Wednesday

"Fall Skies", winter painting sale by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Fall Skies", 9x10", plein air oil on panel
SOLD

Continuing with my winter art sale... this one was done at the end of fall. I was really trying to capture the feeling of the cool breezes blowing off the last of the leaves on the trees.

Enjoy!
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Monday

"MacArthur's Shore" -winter sale painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"MacArthur's Shore", 9x12" plein air oil on panel
$250 unframed, Click here to purchase

While I am recouperating from my surgery, and not painting much, I thought I would pick up my 'Winter Sale' once again, and empty some of my stash that I have on hand. This painting is one of my favorites from Lake O'Hara.

Enjoy!
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"Barb's Heritage" oil commission by Sharon Lynn Williams and $10 off my Blurb book!

"Barb's Heritage", 16 x 20" oil on canvas
SOLD
This was a commission that I recently did for some church friends. I was given the photo (see below) to work from, as well as numerous stories about Barb's great grandfather and this piece of property nearby in High River. The house is no longer standing, and Barb wanted to have a painting done to remember the place. Barb's husband provided me with the make and year of the car in the photo, and I did a lot of research online and found ONE photo of a similar car -but at least I could use that -the car in the photo is barely visible. Using Photoshop, I was able to enlarge the photo to see more detail. The painting took 3 days to complete. I have had mixed experiences doing commissions for people of places I have never seen, but this one was a pleasure!!

I also have GOOD NEWS!!! Blurb is offering a discount of $10 off the purchase of my book when you purchase it online. Just enter the code SAVE10 at checkout. This offer expires on Feb 27th at midnight, so order quickly!!! 
I just found out about this sale as I was surfing through one of my favorite online artists' blogs, Myrna Wackov. If you haven't seen her work, you just HAVE to check out her blog!! Myrna has to be one of the most creative mixed media artists at work today. You can see an online book of Myrna's work here.


Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Wednesday

January Blues ii -watercolour painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"January Blues ii", watercolour, approx 12 x 16" -double matted without frame or glass
SOLD

I decided to try to do a watercolour from my plein air oil painting posted here. I was keen to try to get the feeling of the late day sun, and thought watercolour would be the perfect medium to show the luminescence of the light. I gained some inspiration from Nita Engle's great watercolor book "How To Make A Watercolor Paint Itself" -but believe me, it doesn't!!!  It was fun to try a watercolour again, it has been a while.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Saturday

New Plein Air Oil and New Online Gallery!!

"Willows And Aspen", 9 x 12 plein air oil on Raymar panel
$250 unframed plus shipping and handling
SOLD

This is my most recent plein air painting. (I had major surgery last Thusday and have been quite unable to get into the car much less the studio) I REALLY love the way this one turned out -it makes me very happy :) After the last post, I was very conscious of the colour harmonies while I was painting and I think it shows.

GOOD NEWS: I have just been invited to join the original fabulous Daily Painters online gallery! So many of my favorite daily painters are there and the quality is incredible...usually. I have been wanting to get into that wonderful group for ages, and just about fell off my chair when I came home from the hospital to find my invitation. Talk about making lemonade :) Check it out when you get a chance -plus you can subscribe to their daily emails as well.

You might also notice that I have finally gotten around to figuring out how to use a PayPal button. Hope this helps...


Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Wednesday

Playing Around With Colour Harmonies and Shape Changes

"Winter Willows", 8x10 oil on board

I have a shelf in my studio that I put my plein air work up to dry on, and this gives me a chance to live with them as well. I posted about a painting I did en plein air recently, something about it really was bothering me.  For me, if a painting goes sideways then it is likely to be a shape problem or a colour one. So I decided to experiment with this one -after all if it isn't working, what do I have to lose but the opportunity to learn more about the craft of painting. The first thing was to determine what it was about it that was really bothering me. I found the shapes of the two trees to be too similar and too bush-like. Also the colour harmonies weren't working for me. Compare to the original painting below:


I didn't think the violet of the snow shadows worked with the orange of the willow trees, so I changed it to a neutralized complement of blue-green. I also changed the shapes of the trees to make them look less like bushes. I decided that the warm/cool balance needed so help so I made the trees at the right hand edge warmer and warmed up the road some. I decreased the warmth in the fir trees and changed the colour in the sky to a more peach colour to lessen the somewhat strident impact of the orange willows. Not sure if the painting is any better, as in doing the changes, I also lost a lot of the freshness of the original painting. However, for me painting is not as much about product as it is about process and learning to be a better painter. I learnt a lot from this little lesson. It is amazing how much a little change in one area throws the rest of the painting into disorder, tweaking one thing results in having to tweek several other unrelated things. Hopefully in the end, I will be a more aware, better and more creative painter while painting plein air. It needs to get into the unconscious as goodness knows one does not have time to consciously think about these things in the heat (or cold) of the moment!
By the way, a large difference in the two images you see is due to photography! I find it VERY difficult to take good photos in the winter, and while I played in photoshop to get it right, there is only so much one can do.The painting is actually much brighter than it shows in the first image. Maybe I should just bit the bullet and purchase a photo cube...
Let me know what you think of the changes made -what would you have done differently!

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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