8x10 acrylic paintings based on the cave art at Lascaux, France.  I love these, and like to think one of my past lives was a cave artist.  Why not?

I remembered a whole lot of Florida Gulf coast landscapes we took years ago and tried out the acrylic black and white and then oils color coat.  All are 8x10 except the last with lily pads, that one is 14x18.  We don't go there anymore, it is environmentally dangerous - flesh eating bacteria have turned up in the water and I only like to wander on the beach in barefeet. Not safe with oyster shells all over the place.   So pretty though, I miss it.

A batch of Oregon coast landscapes in oils, 8x10 inches.   I love the abstract elements of these pieces. The oil is the top color coat over an acrylic black and white painting.  This makes for a very fast painting.  I need something a little slower!

A landmark rock on the Oregon coast, make up your own stories about the name... For this small (8x10) painting I used the same method as the last post.  Charcoal matte ground, painted the sky with white chalk paint, sketch in pastel, underpainting with black and white acrylic then a final coat with oil paints and liquin.  So fast! and answers my need to keep my distance from solvents, I only takes a coupld of minutes for the color and I'm out.

The method I'm using this week... start with charcoal color chalk paint, available at home centers but not art stores.  It is matte, highly pigmented and cheaper than gesso.  I applied this to a 16x20 black canvas, then gridded off lines on this with pastel and on the reference photo with a sharpie.   

Whoa! the color balance sure didn't hold up for this photo, the land part of this is still the charcoal color from the first one, it didn't actually get darker.  Must be the time of day.  Anyway, I applied white chalk paint to everywhere I want sky in the finished painting, it is more difficult to make the smooth sky tones over dark.

Here I made some form with white acrylic.  Then I started to add color in acrylic and forgot to take a picture, so imagination. 

The final coat of paint is a glaze with oil paints and liquin.  For the sky I did a Bob Ross magic white, added liquin to my white paint and covered the sky then worked in the color,  Prussian and Ultramarine blue, the chemtrail and sun added after.  The same colors plus raw umber for the sea and sand.  Lots of white for the sun on the waves.

  This is one of my first tries with Liquin, an oil painting additive that makes a nice glaze medium.  The picture is my son and a pet rabbit from when he was about sixteen, he just turned forty four, so it's been a while.  It was really fun to use oils for the first time in forever, I have a big problem with solvents and can't be around them long without killer headaches.  This was better than turpentine and linseed oil by a long shot.  There is a nice low odor mineral spirits product too, Gamsol, which I never trusted but is great. I won't be using this too much but it's nice to have it available if needed.  I used a method on this painting that I saw on youtube about Carravagio's paint handling.   Starts with a terra cotta ground (I use chalk paint for all my gessos) and works directly with a burnt umber drawing and form added with white that some color is worked into.  I did that for the first layer with liquin as a medium that makes it all dry a lot faster and then glazed another layer of color with the liquin when the first was dry.

The backyard at the Florida house on the St Marks River.   24x48, acrylic.  For the same people as the NC piece, this was to go over a fireplace.  The river painting goes in the North Carolina house, the waterfall goes in the Florida house, and the big dog goes with them to both places.  

I just got done posting some landscapes from the Oregon coast, mentioning that I started them on black backgrounds when I realized that I never posted the paintings that got me started, except for a couple of pet portraits.  I may never work on a light surface again!   The method here is to sketch the subject with a white chalk pencil them just create the forms with white paint.  When it is complete  I can decide whether I want any color, but a lot of times I'm happy with the black and white.  There are a lot of possibilities for color, watercolor pencils or pastels plus acrylic medium, liquid acrylics thinned way down to glaze transparency with medium or the same thing with oil paints and liquin.  All these were done with acrylics glazes, Golden Liquids, like I mentioned many times, is very transparent and highly pigmented and takes about a drop.of color added to the medium.  Buying anything more than a one ounce bottle is a waste of money, it will last forever.   I use Golden gloss glazing medium for the vehicle and finish it with Golden gloss varnish with UVLS to protect the color from light.  If I use oils and liquin I don't bother to varnish.  I hate oil varnishes, nasty stuff.   About the initial sketches, I mentioned in the last post that I'm crappy with proportions and obviously some of these look like I do ok, my method when it makes a difference  (doesn't make a difference on a landscape and I just wing it) is to print the picture on computer paper, put white chalk or pastel all over the back and use it like carbon paper,, taping it to the canvas and drawing the lines I need. It leaves a light white outline that is easily removed with a damp sponge when the painting part is complete.  Saves a lot of time, and is not cheating.  There is no cheating in art.