Old Government House

A few days ago we went and saw the Old Government House in Brisbane. It was a cool place, had interesting historical displays, and I think there was a lot to see. Upstairs was the William Robinson Gallery, which was pretty interesting. My favorite pieces were those inspired by the rain forests.

Silly as it sounds, one of the places I liked best in the house was the cellar. To me it had such a nice, homey feel (and smell) to it, and I liked the lighting and the curve of the ceiling and the texture of the walls. Here, in its first layer, is my painting of it.

Plein Air @ Noosa

oil on cotton canvas; copyright 2010 Hannah C. Heyer

Since my last post I've traveled from winter to summer, from snowy Minnesota to sunny Queensland, Australia. I'm here visiting some of my favorite people, and enjoying the sunshine too.
This is a plein air painting done near Noosa. I got to sit on the rocks and watch the waves and a few surfers who didn't seem too worried about crashing into the aforementioned rocks. It was so gorgeous.

A little sketch

Sometimes the hardest things to draw are the things I'm most used to seeing. I think sometimes I'm so used to seeing certain things or places, that I forget to actually look.

I'm working on sketching things more as I'm seeing them, or shortly thereafter when they're still fresh in my mind.
The following is a sketch of a narrow strip of land in the frozen Mississippi River.

snow

You would think that, having lived my whole life in Minnesota, painting snow would come easily.
It doesn't.
I spent all day Saturday trying my best with watercolour. I used Arches Bright White watercolour paper, since I wanted the highlights of the snow to be as white as I could get.


Today I tried again using oils. We've had a lot of fog the past few days, and in the mornings everything is covered in frost. It's breathtakingly beautiful. I started two small oil paintings based on the view I had of this out my window. It doesn't look like much yet, but this is the first coat of one of them.


~Hannah

Scribbles

December has been a very busy month. I haven't been able to do as much painting as I'd like.
Mostly I've scribbled.

in progress

Working on a portrait of a young woman and her violin. I think the violin is a beautiful instrument and hope mine will turn out alright-- adding to the overall appearance of the portrait rather than detracting from it. I often have difficulty with the lines and angles of an instrument being held.

My first focus is on the face: her expression is focused as she positions her instrument.

Everything else is secondary, but still very important. After all, I want the face to fit the rest of the painting, and not look like the only thing I cared about. I've just begun the hand and hope to define that more next time I work on this painting.

Portrait in progress, in white and burnt umber. Oil on linen.

Monday Watercolour

Worked on watercolour painting today. I started a landscape. It's a bit larger than I usually do so it will take me awhile to get it to look closer to what I have in mind.
Beginning of watercolour landscape on 140lb watercolour paper

While waiting for my paper to dry out a bit between washes I worked on people. I love doing faces, but unfortunately when I don't have someone modeling for me, or at least photos to go from, my people often turn out looking like distant, albeit fictional, relatives. :-p I decided to work on hair, trying to show better color and texture. However, it didn't work out too well. I gave up trying to make it look realistic, and just had fun.
3.5 x 2.5" Watercolour on 140lb watercolour paper