Watermelon

I painted this one last Saturday when it was hot and summer at last... so there's nothing better than a piece of cold watermelon. Mmmm......
The next day I saw that Ronell from Africantapestry had painted a watermelon as well. I love how she wrote about "the time and place to eat a watermelon". Go and check it out!

Oh, and as you might have noticed I changed the background colour of the blog. Not sure though wether that's the right one - what do you think about it?

"Watermelon"
acrylics on canvas panel,
30x24 cm
Letzten Samstag war endlich ein heisser Sommertag - was gibt es da besseres als ein Stück kühler, saftiger Wassermelone!
Ach ja, und ich habe die Hintergrundfarbe meines Blogs geändert - was denkt ihr?

Edited to say: Feedblitz again ignores my posting, so I'll just repost... hope it works...

Technorati tags: acrylic acrylic painting still life

Along the River / Fischerstube

This Sunday was the hottest day of this summer (which is not really such an achievement, the last two months have been cold and rainy..). What's more important: I grabbed my EasyL and supplies, went down to the river and painted!
I started of with a first layer of burnt sienna and cad red light to give the scene a warm glow. This base colour can still be seen in places like the foreground trees - I really like the effect I get from this.
This painting took some two hours to finish, and probably another 30 minutes to get photographed..
One of these days I have to find a way to get a decent photo in less than 10 minutes.... and spend the rest of the time painting!

"Along the River / Fischerstube"
acrylics on canvas panel,
30x24 cm
Letzten Sonntag hatten wir den heissesten Tag in diesem Sommer (bis jetzt) - also habe ich meine Staffelei und meine Malsachen gepackt, mir am Fluss einen guten Ort gesucht und gemalt...
Das fotographieren danach war fast schwieriger.... wer das Bild also im Original sehen will, kann am besten bei mir vorbei kommen!

Technorati tags: acrylic acrylic painting plein air River Landschaft

Memories of Tuscany

I still miss Tuscany... so I used one of the reference photos I took to paint a 'almost-but-not-really-plein-air' painting.
First, it felt really awkward to paint from a photo instead of being there - this came as a surprise since I used to paint from reference pictures quite often. And I would have thought that having been there (Tuscany), having taken the picture myself and remembering so well what it was like would help... it did eventually, but I still don't really know what to make of the painting. Do I like it or not? I can't really say just now... But it does bring back memories...

"Memories of Tuscany"
acrylics on canvas, 30x40 cm
Als ich letzten Monat in der Toskana war habe ich -natürlich- auch viele Fotos gemacht. Eines davon habe ich als Vorlage für dieses Bild genommen.
Eigentlich hatte ich gedacht, dass es mir leicht fallen würde, diese Bild zu malen... aber zu meiner Überraschung musst ich mich erst wieder daran gewöhnen, NICHT vor Ort in der Natur zu sein, sondern im Atelier mit einem Foto als Vorlage.
Ich bin mir auch noch nicht sicher, ob mir das Bild gefällt... aber es bringt auf alle Fälle wunderbare Erinnerungen zurück!


Technorati tags: acrylic acrylic painting plein airTuscany Landschaft

Art and Mathematics

Maggie Stiefvater is not only a great artist and blog author, she's also a great motivator for all aspiring artist.
Every month she's looking at a (dead) artist, analyzing his/her work and technique, sharing her findings on her blog Greywaren Art - and encouraging her readers to study along. Or read along.

This month she's looking at Maxfield Parrish, an early 20th century illustrator and artist. Two days ago Maggie posted that she had come accross the term Dynamic Symmetry - "Apparently it's a compositional concept that Jay Hambidge rediscovered in 1920, used by the ancient Greeks. Parrish was fascinated by it and used it extensively in his own work. I know it has something to do with ratios but even after crawling the web like a legless lizard looking for water, I am no closer to finding out how exactly one applies it to their artwork."

I love logical/mathematical riddles, and just had to look it up and find out what it's about. This is what I wrote to Maggie:

While the mathematical formula is all about square roots the visual formula is not that complicated.
Take a square – measure the length of its diagonal – prolong the base side of the square to the measured length (maybe use a compass) and draw the resulting rectangular shape. You end up with a rectangular shape with a square in it – or rather a vertical line. The ration of where the line cuts the base line of the new rectangular shape now shows dynamic symmetry.
Or technically speaking: the ration between the base line of the original square to the base line of the resulting rectangular is 1 to the square root of 2.

And then you can do the same with the new rectangular shape: measure the length of its diagonal – prolong the base side of the shape….



Go and read the follow-up on Maggie's blog - I'll just post some overlay pictures here to show how one can find Dynamic Symmetry in Parrish's work.















And because I was playing around with that concept (and my computer) I've put this short clip on YouTube to show how to construct a grid according to the Dynamic Symmetry. Just hope it'll work...





Nächstes Mal gibt's wieder ein Bild - I'll post another of my paintings soon!

Technorati tags: parrish dynamic symmetry

Charentais

Last Sunday I wanted to paint but somehow didn't really get to it until the evening. And than.... magic! Ok, maybe not really magic, but this painting just went so well and easy (and fast), it almost painted itself. Oh, and the melon was delicious as well!

"Charentais"
acrylics on canvas, 24x18 cm
Manchmal läuft beim Malen alles rund, ein anderes mal braucht es etwas mehr 'Kampfgeist'... Diese Bild hat sich fast von selber gemalt - eine wahre Freude! Ich hoffe nur, dass sich die nächsten Bilder ein Beispiel daran nehmen...

Technorati tags: acrylic acrylic painting fruit still life

Feedblitz problems - and a glimps of Tuscany...

This isn't really a post. It's more of a test post / complaint / 'sorry' post.
Feedblitz (the service used for subscribing to my blog) seems to have some issues with my last post. I hope it's just envious of the great time I had in Tuscany and will behave again once it gets over it.
So - no new painting today, but still... a glimps of Tuscany... A 'Work-in-Progress' shot of Tuscan Field of Gold from my last post. Let's see what feedblitz makes of this...

btw: Ronell - another shot of my EasyL. I really think it's one of the best solutions for plein air painting!



Eigentlich ist dies gar kein echter Beitrag, ich möchte testen, ob Feedblitz wieder funktioniert. Feedblitz ist der Webservice, der eigentlich ein Mail verschicken sollte, wenn es auf dieser Seite etwas Neues gibt. Meinen letzten Beitrag hat Feedblitz allerdings ignoriert, desshalb versuch ich's nochmals. Und weil ich noch immer ein bisschen in der Toskana bin (in Gedanken) hier noch ein Foto - auf der Staffelei seht ihr das Bild vom letzten Beitrag, Tuscan Field of Gold, das heisst besser gesagt die Untermalung.
So, mal schauen, was Feedblitz jetzt vor hat!