Painting Like Crazy - Part 2: Back to oil painting

Last spring I joined The Chestnut Group, which is a group of en plein air painters in the Nashville area.  In September and early October, they have a series of one-day workshops called Paint Your Heart Out (PYHO).  The Chestnut members volunteer their time to teach classes, people pay to take the classes (because the artists are generally amazing!), and The Chestnut Group gets the money.  It's a great fundraiser.  I signed up for a bunch of classes.  Quite a few benefits.  The main one is that it got me painting on panels and canvases again.  Finally.  And I'm painting like crazy.

One class was a beginners plein air class.  Another was on doing one small painting a day.  Others were on still life - and simplifying the composition of a painting - and painting birds and horses.  It was all so very helpful.

So here are some of my recent paintings.  Like I said, I've gone crazy painting.  I'm averaging almost a painting each day.

This is "Carl Road Pasture" - oil on 9 x 12 canvas panel.  Done 10/13/2017.  I'm not crazy about it, but it's okay.   I want to work on leaves and trees more.  I'm making my brush strokes too small, and so the leaves look choppy and unnatural. 


"Leiper's Creek Baptism: - oil on 9 x 12 linen panel, 10/2017.  One of my favorites of all I've done.


This was one of the 6x6 one small painting a day.  I did about 8-10 of them.  My granddaughters loved them.  They came over for dinner one night, and they saw the small paintings and Evey, Bradley and Sophie each wanted to take one home.  So I gave one to each of them.  I can't think of anyone I'd rather have one of my paintings!



"Granddaddy Pierce's Bell" oil on panel
This is Ron's granddaddy's old bell.  I remember it out by their house in Waverly Hall, GA back in the late 1960s - and Ron said it was there the whole time he was growing up.  Grandmother Pierce (Mildred) would ring it to let Granddaddy Pierce (Felix) know when dinner was ready since he was usually out working around the farm. Lots of good memories tied to that bell.

On one of the Chestnut Group's PYHO classes, we went to a local farm, and I took a lot of photos.  This is my attempt to paint one of the horses in the barn.  Painting horses isn't my thing, and I probably won't try to paint one ever again.  It sure was a beautiful horse, though.  However, when Sophie Grace saw this painting, she immediately wanted it.  So I framed it and gave it to her.

The painting below is my favorite of the small daily paintings I've done.  There's still so much to learn - but the hydrangea looks semi-good.  LOL!


I did the painting below en plein air in my driveway.  It was a very sunny day, and the painting reflects that because once I got it inside, it is VERY dark.  It didn't look dark in the bright sunlight.  Lesson learned.


Another painting done en plein air in my driveway - another very dark painting.


A fourth (fifth?) try at the Alaska photo of Lily and Sophie outside of Anchorage.  I finally got the snow-capped mountains to look good (they look better in person than in the photograph). However, I have the girls facing forward - and I can't do faces.  So I don't know what I will end up doing with this.  I will probably start over and have them facing away from the front.

This is one of my quick daily paintings.  Mediocre at best.  I love that vase, though - dark blue and curved.