Monthly Archives: November 2019

Grateful for small things

Posted on November 24, 2019 | 1 comment

A few years’ worth of thankful journals. These are not expensive but they mean a lot to me.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The holiday of gluttony and naps. I love it! Can’t wait for people to show up, to entertain them, hoping they’ll enjoy the company of friends and family, and leave with full bellies and happy thoughts.

For those of you who follow my blog and who are not from the United States, this is a national holiday of giving thanks. Celebrated the fourth Thursday of November, the myth is that the Indians (native Americans) welcomed the Pilgrims to the land with a bounty of food and company. However much of that story may or may not be true, it is still a holiday of celebration. I like it because I can invite anyone I choose, feed them to exhaustion, and then send them on their way with containers of turkey and gravy, stuffing and cranberry relish, and maybe a piece of pie, too!

But giving thanks and being grateful should be every day, not just on a special holiday.

I’ve kept a journal for years and years, some hand-written and some digital, but these often end up a litany of worries or complaints or what I did that day. But I do manage to take the time to reflect at the end of each day on something special that happened that day. I try to find at least three things but sometimes it’s more…and sometimes it’s less.

These are not big things. They probably wouldn’t even register with most people. Maybe it’s a sunrise or the strike of the sunlight on a hill. Maybe it’s spotting a red-tailed hawk on a wire. Or hugging a grandchild.

Sometimes I draw a little sketch to help me remember what I actually saw.

I find throughout my day that I actually look for things to write down. The bird’s nest that I spot outside my hotel window. A phone call from a friend. Even just a yummy supper. Sometimes it’s just the tiniest thing but it’s special to me.

Another small sketch. Just a memory jog.

I urge you that at this time of giving thanks, that you reflect not only the big things but each small thing that might make you happy, that makes others happy. Let us take the time to reflect on the small blessings of every day. Hope you all have a wonderful day of Thanksgiving this week and enjoy spending time with friends and family.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged country living, grateful, holidays, journals, thanksgiving

Evolution of a painting

Posted on November 20, 2019 | 3 comments

Barry, portrait in acrylic on linen, 28 x 34. Kit Miracle

Except for plein air painting and sketching, it’s pretty rare that I create a painting by just diving in and slapping some paint on canvas. Yes, I know, movies and biopics of artists give that impression. But really, it’s hard work and, for me at least, requires a lot of preliminary work.

When I’m doing a portrait, which is to me the most difficult to achieve, I always begin with some preliminary sketches. Generally I begin with some charcoal sketches. Sometimes one is enough but more often it’s several.

Barry, preliminary charcoal sketch. Kit Miracle

After that, I may try some color sketches on canvas paper or panels.

In this case, I had recently been gifted with some art supplies by a friend who was moving so I proceeded to a conte crayon study on pastel paper.

Barry, conte crayon. on pastel paper.

The next step was to do a larger oil stick pastel, also on pastel paper.

Barry, oil stick pastel on pastel paper. Kit Miracle

The final painting was created on a large stretched linen canvas 28 x 34. I had already primed it some time ago with a dark neutral background and some splashes of color in the center.

I sketched in the main figure with charcoal. Then, sanded the primary area and gessoed it again. Then sketched over that again with charcoal. A little spray fixative set the charcoal so the painting process would not pick it up. I decided to leave the background unfinished with just the initial undercoats of paint.

The figure is painted in acrylic very loosely but with attention to detail in the face and hand. The primary difference with painting a human portrait as opposed to painting a building or landscape is that if you’re off a brick or leaf in the landscape, no one will know. But if you’re off a quarter of an inch on a nose, you have totally missed the mark in capturing a portrait. At least in my opinion.

What do you think?

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Posted in art, painting instruction, portrait

Tagged art, conte crayon, contemporary impressionist, kit miracle, oil stick pastel, painting instruction, portrait, toned canvas

More paintings from the Snake River

Posted on November 10, 2019 | Comments Off

Snake River, Idaho, II, watercolor, pen and ink, Kit Miracle

Tomorrow (Veteran’s Day) is the final day of my landscape painting class. We have been using watercolor with pen and ink added for details. It’s been a great class but a little challenging for me. I usually like to include something man-made in a landscape painting to give it that human touch, as well as to provide scale.

Most of the paintings we’ve done this class have been pure landscapes without any notion of a human in sight.

Tomorrow’s painting will involve a subject with a water feature. Looking through some of my thousand of photographs, I decided to add a water feature since this is pretty common to landscape paintings.

Here are two simple compositions of the Snake River in the southeast area of Idaho. The paintings are created with about five or six colors, but certainly less than eight.

Palisades Reservoir, Snake River, Idaho. Watercolor, pen and ink, Kit Miracle

One shows the reservoir lake as the viewer is looking into the sun. The other shows the Snake River with the sun at the back of the artist. Both are relatively simple landscapes but should be challenging for a class of beginners to try.

Comments Off on More paintings from the Snake River

Posted in landscape, painting instruction

Tagged art, contemporary impressionist, Idaho, kit miracle, painting instruction, pen and ink, Snake River, watercolor

Painting the Snake River

Posted on November 3, 2019 | Comments Off

Final, Snake River painting. The final step is to use some pen and ink to add some details but be careful not to add too much. I suggest that you zoom in on the image so you can get a better idea of what I’ve done. It’s really just a lot of scribbling and very loose calligraphy.

I mentioned last week that I’m teaching a watercolor landscape painting class. I let the class choose which subject they wanted to paint and they selected the colorful sunset. Well, it seemed easy but was a little more difficult than they thought. I’ve painted that scene three times and none of them have turned out exactly the same.

So, I thought I would try to find something a little easier for the class. One of my selections is this scene from a trip we took out West several years ago. This is the Snake River in Idaho near Palisades Reservoir. Such beautiful country out there.

Snake River, original photo upon which the painting was based. As you can see, I eliminated many of the shrubs in the foreground to better draw attention to the river and the mountain.

This is a classic landscape valley with pretty clouds and blue sky, a nice piney mountain, a river, and some trees up front leading us into the scene. I only used eight colors for this painting, three brushes, and my fade-proof ink pen. The paper is Arches, French-made of 100% cotton rag. The painting time was about two hours.

To see a step-by-step view of the process, click here or go to Artworks and scroll down to Snake River Landscape.