Pleinair Painting

I finally updated my website with a portfolio of my work. It's amazing to go through 20 years of work. It brought back so many memories. When I built my first website, it was important to keep the graphics small in order to not overload the web. Imagine that! So all the photos of my work were very small in order to allow users to load the information on their computers. It's taken many months to collect high resolution photos. Some of the murals were destroyed before I was able to get digital files of them. But there are some amazing images I can share. I've done over 150 murals over the years! I'll be adding more over the next few months, so be sure to visit often. I've also included several illustrations and commissioned works. Thanks for your interest in my work. Here's the link to the exciting new site: http://www.armscreekstudio.com

I just completed this portrait of three cousins. It's an oil on canvas, done with an indirect painting technique. I start with a transparent golden wash over the entire canvas and then work the lights and darks up from that base. I find it's a lovely base to start with for flesh tones and makes the whole canvas warm. These portraits were difficult for several reasons. First, I didn't have an opportunity to meet the children in person. Second, I had to work from lower res photos than I normally like to do. And third, I had to photoshop out several elements, replace heads and arms and try to make it not look like I did exactly that. Here is the photo shoppped photo that I worked from:   The finished painting is beautifully rich in color and texture compared to the photo. Another reason why paintings are so superior to photos if they are done with the intent to express an emotion or message and not just reproducing a photo.  Here is the full portrait with frame...