Blue Herons At Salmon Creek

This is the first oil which I feel is successful. The scene is accurate, BUT most impor-tantly, the values are correct and dark enough! YIPEE! I took some time the other day to just mix colors outside. What a great learning experience! With pastels, all the colors and values you might want are right there in front of you to pick and choose from. Not so with oils. I was able to take my time to match the colors to what I was seeing in nature without the pressure to complete a painting too. As I began this painting, I found it helpful to begin by premixing little piles of paint which were some of the obvious colors I saw in the scene. I think it also helped that this painting is a bit larger than what I had tried before (8x10). That's a bit closer to the size I am used to in pastel. Oh, and about the blue herons; they flew away shortly after I set up, but I figure they were still there in spirit.

Patti's Blue House

It's been a very long time since I did any art, let alone an oil. Life has been really messing up my plans. But I was able to get away one evening a week ago and headed up to my favaorite place in the world - the little park north of the Braddocks Bay Marina. Again I struggled with values and mixing the correct hue in oils. The scene is fairly accurate, though, and that's a good thing. But I can't seem to get the values dark enough and am not sure how to get those really dark values without resorting to using black, which is something I don't want to do. I want my dark values to sing with color, not black. Size 6x8