hydreanga flower, oilpaint, underlayer, first stage

To relax a bit and as a great excercise I started a new painting.
I am painting the underlayer with Titian white and raw omber. I love this color mix.

This is the first layer and it took me many hours so far. I have to paint the leaves the same way and then................. yes, start over and paint everything again. I have to add pure white to lift the lightest places and make other parts also lighter and sometimes other parts darker. But not too dark though

The Titian white oilpaint sink somewhat in and therefor I have to put another layer on top of the first layer. Perhaps I have to repeat this process befor I can add some transparant layers of color.
Size of this little painting is 15x20cm and I use MDF with a couple of layers of grey acrylic paint on it and I sand the surface really smooth.

little oilpainting of 2 cherries

After I have been busy of learning the slow process of fine art oilpainting I want to paint also wet in wet.
I tried before many times but I got so frustrated.
I could not handle the oilpaint and after a while it became a mess.
Yesterday I started again and this time it did not became a mess but I succeeded in painting this little painting of 2 cherries.
At last..... sigh.
I think I have learned a lot the last couple of months about working with oilpaint and I am so delighted.
I always wanted to paint like this and now, at the age of almost 67............... What a joy!

I painted these cherries on MDF, size 25x25cm, underground grey acryl.
I did use the paint right out of the tube, so no medium at all.

second layer on the lemon painting

This lemon is big, a lot more than lifesize and therefor it is sooo hard to paint the large parts. The little indentions are very difficult to achieve. I started with painting on to the flat surface and give it some structure. It gives me a base to go further. But like the other paintings I am working on, I wait till the my next lesson and ask my tutor how to do the next layer.
So at the first photo you can see the first layer and at the second photo I made the flesh of the lemon a bit lighter and I covered the smooth surface of the lemon with some structure. Still ...... a lot of working to do for sure before I can add some transparant layers of color to it.

second layer grapes

 This is the first layer of this small excercise. My tutor recommended me to start with grapes. I did not erased the drawing enough so I have soo much difficulties to get rid of these lines. So lesson learned:-)  As you can see at the second photo I added more white and soften the whole painting. It is a great excercise for sure.

This is the second layer of paint. I have to wait till the next lesson to ask my tutor how to progress.

hosta leaves watercolor excercise

I just finished a watercolor painting of some hosta leaves. I used an example from the book by Margaret Stevens to draw from. I am studying very hard with watercolor and I learned a lot by painting these leaves.

leaf excercise

 I am trying to paint leafs, I find it so difficult to paint them.
So I will paint many leafs the next couple of days and I hope it will get better and easier.
At first I made a pencil drawing especcially for the veins, with pen and ink I made the lines more visible to use it to transfer the drawing to the watercolor paper.  First I painted the front of the leaf and right now I am painting the back of the leaf