Day #19 :: DOG WALKER :: January Daily Painting Challenge

DOG WALKER
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

$125 + $8 shipping

People in paintings add scale and the personal, storytelling element to the piece. People, though, are difficult to make interesting and not too engaging to the viewer. If I paint a really great painting of my own children, what are the chances that someone else would want that painting, or that I would want to part with it? 

The saying goes that you should paint from your heart, what you know. When an artist doesn't do that, something about that comes across in the end product. With everything it seems to be about finding balance. 

The January Daily Painting Challenge for me is a chance to exercise some muscles. People aren't my strong suit. Neither are dogs. But we have two wonderful daughters and a new puppy, so it's time to insert them in my work more! 

Today's painting of our youngest walking Hunter was a challenge (appropriate during a challenge, right?) to make look painterly and interesting. At one point I almost took out our daughter which would only leave the pup. My mothering instinct prevailed and she remains a great element of scale in the painting. She also lets me use colors in painting that often just stay in the box. Turquoise! Coral! Scary bright green! Hurray! 

Thanks for reading! ~kmw

Day #12 :: WINTER BLUES :: January Daily Painting Challenge

WINTER BLUES
by Kim Morin Weineck
original pastel, 6x6"

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Today is the perfect example of why a challenge like daily painting is great.

I did not want to paint tonight. I wanted to call it in and catch up tomorrow. Our youngest has a nasty cold and we were together for the entire day after a draining night. Tonight it's snowing big, attractive, romantic puffy snowflakes, and I have lit a fire in our cozy fireplace. We read earlier tonight by the fire before the girls went to bed. Goodness, it was the essence of winter warmth at our house tonight! 

Still, though, I came downstairs into the chilly studio and made this painting. Hunter and I are good walking buddies and here our puppy is exploring the marshy field streams at that fleeting time before the light disappears. 

I've written before about night and twilight and dusk and about how I love paintings depicting these elusive and fleeting times of the day. This piece worked up in a classic complementary palette of violet and yellow. I love when things like this happen -- I feel so academic and that I really learned a thing or two in art school. ;) 

When I look at artists whose work I enjoy, again I bring up Marc Hanson. When I analyze his color choices, I see that white is hardly present, and when it is, it's in tiny dots and emphatic small gestures. What an impact that restraint can have. 

Today's painting was about exercising that restraint. My notes and reference about this scene were that it was so dark it was near impossible to see. Of course I took liberties with these notes, and in the end feel that I made a good painting. 

Hurray for challenging yourself! 

And now back to the cozy warmth of upstairs, watching the snow fall, and embracing winter. 

Thanks for reading! ~kmw