All "Fine Art and Painting" Features
Oil Painting – Château d’Azay-le-Rideau
Ahhhh, a holiday weekend with plenty of time to paint. Well, here it is – my November painting challenge submission of Château d’Azay-le-Rideau. Although I started with a pretty tight drawing, I tried to keep my brushstrokes loose. I struggled a bit with the reflection but generally like how it turned out. OK, I will [...]
November Challenge Sketch – Azay le Rideau
Here the sketch I will use to paint Azay le Rideau for the November ADNW challenge. To make the sketch, I first drew a 1-inch grid overlay on top of the reference photo using Photoshop. To keep things simple, I printed the gridded photo at actual size, which is 11 x 14. I then drew [...]
French Chateau Series
I am planning to start selling my work in nicely made museum quality frames. To test possibilities, I thought I would first visualize a series of framed French Chateau images processed in sepia. To me these images work well with an aged photo technique because the structures themselves are about 400 to 500 years old. [...]
Loire Valley Boathouse – Stressing the Focal Point in Photography
What could be more perfect than a boat tied to a quaint little boathouse with flowers everywhere and no swing set in the back yard? The beautiful scene above is one we ran across while visiting Chateau Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley. As I crossed the bridge, I was instantly drawn to the near perfect [...]
Big Thanks for Amazing September Challenge Submissions
Wow! I am completely blown away by your work this month. It the most successful challenge so far by the number of submissions and, in my opinion, it also showcases the best work so far. When showing this month’s submissions to Donna and my friends, I have never heard more, “Wow, these are amazing,” comments. [...]
Waitress on Île Saint-Louis Graphite Sketch
I just had to give this one a go. It has been a while since I have had the pencils out and it was fun to finally sit down and draw again. I think I will try another when I have time and just focus on her face. This drawing is about 10 inches high [...]
Where did the painting challenge go?
It will be back! Sorry no picture to paint this month. Between work and getting ready to head to France, it has been tough to find the time to set the challenge up the challenge for August. Rest assured that it will be back the third week of September. You will have until the end [...]
Rural Decay on Colorado Highway 83
I have had my eye on this old house for a while. I am not sure who owns it or anything about its life but I always glance at it when I drive by. This place sits on a ranch about five minutes from my house a ways back from the roadside fence. I found [...]
“Autumn in Central Park” – Oil Painting
What kind of person hosts a challenge and never participates? I have been bad so please forgive me! Here you folks have been doing the work month in and month out and I have been sitting on my duff. My conscience got the better of me this month so here is my submission for December. [...]
Spread Your Word with Portfolio Cards
I decided that if I am going to hand out business cards I might as well hand out my work. I call them portfolio cards and I got them from Moo.com. Moo lets you print as many as 50 different images on the front of your cards and a single image on the back. The [...]