Day 28, Prickly Pear Cactus with Blossoms Painting BECKY JOY

© 2013 Becky Joy     Prickly Pear Blossoms   oil    6 inches x 6 inches   $125. 

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Today I spent some time with my daughter and grandkids with a little painting in the morning. This was one of the paintings that I worked on. It was actually a complicated scene with a lot going on in the background. I started painting much more of what I saw then realized I needed to simplify. So, I started by keeping the values close together in all but the shadows on the cactus and what was cast on the ground. I kept the background behind the cactus in different colors and a little cooler and grayer than the foreground creating some distance in the painting.

I pulled out some of paintings from the trip and found that some needed a little more work. Below are a couple of those paintings. I also still need to do some photography for a couple of the paintings from project 125 that I haven't posted. Hopefully, I catch up on all this tomorrow and get paintings ready to ship too.

© 2013 Becky Joy    Idaho Farm    oil on linen     11 inches x 14 inches    $1000.

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I painted this in Southwest Idaho in the late afternoon before going to my friend Shanna Kunz' house. I love the farms in that area and just had to pull off the interstate to paint. I hadn't eaten lunch by the time I started painting. I was painting away in the heat and felt a little sick toward the end, so I had to pack it up and finish a little bit of the painting in the studio. The clouds needed a little more work and I had to deepen the values of the farm buildings a little. So, that was my job this morning.

© 2013 Becky Joy      Oregon Farm Tree     oil      11 inches x 14 inches     $1000.

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I painted this one at the old farm in Oregon with my friend Romona Youngquist. I thought I had finished it at the time, but I decided there were two things wrong with it. First, I had a solid line along the field in the light orange color dividing the distant hills and field. I broke that up by adding the small group of trees along that line. It helps to connect the field and the background hills. Secondly, that line was going downhill too much to the right. I raised that line a little on the right. I felt by doing so that it balanced the painting more.

I still have openings in my workshop in Hood River, OR on Sept 4 for a 1 day plein air class. All my students in the workshops will receive a copy of the e-book, How to Create Beautiful Paintings Using Foundational Concepts, that I just published.

Talk to you all tomorrow when I post some more paintings.

Becky Joy