm happy with it now.  

"Saratoga Surf"

Day 15

6x6 inch oil on panel. 

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This was actually painted a couple of days ago on a day that I didn't think I would be have time to paint.  I eventually found myself with an hour so painted my cup of cold coffee that was sitting there.  I noticed that the cup and the place mat kind of complimented each other with stripes of approximately the same colour.  I painted this in about 45 minutes.  I'm calling it "Cold Coffee"

"Cold Coffee"  6x6 oil on panel

Day 14

5x7 inch oil on panel. 

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Another scene from the same beach later in the day.  After breakfast and presents on Christmas morning my Dad and I went for a walk along the beach.  It had been raining but stopped for awhile.  The tone of this is much duller since it was a bit misty and now sun on the wet sand.

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 13
5x7 inch oil on panel. 

I painted this one for the sky.  I took it out of the window of our cabin on Christmas morning at my sister's resort at Saratoga Beach.  I've painted scenes from that beach and area many times and my favourite time of year for painting it is in the winter because of the wonderful skies.  I'll be posting a couple more of the same beach before this challenge is over.

Sky on Christmas Morning

 

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 12
8 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

I felt like a change of pace so I found this photo that I've been looking at from time to time but not too sure if it would make a painting.  I'm enjoying this challenge for exactly that reason.  The small format in a short time is allowing me to explore subjects or compositions that I've been hesitant to commit to in a larger more time consuming painting.  Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.
In this case there are some angles off and crooked lines but I've left them like that to emphasize the random ramshackly (is that a word?) feeling of this old building.  This was taken in Victoria's Chinatown.

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 11
6 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

Another forest scene from the Cumberland woods.  I liked the photo I took but I think there are some inherent com positional problems.  I feel that the bridge is fighting with the gap between the trees to the right of it for attention. I also became too fiddly with it, probably trying to paint the bridge accurately at such a small size.  I like the colours and the general feel of the painting though.  Oh well on to another one.

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 10
6 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

This one is from Beacon Hill Park in Victoria from a photo taken last fall. The original photo was actually taken by my father and I cropped out a lot of the right side to make it a square, just because I wanted to make a square painting.  I seldom paint from any photos except my own, but once in awhile I've borrowed from my father.   Another one with linear perspective along the road with the trees trees lining the road.

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 9
6 by 8 inch oil on panel. 

Another painting of pumpkins taken from the Lockside bike trail on the Saanich Penninsula.  This one appealed to me because of the rows of boxes of pumpkins echoed by the tire ruts in  the field from the trucks.  I don't know if I pulled it off or not, but it was fun to try.

Pumpkins for Market

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 8
6 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

This is from the forest trails behind Cumberland where I walk when I visit my family who live there.  I've gained much painting material from my strolls in the woods there.  This is a swampy area just out of town that is laden with lush mosses and ferns.  There was some skunk cabbage in flower in the ponds this time.

This is a nurse tree in the foreground with several new trees growing out of it.

Nurse Tree

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Click here to go to my Website and see more paintings

Day 7
6 by 8 inch oil on panel. 

Another painting from the same day and the one I posted yesterday.  The old ramshackle barn appeals to me tucked in under the hill with the shadows falling stronglly across it.  I also like the power poles and lines that help to tie the painting together.

White Barn on a Warm Day

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Barbara Callow Fine Art website

Day 6
6 by 8 inch oil on panel. 

This painting is from a picture I took just before Halloween when riding along Lockside trail with my gransdon.  He has a very small bike so it was slow going and I had plenty of opportunity to take some photos of this lovely spot.  I love the farmland on the Saanich Penninsula where I live.

Pumpkin Harvest

Day 5, 30 Day Painting Challenge, 30 paintings in 30 days.

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Barbara Callow Fine Art website

Day 5.
6 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

Another small painting  from the same spot as yesterday's painting.  In this one I liked the strong vertical shadows from the trees in the forground.  I'm strongly attracted to backlit subjects so tend to paint them often.  I also felt it would be fun to try a square painting instead of my usual rectangles.  

"Standing Tall"

Day 4, Painting number 4 in the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

Barbara Callow Fine Art website

Day 4.
6 by 6 inch oil on panel. 

While on the subject of cedar trees and woods, this was from a photo I took while on a bike ride that passed through the trails of Centennial Park in Central Saanich late last summer.  I love trees and forests and it is a recurring theme in my paintings.  This forest is somewhat groomed and tidier than most that I paint but I like the back lit efftect in this one.

Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days. Day 3

Barbara Callow Fine Art   

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Day 3. This is a Gruffalo Wood for Oscar!
8 by 6 inch oil on panel. It's from a photo I took a number of years ago while walking in East Sooke park. I love the cedar groves in the forest. So cool and peaceful in there.

This one I painting with my grandson in mind who loves Gruffalo Woods so I thought that this cedar grove fit the bill.  It's a six by eight inch oil on canvas panel.  I did it in my self impost time constriction of one hour, I would like to see a bit of refinement on the tree branches that are a bit messy looking but I'm pleased that it's captured the "deep dark woods" feeling.  I love cedar groves because of their cool and peaceful feeling.

Day 2 of the 30 day painting challenge.

Barbara Callow Fine Art.   

my website

Today I picked a photo that I had taken on Christmas Day at Saratoga Beach on Vancouver Island while walking with my Dad.  I gave myself an hour to complete it to see if I could paint it without getting fussy.  Twenty-eight to go.

Fernwood Fire Escape Day 1 of the Challenge

Barbara Callow Fine Art.  

my website

 This is a 6x8 inch oil painting on a little canvas panel I made..  I did this one in about an hour and a half in the morning of New Year's day 2014.  One painting down, 29 to go.