Practice, Practice, Practice

Here are my most recent painting exercises. The first one was my attempt at a New Mexico painting. I always loved the blue windows and doors so common there, especially in Santa Fe. This painting gave me a lot of grief. 

I started out with some Indian pottery showing through the windows. My teacher thought the color didn't work with the rest of the picture, so she suggested repainting them. I did. 

She still didn't like them. Then we thought of painting a sheer curtain on the bottom half of the windows, kind of subduing the pottery. 

She didn't like that either. She then suggested I take the pots out and just leave the sheer curtains. I did. 

Finally she said, "Just take out the curtains and leave the windows empty. That's what I did, and I told her, "I'm done!" Ha! I still think it could be improved by putting SOMETHING in those windows, so for now I guess I"ll call it my Unfinished Santa Fe Window. Even Beethoven had an Unfinished Symphony!

After my New Mexico attempt, I wanted to do something Alaskan. Here's how that one came out.  It was a very challenging painting for me, and my amateurish-ness does show through. But I had fun with it, and learned a lot in the process.

 On to my next painting adventure!