Surf's up

Here's a painting I've been picking at for a while. It started as a technical exercise more than anything else--I wanted to see if I could manage the different textures of the surf and wood--but, well. It seemed a bit too, technical exercise to keep my attention.

See if you can spot the thing that wasn't in my reference photo.

Watercolors by the river

Heeeey so I finally got around to scanning a pile of my backlog from the past, er, several months. These watercolors are from a couple of weeks ago when I had the chance to go paint outside a bit, and are from the same vantage point, just looking in different directions.

Not shown is the blue heron that kept flying majestically up and down the river.

Green hills, muddy river

Quicky watercolor sketch looking out over the Ohio river. I did another painting during this session but I hate it, and you can tell I was getting bored while painting it as I gave up trying to make it look cohesive and just started doodling houses in the corner.

In case you're wondering where the river is, it's that yellow-ish streak towards the left. I felt like the roaming herd of children watching me (which is what happens you get when you paint in a public park) weren't very impressed.

Bridge and hill

I went painting with a friend yesterday in order to take advantage of the beautiful weather, and sometimes it's nice to get out and paint from life instead of photos, which is what I usually do. Both of these are from the the vantage point of the Newport levee, looking across the Ohio river.

Towards downtown, with the Purple People Bridge.

Mt Adams.