I didn't paint for 5 months and 2-3 days ago I suddenly felt like it again!
So I got on with it, hihi.

Not done yet!!

This is what I did yesterday afternoon after Gesso-ing 2x.




Ended the day with this:




Tonight I got to this stage. Of course nowhere near finished

Beautiful paintings !

Nice job your daughter did .

I got to this last night. Still not done.
First attempt of the dress didn't feel right so I changed it.
And of course worked on the highlights of the bench.
I added some very fine detail on the hood of his sweatvest. Just a wee bit more aquamarine blue in very thin lines. And altered the top line of his sleeve. I suddenly noticed it was way too high and the folds annoyed me as well.
Now it's much better and I'm happy with it :D

Also done her hair, at first it was rather bland. His will get some more depth as well.

Keep the good work up .

Thanks Julie :)



It's finished!
He's got legs now, a 5 0'clock, highlights around his hair and clothes, worked on both their shoes.
Added the lantern on the right, finished the low wall on the left.
I made the flowers in the tree brighter and so on.

Good job .

Thank you so much, Julie :D

I've started painting again on Boxing Day!
I had found a painting from 2015 that was kinda finished, but not really. I didn't like the way it'd turned out. So it had been sitting somewhere upstairs for 9 years, I'd totally forgotten I had it!!

Finishing it properly did mean going back to oils as it was done in that. I haven't used oils in nearly 2 years, works entirely different.
So it's a bit of rediscovering it, haha.

***Colour differences (grass, sky etc.) between photos from 2015 and now are caused by different camera***

This is what it looked like before I started:




This is what it looks like now, I'm NOT finished yet.



This corner annoyed me the most. I just couldn't get the bit with greenery to come out right. The bushes ended up looking like a long stretched out green blob.
Now they have way more definition and much darker as they should be in that area.

THEN:



NOW:


You can see that I've also worked on the largest shed, AND the small one in the background is completely re-done as the perspective was all wrong.
The front shed will get rooftiles as well :)

Not done yet, but already happy with it!

Very good

Thank you, Julie :)
It feels good to be painting again!
I've been busy with other creative things, knitting woolen jumpers for instance.
But painting is different :)

I think it's incredible that you found your work and were able to revisit and revamp it. It looks wonderful. Have you named this piece?

Thank you, Merry!

I wasn't done with it yet, now I am!
It was called "Burma Fields", it still goes by that name, but I may think of something else. I'm never much good with catchy titles, hihi.

I have finished it this afternoon :)
Very happy with it, it was a good decision to go over this painting. Now I'd love to have it up on a wall somewhere, hihi.

It is 80x60cm, so a larger canvas.

Unfortunately I cannot get the colours of the sky to look right. It's almost royal blue, turning into a gorgeous purple / lilac layer lower down.

Almost everything has been painted again and/or improved.

Calling it a finished painting, hihi.

It looks amazing, Crystal!! Congratulations on the completion. I'm sure that it looks even more spectacular in person.

Beautiful painting ..

Thank you, Merry & Julie!

Merry, it indeed looks much nicer than the photo shows.
It's not so dark, especially the foreground and li'l shed are lighter.
Somehow this painting is even more difficult to photograph than others. It is never easy, hihi.


Now I've got my oils out and am used to painting with 'em again I'm going to work on my painting of Mt Shasta in N-California.
I couldn't get that one right either at the time. Lots of evergreens in it, which I struggled greatly with. (We don't have such trees over here)
So that's the next project.

Lunch first, then get Mt Shasta downstairs, the painting that is, hihi.

I started working on Mt Shasta 2 days ago.
I made the painting in 2015, finished it then as well, but it hadn't turned out the way I had wanted.

In the meantime I can paint better, I've learnt a helluva lot over the past 10 years, so I'm now finishing it off properly!

NOT DONE YET!!

I started with the middle of the mountain.
I noticed the vertical ridge to the right started in the wrong place.
Those ridges are defining for Mt Shasta so I wanted to get them right and now it's in the right place.

The overall colour has changed too as per reference photo. It had to be much much warmer.
Some part now look just a tad too purple (which the camera now does pick up on? Stupid thing, if it has to, it doesn't, haha).
I will go over that to alter it a bit.

Lots of work left to do, the rest of the mountain, but also the mist and foreground.

The way it was:



Where I am right now:

Good painting .

Thank you!
It isn't done yet. I've only just started 2 days ago, hihi.

Today's update. Still not done with the mountain, but getting there now.

I have to admit that I'm started to look forward to being done with the mountain, pfff...
Then it's finishing off the rest, which shouldn't be too difficult, not like the mountain has proven to be.
I would've found it easier with acrylics to be honest.