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   

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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.