Small Acrylic Break

I painted this small pear with acrylic on a 4x6 inch stretched canvas. It was a  nice break from the larger watercolor and pastels that I have been working on. I like to look for hints of warms and cools in the shadows and play with them till I think it works. I used a bright orange/red as an underpainting. I like how it gives the image a glow. I will post the other paintings soon. I felt like I was neglecting my blog so I did this quick pear.

Also a qucik travel note. Went to New York to the Moma to see the Tim Burton Exhibit and thought it was great. It's a nice insight to how he works, from highschool on with examples of sketches, paintings, storyboards, films, notes, models, armature, props... all really fun and a nice inspiration for the boys. Can't wait to see what they come up with now!

Student Refresher

It has been a great week having all my students back for a new year of fun! Last week the adult class did a still life watercolor of pears in a basket. This is my demo about 10x10 inches.

The student age class did some drawing refreshers. I wanted to make sure they could still see shapes, shading and highlights. They started with contour drawings and moved to shading & highlighting.

And today the adults did the

drawing refresher (contour, value, shading...) and a lemon painting (about 7x10 inches).

It is going to be a good year!