Beginning again

I haven't painted much this spring. Daily drawing in journals and studying online tutorials
have kept me in the game. These small oils are the first of this year. The size, 5 x 7, taught
me to hold back on facial details, to suggest rather than spell out every facial plane and
highlight. Wish I could UNpaint parts of these!

 

 Learning the patience to look for answers when I came upon problems-like how to
paint sand in oils. This is the before the sand study. Flat and dull.

 I'm happy I stopped on facial detail here. The hanging clothes need shading.

I feel like a beginner again. Thank goodness so many artists online are generous
in tutorials. I've been painting in different mediums with uneven success but lots
of learning!

We've had daily thunderstorms here lately. The kind of Va summers I remember from
childhood. They gallup over us through the night like some huge beast. You can hear them
in the distance until light and sound crashes right over us. Then they prowl away. Exciting!
I hope your summer is exciting (in a good way)!

Sheep shearing day

This is the time of year our sheep are visited by Shepherdess Elaine for shearing.
This year we met her apprentice, Lane. 

Elaine usually uses the electric shears but this time Lane used manual shears
for practice. She dresses in period costume in Colonial Williamsburg and shears
their sheep manually as a living history for visitors. Hard work. 

After shearing the ewe steps out of her wool coat!

By coincidence, as they walked out to the barn I turned on our PBS radio station
to find Tom Ashbrook interviewing James Rebanks who has just written a book
about sheep farming in England. 

 

Free of their heavy winter coats all the ewes leaped, butted each other and
generally had a happy afternoon!