André’s 100 Day Challenge: speeding up!

[André Girão Tauffer]

I recently started on the introduction to landscape painting by Ben Fenske and it’s amazing! The first 4h I did where amazingly thorough with the explanations and it got me really inspired to do some outdoor painting since summer is comming!
So I’ll challenge myself to:

1.  Paint at least 30min a day.
2. Watch at least one lesson per day.

Due to the current virus crisis I’ve been working from home with pretty flexible working hours, so I will try to make the most of the weather and take this practices outside as much as I can, maybe twice or three times a week, but no promises on that.

The goals here are several:

• To improve my observation skills
• To develop a better sense of color harmony
• To allow myself to create without struggling with the paints
• Paint more confidently and faster

I mean faster as in I get stuck pretty easily when I do the wrong color. I want to be more nimble when mixing the stuff.

Possible obstacles:

• What if I finish the course in this hundred days? Then I will start another!
• What if I run out of paints? Then I’ll buy more as soon as possible, but I could also stop to study some landscape masses with pencil and paper.

 

I started doing the courses assignment outside just yesterday, so I’ll consider I’m on day two now, and I’ll share here my first day’s production!

So, day one, I went outside to this natural reservoir just behind my place and did some light and shadow studies and value studies as assignments for the first lessons of the course:That was the light and shadow study, and the next was the values study

 

And the setup was like this:

After the exercises I came back home, but there was still a lot of daylight to go on so I decided on taking one of the reference images of the course and try exercising what I am learning. But since I mentioned I will get stuck in anything, it took me three hours to not cover even half the canvas, here is where I stopped yesterday:

 

I did go a bit further but that’s when I got stuck, I made a color for the church, I painted half of it with that, and it felt totally wrong. So instead of fixing that I sat there for an hour or so thinking what could have gone wrong. That’s what I don’t want happening so much anymore!

So today I’ll continue on that, and maybe I’ll set a timer when I stop to evaluate the painting again.

Glad to join the challenge! I’m excited! Looking forward to seeing everyone’s progress too!

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 002, finished identifying the masses in the church reference photo, and here it is:

Happy with the first layer, I feel it is quite organized, missing some variations and gradations I’ll try adding later

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by André Girão Tauffer.

[Birgith Schei]

Looking forward to the next steps. I like the beginning

[Joshua Jacobo]

Awesome challenge! Love to see that you’re able to work outside as well!

[André Girão Tauffer]

Thank you Birgith and Joshua! Yeah, I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now, and I’m glad that the weather is finally good for pleinair!

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 3

Today I decided to rework a painting I did a while ago. I never liked it and never knew why, now I kind of know, so I did a sketch to try a different set of colors. Better but not quite there yet, I’ll try another sketch before reworking the actual canvas. Also pushed myself to be as fast as I could, and it was interesting to see that most of my lingering was actually not changing much in the result.

 

The first is the new color scheme, the second the painting I dislike. Critiques and suggestions will be much appreciated!

 

 

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 4

Went outside for a plainair. Also tried to make this about mixing fast and tried atmospheric perspective after watching the lessons about it.

I was really feeling like adding more variety to the masses but decided to stop here for this exercise. I’ll maybe leave detailing to when I’m more satisfied with the colors of the masses.

 

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 5

Just watched the lessons about skyholes yesterday and decided to try it today on a quick sketch.

 

[Shazad Madon]

Concerning the one from Day 3, I like what the removal of detail did to the buildings, but I prefer the more flat color laying in the sea and sky in the second one, as in more uniform in tone. I would combine the two. Its heading in a better direction for sure in my opinion.

[André Girão Tauffer]

Thanks for the very good critique Shazad. Yeah, those details where really premature given that I wasn’t satisfied with the colors yet, and maybe they should have less of a contrast if they should happen. I also agree with you about the colors of the sky mainly, and the sea I think should be something between the value in the painting and the color in the sketch. My main problem with this sketch is that the sky is to dark and green, and I started from the sky and tried to base the rest of it on it, hence everything being so dark. But I do think it showed me a way to go with this painting, I’ll probably make another sketch before moving forward

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 6

Feeling a bit sick today, so I couldn’t really go out to paint. So instead I watched the lessons regarding sky and some about light effects and decided to sketch an imaginary field on a sunset light effect. Sketching this made me feel a little better so maybe I’ll try a colored sketch with some paints. If I end up doing it today I’ll post it here too

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 6(2)

Managed to make a color study out of it, posting today since couldn’t take a decent picture last night. Critiques are welcomed. That was my first try of a sunset light effect

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by André Girão Tauffer.

[André Girão Tauffer]

Day 7

Managed to go outside today 😊

[Shazad Madon]

Wow I really like the last two. The imaginary one I like a bit more even.

[Peihong Jiang]

Day 6(2) is amazing!!

[Author]

Posts