Mel's Painting 200 Blog

In this series of paintings we were first required to paint a blur portrait. A portrait that had to be blurred like if there is too much movement in a photograph. The first painting is a blurred portrait of a voice actor I found. I wanted to make sure I didn't put too much detail into the painting, since I knew when blurring it, most of it would be lost. I just added the major shadows with some mediums and lights into his portrait. I had to make sure the paint was thick enough to blur since most of the time, I tend to paint very thinly. When I moved my large paint brush across, most of what was caught paint wise was the mediums and lights, which actually made the painting look like an old photograph with too much exposure and too much movement, which I enjoy seeing visually with this kind of painting. As for my second painting, I wanted it to be nothing like my first painting. I really wanted to challenge myself and do something out of the box. In the instructions for this...

The Atmospheric Landscape project is definitely one of my favorite projects I've done in my painting career, I just love how all 3 paintings turned out. The first painting I worked on was the dip-tic at the bottom, I hadn't painted a one yet and I really wanted to see how it would turn out using the Santa Monica Pier as the main composition. It was also my first time painting a water or ocean scene, so I really wanted to challenge myself. The dip tic was made with black and white oil paint. The second painting I worked on for this project was the 2nd photo and my second attempt at drawing the Santa Monica Pier. I used only black oil paint and paint thinner, no white paint was used. The second painting is my favorite of this series, it just has so many delicate details, especially in the water. My final painting was the lighthouse. It was made using acrylic paint. I wasn't sure if I should put a light in the lighthouse or use a light beam, since that seems almost ...

The Reduction project was especially difficult to due, since it meant to abstract a painting that either we had to make earlier or from a masterpiece. My first reduction showed my struggle with this project since I didn't change it enough from the original, except for adding color, since the original was a monotone brown. Using reduction in my work didn't really connect until I started doing the second reduction, where I wanted the composition to be more geometric and have more color, or better use of color. I wanted to use more variety in marks and make the overall composition sharper, especially since the original painting and first reduction were so organic in shape. I really enjoy how the second reduction painting turned out overall.

This is the painting that inspired the upcoming Painting Reduction, it is painting I made in my first painting course.

Process of Stretcher-less Canvas The Stretcher-less canvas project was definitely and interesting project to create. First we had to create a 5 by 5 canvas that was not meant to be mounted by a frame, so the end results could not be flat nor could they be a square. We would have to rely on the shadows of the folds of the canvas and the colors we chose. I knew with mine that I wanted the sides to have contrasting colors, more specifically the contrast of warm and cold. So one side would have blues, purples, greens, and even a silvery tone added in. The opposite side would have warm colors, for example reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, and even gold. I knew that I wanted the paints to blend well with each other so I painted more with water for the acrylic to blend easier and make even more color combinations. I knew from the start that I wanted to twist the canvas in some way, so I needed both sides of the canvas to be well painted. The end results ended up w...

5 Variations of Stretcher-less Canvas