Red Industrial

.

6″x8″ oil on panel

This is, again, a theme I’ve visited before in my sketchbook. This one reminds me a bit of master urban landscape painter, Stephen Magsig, author of one of my favorite painting blogs – Postcards From Detroit.

Stephen has started a beautiful new blog showing his more developed urban landscapes – Stephen Magsig Urban Landscape Paintings. There are some really inspiring paintings there.

.

Copy of Horned Melon after J. Matt Miller

.

 

study after J. Matt Miller – 6″ x 8″ oil on canvas

Sometimes I like to do copies of paintings I admire as a way of studying technique. I generally try to keep my work loose and broadly painted partly because I like that kind of work but also because when I try to take my paintings to a higher level of finish, they often fall apart.

I’ve admired the daily paintings of J Matt Miller since I became aware of daily painting blogs. Matt has the ability to reach a high degree of finish while preserving loose brushwork and he has a really beautiful sense of color that makes his paintings glow like jewels. I don’t own many oil paintings, besides my own, but I do own one of Matt’s that I got as a Father’s Day gift last year. It’s titled “Horned Melon” and the study above is a copy of it. You can see the original on Matt’s May 18th blog entry here.

It was really fun to do this, especially since Matt solved all of the problems for me. To see some really masterful still life painting, visit Matt’s Daily Life Painting blog.

Still life with purple carton and Focus

.

6″ x 8″ oil on canvas

I know my blog lacks focus. One day I’m doing pen and ink landscapes the next oil portraits and now I’m back to still life. I’m easily influenced and want to paint whatever I’m turned on by at the time. This is one of the advantages of having a “hobby blog” as opposed to a “professional blog”. But it may make for a less interesting blog to follow and it may also limit my growth as a painter.

(I don’t consider myself a hobbiest but since I’m not putting any energy into selling, I suppose that’s what I would be considered.)

Anyway, lately I’ve discovered a couple of painters I like and they’ve gotten me thinking of still lives again.

I mentioned Kathryn Law‘s self portrait project but she also has a lot of really freshly painted still lives on her blog. Another painter I’ve been admiring lately is Jason Waskey, I especially like his inclusion of patterns which I’ve tried without much success so far. I always admire Carol Marine’s still lives as well and have followed her blog for a long time.

I’m impressed by the commitment these painters show (Carol has now produced more than 400 paintings on her blog!) and their methodical way of exploring their subjects. In other words, their focus. It’s interesting to watch from day to day to see the evolution of what they’re interested in and what angle they choose to tackle it from each time.