Weekend Windup

{Gustave Courbet, Sunset on Lake Geneva}

I tend to use weekends as catch alls for all the loose ends that were not completed during the week. This weekend in particular went by fast. I spent some time preparing a talk/slide show on the art of Gustave Courbet. I so admire his individual spirit.

Then a lot of time was spent in my vegetable garden. Removing my peas to make way for something else and harvesting a basket full of string beans and admiring the growing lima bean pods. Two of my squash plants have become victims of the squash vine borer, so I pulled them out and re-seeded to make up for the loss. This is my first summer with a vegetable patch, it has been fun and I am learning a lot, though it does require a good amount of time as well.

Tomorrow I will be back to the paintings from last week... Before going, here is a new website I found, I particularly like this video about Symbolist, Fernand Khnopff.

Thanks for reading :)

Liz

Roses {A New Drawing}

Roses – 15" x 22" (38.1 x 55.9 cm) – Graphite on Paper

Hello,

How was your weekend? Other than enjoying time with S. and Slim, my goal for the weekend was to complete something, anything… as I have been working on paintings that require patience due to the extended time required to complete them.

Friday evening I cut some roses and Saturday morning I began this drawing. This evening I finished it, working some from memory because flowers change rapidly and the rose bud is now open, where I liked it being only partially open in the drawing.

Tomorrow I am going to work on the painting with lemons. So it may be a few days before I have anything new to share.

Have a wonderful evening and thanks for reading.

Liz

{roses from our garden}

I am excited to share with you that my roses are blooming right now! After copying the Claudio Bravo drawing last month, I got inspired to have my own roses. So that very weekend I planted three different bushes, pruned and fertilized them as recommended. It was heartbreaking to prune back the existing blooms, though I had received the advice to do it from a good authority that said the plants needed the energy to build healthy roots. He also said this would lead to healthier blooms later, and he was right!

It has been a busy week attending a still life workshop taught by Danni Dawson. The painting is still in progress, so here is a sneak peak of a part of it, the other side I am still figuring out the composition... I will work on it more next week.

I am so looking forward to the weekend. Nothing fancy is planned, just a different pace and the opportunity of working in my own studio, something I love doing :)

Have a wonderful weekend, Liz

Recent Figurative Work

A few items from Rob Liberace's class...

{Graphite on Paper}

{9x12 oil sketch}

Thanks for stopping by and reading :)

and have a great weekend!

Liz

Hello~ Just a drive by post today before heading to southern VA to attend the Rawls Museum Arts reception this evening. I wanted to share with you the final stage of the portrait from class {here is an earlier stage} It is in the most complete form it shall ever be... If it was a true portrait I would work further to refine the rest of the painting, as it is worked on in class I feel you never have enough time to get to everything...

{detail of the face}

Leslie - 24 x 18 inches - oil on canvas