Painting Continues

©Dora Sislian Themelis, 24x30 oil on canvas, Lambi Pebbles

Painting continues in this pandemic. Everyday is the same, but different. Eight months have gone by and for the record I have painted fifty one artworks. There are enough pieces to hold another solo art show. 

One of the latest works is this larger piece that took up more time that the others. On our last visit to our Greek island home of Patmos in the Dodecanese chain of islands, I took a few photos of the multicolored beach pebbles in the crystal clear water of the seashore. 

I was mesmerized by the the way the filter of the water rippled the pebbles and the glow of the sun light on them. As I was looking for inspiration for the next work, I came across a few of these photos and thought it would be great to paint. 

Using some new paint colors I picked up, I sketched out the composition, planned my focus and went quickly to color. I don't know if it was a good idea as I like to sketch first, but I was too excited.

Two new paint brands I used were Michael Harding handmade oils and Sennelier oils, both beautiful, creamy paints. The Michael Harding color was Quinadrinone Magenta, a mouthful, and the Sennelier color was Lemon Yellow. The magenta gave me a great color pop mixed with my other colors, and that lemon yellow gave my white the glow I wanted to show.

Lots of learning happened while working on this oil painting with color mixing and manipulating the brushes to get the strokes of paint where I wanted them to go.

Once it was finished I let it dry, then brushed it with varnish to bring out the depth of the colors and done.

My only problem was photographing this work. Glare all over the place! 

On to the next project. This virus craziness doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon.