Sunday, February 21, 2010

"Winter Morning on Minnesota Street"


8"x6"
Oil on Board

$125 plus $10 domestic s/h
click here to ask about purchasing this painting through Paypal

This is another painting of downtown Bend from the photos I took yesterday morning. I've been trying to be more aware of the ratio of the three main values to each other in my compositions and to how they are arranged throughout the painting. This subject felt like a great one to consciously work with that. In her book on watercolor painting, Mary Whyte suggests that having the equivalent of "one gallon of one value, a quart of another and a pint of the third main value" will best create an interesting composition. So, in that respect I'm pretty pleased with this! And the colors really do reflect what the winter light does here--lots of "weak" color! For some reason I just can't get too excited about all these greys no matter how accurate they may be! I hope to paint this subject again with more intense color.


My genuine thanks to Julie Hill and Mitzi Easley for sending me the "Sunshine Award" that has been awarded to quite a few daily painters recently. It is a wonderful reminder that people are looking, reading and enjoying and giving their time to each other's work. I appreciate it so much! Part of receiving it, though, is quite a process of nominating others for the award. I would love to send one to each person on my list to the right, plus others that I haven't put on there yet! The thing is, I just barely manage to get my paintings painted and posted and, unfortunately just don't have spare time for extras these days. Please go see Julie's and Mitzi's blogs, though. Besides love and strong work, their posts are a joy to read!

4 comments:

Carol Horzempa said...

Thanks for sharing the quote by Mary Whyte, I will have to remember that.

Love your street scenes...I can relate to the weak colors from the winter light since I live in the north, but you have painted them beautifully!

Kathy said...

Lovely painting and a beautiful composition. Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Vicki..thanks so much for the kind words...and the reminder of value usage...that is a great way to remember and to pass on to others. Smart piece today....values and composition

Shirley Peters said...

I love this cool light, and the composition is very interesting.

I sympathize with you about the Sunshine award. I was given one by Dreama, for which I am very flattered. But everyone I would pass it on to already has one! So I thought I'd wait awhile, until I found some newer painters, and then pass one on here and there. To find 12 new recipients in one go would be too hard.