Every Blessing ... revisited

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say:
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

– MATT REDMAN, Blessed Be the Name

Every Blessing © 2011 Karen Mathison Schmidt
30 x 40 x 2 inches • oil on 2" cradled Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I posted this one some time ago, and I had it in my studio where I could see it every day. After a while I decided it wasn’t really finished after all, so I took it out of circulation, but just kept kind of studying it off and on. Well, today I finally tackled it, changing it just a little, adding some texture, brightening some of the colors and changing some tree shapes, and NOW it feels much more complete to me.

I also planned out the composition for my painting for the Daily Paintworks “Balance” Challenge. Just wait ’til you see!

Until then, here are some photos I took today which may just come in handy if there’s ever a “COMFY” Challenge.

Boy, I’m telling you, our pets have such a hard life.

Rising to the Daily Paintworks Gift Challenge

Pleasant Surprises © 2011 Karen Mathison Schmidt
5 x 7 • oil on Gessobord
gloss varnish for UV protection

$65

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE from my eBay store

I really wanted to participate in last week’s “Gift” Challenge posted by Carol Marine on Daily Paintworks but I wasn’t coming up with any ideas until Thursday, my Mom’s birthday. Over dinner she was describing the bouquets she received from my aunt and uncle, and from my sister, and suddenly a light bulb went on over my head. I went over Friday morning to take reference photos of her arrangements by the light streaming in through my parents’ living room window. The pearl being June’s birthstone, the white roses had little pearls on wires stuck in amongst them, providing a little extra “bling” to an already beautiful display. Mom just grabbed a gift box out of the closet and stuck a bow on it for a gift prop, et voila! An arrangement tailor-made for the Gift Challenge!

Now I just have to come up with a subject for the Balance Challenge and hopefully I can get that submitted BEFORE the week is up. :)

I’ll post work-in-progress photos mañana.

Good night!

Matilda and Mickey ... finito!

SOLD

Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby! © 2011 Karen Mathison Schmidt
8 x 8 inches • oil on cradled Gessobord

private collection • Stamford, Connecticut

Here’s our Matilda with her roly-poly Mickey on one of his first outings into the yard, just like one of the big dogs. I love hound dog puppies with all their rolls upon rolls of skin and little silky, floppy ears. This was a fun painting; I used brushes on the dogs, and a painting knife on the foreground, adding layer on layer of color for the grasses.

Here are some brushwork and palette knife details:

And here are the work-in-progress pics:

First, the initial sketch in indigo acrylic, then acrylic glazes in red, magenta, green and yellow.

For unpainting the mostly orange-ish brown hounds, I decided on a complementary pthalo blue glaze, with a green glaze over it, making it turquoise-colored.

Now I start adding the oil paints; first, Matilda’s details.

I love how her mouth is just slightly open; it looks like she’s smiling.  :)

In this one you can see how I smoothed out Matilda’s ear to make it look more velvety. Then I start adding Mickey’s details. I skipped a few photos in between the last photo and this one, but you can look on yesterday’s post to see all those in-between steps.

From the very beginning of painting with the oil paints, I keep the brushstrokes a little separate, allowing that blue underpainting to show through in places. You can see this especially in the close-up view of Matilda’s head (back near the top of this post).

Since the oils have a long drying time, I can go back later and blend in certain places for smooth transitions. Blending in some places and leaving the color separate in some places gives a lot of interest and gives me that illustration-y look I’m going for.

Now the dogs are done, so I start playing with the background, applying paint with a painting knife. I want a spontaneous feel in the grassy foreground, but I’m careful with the knife around the edges of the dogs because I want their outlines to remain clean.

At this point the background was giving me fits, so I wiped away almost all of it. (Being very careful wiping around those hounds!) I knew what I wanted, but for some reason I was having a hard time getting there. Then, I was concentrating so hard on trying to get the effect just right, I totally forgot to take progress pics in between.

Finally, I got it where I wanted it. Spontaneous grassy foreground, and a smooth, kind of glowing, velvety background around the doggie faces. With some suggestion of garden in the far background at the top of the painting.

Whew!

OK, on to the next challenge!

More work-in-progress, and Happy Birthday, Mom!

More work-in-progress on the mama dog & puppy painting:

It was a short painting day today; this morning I spent some time doing some housekeeping on my website, and I stopped earlier in the afternoon than usual so I could get ready to go out to dinner tonight for my Mom’s birthday.

I did make some good progress on the puppy in the painting ... and I think I was smiling the whole time. Every now and then as the little puppy face was emerging I just laughed out loud; he’s just such a cutie pie! It was kind of difficult getting all his folds upon folds of skin just right ... I think it’s getting there.

Here are my work-in-progress photos from today’s session:

There’s our little sleepy-eyed Mickey, slowly emerging from the blue background.

Here I can’t quite decide whether he looks more like an Ewok, or like he’s wearing blue little kid pajamas with a hood.

Here’s where I stopped today, and headed out with Paul to go out to dinner with my brother and my parents in celebration of Mom’s EIGHTIETH! Yep, the big 8-0. You would never know it if I hadn’t told you.

Here are Mom and Dad outside the restaurant. Dad will be hitting 80 in January. Somebody once said he looks like Santa Claus in his off season. My husband says he looks like Hemingway.

Anyway, I hope Paul and I look this good in about 26 years.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Time for a puppy painting ...

Baby Mine puppy painting WORK-IN-PROGRESS:

You should have known after yesterday’s puppy pics that I wouldn’t be able to resist painting a puppy. My official goal for the finished painting is to elicit a heartfelt “Awwwww!” from the viewer. We’ll see.

I love painting our hounds. A Redbone Coonhound painting means it’s time to pull out every single one of my browns and earth tones, reds and oranges for the palette:

Of course, I always like to throw a few curve balls of green, blue and purple into the mix, just to keep everyone on their toes!

Sorting through photos ... pecans & puppies

I Brake for Pecans © 2011 Karen Mathison Schmidt
7 x 5 inches • oil painting on Gessobord
gloss varnish for UV protection and easy cleaning

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE from my eBay store

See work-in-progress photos after the puppy pics below.

I was sorting through some pictures on my computer this morning, and I came across this one I took last fall. It was a beautiful cool day, and I had taken Trixie, our border collie mix, for a long walk down our road; on the way back we rounded a curve and saw this gentleman picking up pecans by the roadside. I loved the way he stood in silhouette in the shade of the trees, and the way the sun glinted off his red truck. It may have taken me a while to get around to it, but I just KNEW this would be a painting some day! My favorite part: the railroad crossing sign in the distance.

While I was going through photos this morning I also happened upon all the puppy pics I took three years ago when Matilda had her puppies:

Here are Mickey (who was adopted by our house painter), Blue and Sophie having a romp in the "puppy pool."

Matilda having a bit of a cuddle with Sophie.

And all three just chill-laxin’ after a play session. Sophie is on the far left, Blue is the one on the far right, dreaming of being a big dog one day.

Looks like his dream came true!

And now, work-in-progress photos for today’s painting:

I started with a red acrylic background for this one. I’m becoming quite fond of starting with a red background, especially for summer scenes. When I started adding the oil paints, I started with the most detailed part, the truck and the man, because that was the most intimidating part to me, and I wanted to dive right in and get that part out of the way.

Some spontaneity kicked in when I added the grasses and little white flowers in the foreground. Hey, why not?

I used blues and purples for the shady part underneath the far oak trees.

I defined the shapes of the trees by painting in the negative space of the sky. I had intended to make the trees mostly green, but when I got this far, I really liked the way the red underpainting looked in the crowns of the trees, so I went ahead and painted those parts mostly in reds.

In the final version, below, I painted out the power pole on the left ... I apologize to anyone who had become attached to it ... I felt it just wasn’t adding anything to the composition. I also lightened up the road a little and made the divider stripes and little deeper yellow.

And now, I have to go ... I have a movie date with my husband; I’m meeting him in the living room in ten minutes, where he promises to have fresh popcorn ready and waiting. I don’t know what we’re seeing, but he says he’s sure I’ll like it!

Good night, all!