Valentine's Day Show at the Yarmouth Frameshop and Gallery

"Be Mine"

"Hearts"

"Pears in Blue"

"Red on Red"
All are 6"X6" oil on canvas panel
$150 framed each
Contact Yarmouth Frameshop and Gallery to purchase

It was a busy day today, framing paintings, getting ready for the Valentine's Day Show at the Yarmouth Frameshop and Gallery, in Yarmouth, ME. The opening is from 4 to 6PM next Saturday, February 13th, and I hope to see you there. The paintings above are my contributions to the show.

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www.bobbiheath.com

"Gilsland Snow Field"

"Gilsland Snow Field"
6"X6" oil on canvas panel
$100

Today's painting is the scene from the drawing I did earlier in the week, with a little composition advice from my friend Suzanne (thanks!). It really makes you want to get out your snow shoes doesn't it?

"Pears Duet"

"Pears Duet"
6"X6" oil on canvas panel
$100

These pears are my demo from yesterday's class. Compare them to the practice "Pears in Blue" that I painted 6 weeks ago. Which pears do you like better?

"Thomas Point Beach" and Workshop Day 2

"Thomas Point Beach"
6"X6" oil on canvas panel
$100

Dianne and Joelle doing several sketches of the pears before settling on their favorite vantage point.

Joelle's pears are wonderful.

Dianne's landscape looks great.

Today was the final day of the two day workshop on daily painting and blogging that I have been teaching at River Arts in Damariscotta. It has been a lot of fun for all of us. Building on our study of the pears from last week, we painted over the now dry pink value studies. We swapped out the pears for some new ones, so shape and color adjustments had to be made. The idea was to paint each stroke with a different color, and I was impressed with the results. See Joelle's pears above.

Our final painting exercise was a snow scene, painted from a photo. Joelle and I used a great photo she had taken at Thomas Point Beach as a reference, while Dianne used an evening photo taken in South Freeport. These were done quickly, focusing on the shapes and values, with a limited color scheme, and no initial line drawing. Aren't they great?

During the week we had posted our paintings from last week to our group blog, and commented on them. The group blog has been really useful in getting everyone up to speed on the blog elements and posting. I highly recommend it!

Gilsland Snow Field Drawing

Inspired by an article in the Pastel Journal, my friend Suzanne and I set off on Sunday afternoon to do some winter plein air painting at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth. The sun was shining and we spent an hour hiking on trails packed down by snow shoe-ers and skiers before we set up to paint. We got some great photos, which turned out better than my painting did. It's really hard to get the values right under those conditions. This is a drawing of the north meadow looking west over the Presumpscot River basin.

Workshop at River Arts - Day 1

Today was the first day of my two day "daily painting and blogging" workshop at River Arts in Damariscotta, ME. It was lots of fun and we made great progress. After looking at some favorite artist blogs and the blog elements they use, we got down to painting. The first exercise was the 10 minute apple. I did the one on the left above as a demo, and then the class did four each. I managed to get one more in (right above) while they were painting their second and third. We talked about what we wanted to improve between each version.

Next the students set up a still life of two pears and then did several sketches of them from different vantage points. I did the sketch above. We followed that with a value sketch of our favorite view. My demo is below.

This was a great class, and I look forward to next Saturday when we have our final session. They were a little shy, but maybe I can convince them to let me show you their work next week.

"Vantage Points"

Have you ever set up a still life, done a sketch to get a composition you like, painted the thing, then walked around the other side to leave the room and thought, "wow, it looks even better from this side?" I have! I've also turned around after painting a landscape that really excited me, to see something pretty interesting behind me as well. That's why my friend Marion says on a bike ride, you have to do it in both directions to see everything. So it occurred to me that it would be a useful exercise to do a value sketch from several vantage points. This is my first attempt. Pretty cool, eh? Which one do you like best?