A Six Day Blue Art Challenge

 Last week I participated in an art challenge put on by an administrator of an art forum.  The challenge was to produce one piece of art, start to finish, each day for six days and each piece must contain the color blue.

"Small Autumn Tree Study" acrylic, 8" X 6"

"Autumn Bushes Study" acrylic 6" X 8"

For the first two days I kept it simple and just painted two small acrylic autumn landscape studies with blue skies.  The first one is an autumn version of a summer landscape I did for the green challenge, the other just on an old photograph I took in Wanship, Utah.

"Tall Blue Trees" acrylic, 12" X 9"

For the third day I revisited my abstract trees series.  I started by adding texture using pieces of tissue paper wrinkled and fixed to the surface using gel medium.  Then I applied high flow paint and water and let it drip, then refined the composition and colors using heavy body paint applied with brushes and then added a bit of line work using acrylic markers.

"A Big Blue Barn" acrylic 9" X 12"

This one is a little out of character for me.  Ya, it's a rural landscape, and it's an autumn scene, but I've never painted a barn blue before, I don't believe I've ever seen a blue barn but I wanted more than just a blue sky for this one to comply with the theme of the challenge. The reference was a photograph I took in Liberty, Utah.

"Abandoned Blue Chevy Dump Truck" acrylic 11" X 14"

It's been a while since I've painted an abandoned vehicle so I picked one for the fifth day.  The reference was actually green but it's no big deal to make it blue.  The truck in the reference was actually in a junkyard in Nephi, Utah, I put it in a field backed with bushes.

"Blue 1935 Buick Sedan" pastel 12" X 16"

For the last day I really pushed my skills.  This painting was popular with the other participants but I'm not especially happy with it.  I decided to use pastel instead of acrylic for this one.  The painting is very loosely based on a vintage black and white photograph of a 1935 Buick driving in traffic on a highway somewhere in California. I focused on the Buick, removed the traffic and modified the background.

I've been doing a lot of challenges lately and am now rather burnt out on them.  I think this last one especially pushed me.  Time to do something a little different I think, maybe some pen drawing.