June Challenge, Black and White Art

The challenge for June was to do a piece in black and white.

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Donna: When I heard Black and White my mind immediately thought "collage".   Hmm... black and white, penguins, tuxedos, pianos, people, words, photos???   No, songbirds, musical notes, sheet music and of course polka dots.

Song Bird 8x10 collage

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Carmen: I love roots and the patterns they make. I was just in the Smoky Mountains and saw these beautiful roots spreading across a ledge. This challenge gave me an excuse to draw them in pen and ink.

Carmen Beecher

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Then I decided to do a black-and-white oil painting, so I chose a subject that had little color to begin with, Ruby Beach on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. This is a tiny 5x7 painting.

Carmen Beecher

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Carol:  For this challenge, I chose three small paintings, done in black and white on a red support.  I allowed small amounts of the red to show through, which I believe, gives an interesting warmth to the paintings.

These paintings were all done from photographs of flapper movie stars.

Carol Schiff

www.CarolASchiff.com

www.CarolSchiffStudio.etsy.com

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Fay: Several years ago, a distant cousin sent me this picture of the old Dressler family homestead. My great, great, great grandfather, Thomas Wilson Richardson, married Margaret Dressler in this house in 1860. My great, great grandfather was born here. I was inspired.

I started drawing the cabin free hand. REALLY free hand.

I decided it wasn't dark enough, so I darkened it up a little and added some sparse trees.

The final sketch below is a try at graphite transfer. I wish I had known about this technique BEFORE I spent hours trying get the cabin above in proper prospective. This discovery may have change my whole approach to art!

Fay Picardi

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Kathy: Below is my response to the challenge. I love drawing with Micron Pens on good watercolor paper. This drawing was inspired by a leaf found in a cluster of similar leaves in an open field. I was on a one month artist's vacation in a beautiful cabin at the Furnace Mountain Zen Center in Kentucky. Surrounded by woods, I got to hike, paint and draw every day. I thought the leaf was just a beautiful dandelion leaf. There was no stalk or flower. But later I checked online and through several field guides, and it is most likely a young leaf from a milk or bull thistle.

Kathy Garvey

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Jean: I love black and white. My sketchbooks are full of ink/Pitt pen drawings. Black and white forces you to simplify to achieve tonal variation. The drawing below is of my son Chris, underwater. He loved swimming. I found an old snapshot of him from one of those throwaway, underwater cameras. So I sketched him!

Jeanie Thomas
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Ginkgo vs. Sycamore

By Kathy Garvey

On my third day at my month long retreat at Furnace MountainZen Center, I realized that the spindly little tree near the Tea House was a Ginkgo Biloba. The leaves have such a fascinating shape that I first decided to paint them and then to play with one of my photos of them in Photoshop.

Watercolor 9x12 Ginkgo Biloba

Ginkgo Biloba, Photoshop (I like to use the shapes of leaves to make brushes in Photoshop. I'm building quite a nice set of them from this trip. The small pale purple ginkgo leaves in the image above are from a brush used as a mask to the layers below.)

On the fourth day's walk, a pretty little leaf with very obvious fuzzy veins on its backside dropped right into my path. I think it's a sycamore leaf. It inspired another watercolor which I enjoyed painting out on the front porch of my cabin.

The cabin sported a shady open porch with room for a table and four chairs.
Squirrels, skinks, deer and birds checked in on me every now and then. 

 And, naturally, the same leaf had to take a few trips through Photoshop.

The woods of Kentucky are awesome. So many trees - a lot of them ones I knew growing up in Maryland. The hillsides are covered with every size and shape and every shade of green imaginable. I'm still working through my collection. More to come.

Kathy Garvey

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Abstract Sunset Painting, Textured Sunset Painting,SOLD, Small Oil Painting, Daily Painting, 8x8x1.5" Original Oil

I didn't mean to paint this!  I decided to do an abstract, with nothing in particular in mind, and almost without my help, this sunset appeared.

SOLD

 Sunsets are one of my recurring themes and it just kind of happened before I knew it.  Usually it does not happen that way for me.  Usually, I struggle, I scrape, I try and try again.  Sometimes I pull it off to my liking....sometimes I do not.

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So on those few occassions, when I am happy without the anguish, I say a little "thank you" and put away my paints for the day.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

Carol Schiff
www.CarolSchiffStudio,blogspot.com

Red Maple Inspiration

By Kathy Garvey

I recently spent time at Furnace Mountain Zen Center in Kentucky where I had a month in a wonderful cabin surrounded by wooded mountains and fields. I got to walk every day with my camera and it inspired several paintings and digital works.

On my first walk on my first day I discovered a beautiful but tiny Red Maple down by the barn. (Yes, there is a huge barn, many cabins, a Tea House, a permaculture garden, paths, caves, rock formations, etc. Amazing place!)

The leaves looked blazing in the afternoon sun. I made a point to walk to its location nearly every day to get photos at different times and in different light. Below are a few of my untouched photos of the maple.

The branch from above.

The same branch from below with the sun on it.

So beautiful, I visited it every day! 

Below is one of the paintings I completed while on the retreat. It's acrylic on a beautiful piece of 22"x34"rice paper I bought at Ralph's Art Supply before I left.

Below are digital works inspired by the red maple completed while on my retreat.

This is a digital plan for a future painting on the rice paper.

Maple by the Temple

The Temple is constructed of beautiful wood inside and out and it has a gorgeous blue tile roof. The back of the Temple faces woods and rock formations. The front has a long series of steps down to a pond and the hillside along the steps is covered with milk weed in bloom now, and soon zinnias and cosmos.  (However, the maple is actually located by the barn, quite a distance away. Artistic License!)

More posts to come on my fun artist's retreat and the amazing Furnace Mountain Zen Center!

Kathy Garvey

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Textured Seascape Painting, Palette Knife Oil, Small Oil Painting, Daily Painting, 20x24" SOLD

I wanted to do a seascape, or actually a beach painting, somewhere between an abstract and impressionism.

SOLD

I wanted to record just my memories and impressions of trips to the beach.  I painted with a knife and tried to work quickly.

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I tried not to think too much about the colors I was using or where I was putting them, but tried to keep it really instinctive.

I wanted plenty of texture in this piece.

It was a fun exercise!

Although this painting has sold, it is available as a giclee print on canvas or distressed wood planks.  Contact me for sizes and pricing.

Thanks for viewing my blog today.

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Ocracoke, Daily Painting, Small Oil Painting, Landscape with sunset, 11x14" Original Oil

I recently visited the outer banks of North Carolina.  Ocracoke is a small settlement on the southern end of the banks.

The residents are a special group of individuals, who fiercely defend their lifestyle.

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 It is a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride, to reach the island, and many of the residents go years without visiting the mainland.

I appreciated their dedication to this small strip of land, 40 miles from the mainland, and am thankful they were willing to share it with me.

Carol Schiff
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Abstract Seascape Painting, Daily Painting, Small Oil Painting, 6x8" Textured Art, SOLD

This small seascape is a study for a much larger piece.  The only question in my mind is "How large?"

SOLD

I am very happy with the understated color which makes the brighter hues really pop.  I am not sure if it would be call an abstract or impressionistic.......what do you think?

What I do know, I really enjoyed painting it and want to try it again and go BIG!

Thanks for reading my blog today.

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Windswept Tree Painting, Small Oil Painting, Daily Painting, 6x8" Oil on Panel

Somedays, everything just feels right!

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It doesn't happen often, but this was one of those days.

Hope you have "one of those days" too.

Thanks for viewing my blog today.

Carol Schiff
www.CarolASchiff.comwww.CarolSchiffStudio.etsy.com