'The Essence #3'

This is the beginning of my latest PIP (Painting In Progress).  Iris are one of my favorite flowers, and I have quite a variety in my gardens -- they've been subjects of many paintings.  Now I'm focusing on the heart/center of the blooms.  This is the 3rd of a series entitled 'The Essence'.



New PIP

After dedicating over 2 months of my art time to the commissioned piece for McKee Hospital, I'm just starting a new Painting In Progress (PIP).

This is the 3rd of my 'The Essence' series.  They are close-focus images of iris from my garden.  Here's my photo reference:



McKee Dedication Cancelled

I'm sorry to inform you that the unveiling/dedication of the art installation I create for them has been cancelled.  Stay tuned1

McKee Final Composite

This is my final post for the McKee Hospital PIPs (paintings in progress).  The four pieces are at the frame shop, Colorado Frames in Fort Collins, www.coloradoframes.com.  The image below illustrates how they'll be presented, floated on black sueded matte, with a simple black frame, under TruVue plexiglas.  The framed size is just over 4' tall X 6' wide.

The dedication/unveiling is scheduled for October 3rd, 3:00, in the Coors Room of the McKee Wellness Center.  The piece will be hung behind the reception desk in the main lobby sometime after that. 

I'm happy to be done with this project, and pleased with the results.  It was fairly challenging; I used numerous reference photos of area mountain ranges, trees, wild iris and Colorado Columbine, and bodies of water.  Developing paintings this way is a great creative exercise -- much harder than painting a single scene that I've taken pictures of! 

Thanks again to the McKee Service League for selecting me to create this major new piece for the hospital.



McKee Summer 4

The final steps were to paint the water, darken the background around the columbine, and add some detailing to the aspen trunks.  This final piece for my series of 'seasons' paintings for McKee Hospital in Loveland is essentially complete.  Now I can get all four paintings together to determine if there's any fine-tuning to do.  They go to the frame shop next week. 

The unveiling/dedication is scheduled for October 3rd at McKee.

My final blog of this series will be a PhotoShop composite of all four pieces together, similar to the way they'll be framed.



McKee Summer 3

'Summer', the last in my series of paintings for McKee Hospital in Loveland Colorado, is nearly complete.  I painted the rocks and the near grassy areas, then I masked out the rocks and shoreline so I can get the water painted.



McKee Summer 2

Quite a bit of progress on the final painting for McKee Hospital.  At this point the trees are in and the Colorado Columbine in the lower left are done!  The most tedious work is finished; today I'll paint the rocks and the water, then it'll be substantially complete.



McKee Summer 1

Got a good start on the final painting of my 'seasons' series for McKee Hospital in Loveland, Colorado.  This one is Summer, depicting a mountain range in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado columbine and other wildflowers, aspen & spruce trees, and a mountain pond.

After drawing the scene, particularly the columbine and the trees, I masked out areas that needed to be saved while I dropped in the sky, mountains and mid-ground meadow.  This photo shows the painting with masking fluid.

After the painting was completely dry, I removed the masking fluid.  See how the background pops out from behind the foliage in the trees?  Today I'll work on the trees, and hopefully also have time to paint the columbine in the lower left of the piece.





McKee Spring 4

Whoopee!  I finished Spring today, the 3rd of 4 'seasons' paintings McKee Hospital in Loveland CO commissioned for the main reception lobby.  I'm pretty pleased with this one; I think it came together wonderfully. The wild iris in the lower right, as well as indications of lupine, compliment the spring grasses and tree foliage.

 

 

Tomorrow I start on Summer, repleat with Colorado Columbine -- it'll be another especially fun piece to create!

McKee Spring 3

Here I've removed the masking fluid on the wild irises, and painted the rocks and the spruce trees in the mid-ground.  Today I'll try to get this one done; I can't wait to paint the wildflowers!  I'll detail the aspen trees, lay in the pond, and finish the distant mid-ground.



McKee Spring 2

I'm working like crazy on my series of paintings for McKee Hospital in Loveland.  This is 'Spring', the 3rd in the series of seasons.  The mid-ground is laid in and wild irises drawn in the lower left foreground. The irises and foliage have been masked out with a special fluid, allowing me to drop in a deep value contrast.  I don't often use masking fluid but where there's lots of tiny detail it's really tedious to try to negative paint the background around each element -- this is a perfect example of that.



McKee Spring 1

The 3rd of my series of  'seasons' watercolors for McKee Hospital in Loveland, CO is 'Spring'.  This one has Mt. Hallett, spring wildflowers including wild iris, aspen trees just leafing out, and Engleman spruce.  I got a pretty good start on it.