Starting the job

I started two small oil paintings yesterday.

One is the "vine house" with the wisteria; the other is a photo of a cyclist that I liked from an online friend (just a plain side view with some attractive fields in the background). I haven't done any triathlon-related paintings before - this is an experiment. (By popular demand, I'm planning to do "Red Door" on the actual Paint the Town day if the foliage doesn't fill in and obscure everything).

There are two shows coming up I want to try showing some paintings at - both in mid-June, one at Eagleman (the cyclist) and the other at our local Paint the Town day on June 14 (some local ones).

But I have to get going on them in order to get them done in time - the drying process can take a month!

These are just the initial sketches and background work - all the outline sketch plus most of the preliminary painting will be painted over before I'm done! And sure, I can do your triathlon portrait too - for the right price!!

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Update: Instead of doing a workout today while the girls were in school, I did some more work on the background of the cyclist painting. It's a small painting (8' x 10") with a lot of detail that's going to take a lot of work with the teensy tiny brushes. I may have to fade the middleground a bit with some washes later, I'll have to wait and see if it's too vivid and distracting.

Which should I paint?

I'm scoping out a few local sights in town in the designated area for the "Paint the Town" event in June. I want to plan a couple good options so, depending on the light, wind, and weather - I can make a final selection or two on the morning of the event. The image has to be fairly uncomplicated and eye-catching so that I can capture it in about a 3-hour painting session.

Which would you recommend? These are some starting options - I'll have a few more to run past you by contest day. Keep in mind the sun, sky, and foliage are going to look much different in mid-June too - and I can omit annoying details (like the red flowerpot in #2).

Place your vote in the comments (I don't have a voting box option, sorry!). I may also have you look at a couple value studies of a few of the options once we narrow it down.

1. Workboat

2. Churchyard gate
3. Vine house
4. Red door
5. Steeple

6. Lighthouse (the iconic symbol of the town - but I'd have to paint it from a different view, from the land side - this is the only photo I had handy, taken from a boat)

Landscape, framed

Here's the landscape that I just finished, that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. I put one more layer of detail on and let it dry and framed it. I still have to take it out of the frame and scan it to get a decent image of it without flash glare, and put a final coat of glaze over the whole thing, but I think it's more or less done. It brings indoors one of our lovely rural landscapes from nearby our home. It makes me think of the many scenic roads I run and ride my bike along around here.

Landscape in progress

Here's a very small (8' x 10') landscape of a rural road near here that I've been working on, not yet quite finished. I've been using a glazing technique which involves laying down layers of pure color and then waiting for them to dry, so it's taken a long time to get this far. When it's completely dry I'll have to scan it instead of trying to photograph it, which will get rid of some of the spots of glare.
Here's the scene from a slightly different angle in different light - the painting isn't meant to be photo-realism, more of an impression of the way the light filters through the leaves.