Transition

The last two weeks of art class involved landscapes and pets.  Working on a landscape that I started, but did not finish, and one that I did finish brought back all my insecurities in a surprising way.  Given that and the end of class, I stumbled a bit, but pushed through to not lose the painting habit.  

Here is the landscape that I brought to class.  

The week had some unexpected demands on my time, so I only painted on Sunday and Friday and I rushed the ending to just get it done.  At the same time, one of the lessons from Kat really sunk in about squinting and look for big shapes.  When I was mostly done, I caught a glimpse of my photo across the room, squinted and saw that my reference photo was mostly made up of 3 sets of shapes from the greenery along the edge, the bowl of the falls and the falls.  I don’t think I tend to notice things with this type of cohesion and I think this will help as I continue to practice.  

Here are a couple of cat paintings. 

One thing I want to focus on is paint strokes!  When I’m doing simple objects like fruit, I like the blockiness I get a lot of the time.  With a complicated structure, I don’t know what to do.  So much to learn!  

One of the people in class mentioned copying paintings off of Pinterest and she had an owl painting.  I went out and pinned some cat and owl paintings and.want to work off of some of these to see what I can bring back to my paintings.  I’m not sure it’s appropriate to post a picture of the entire copy, so here’s a partial.  

It was a good learning experience.  I’ve never done this and think I could learn a lot.  

Best of all, I am still painting and will continue to post, but probably not as much as I did the first few years after I started.  

Try Harder Things

That is the theme of the next two paintings to share - - try harder things.  I remember the first time I tried to paint a cat.  I was slightly terrified.  The painting represented the best I could do at the time and I have always felt a tiny bit of pride when I look at that painting on this blog.  No one would say it was a good painting, but I faced my fear and did it anyway and that was the start of working to learn how to paint a better cat portrait.

I like buildings and structures and Brendon Farley’s paintings of scene of the streets and alley’s of South Minneapolis and I have been afraid to try doing that. 

One of the homework assignments for today’s class was to painting something from outside your window.  While I miss the tree that used to be in the alley next to my garage (and I wonder if it will impact my hummingbird sightings this year since that was the best place for a hummingbird to perch to guard two of my feeders), I do like looking out the kitchen window at my purple garage and across the alley to the neighbor’s house and garage.  I love color and the pop of the orange-red of the flat part of the neighbor’s garage is always fun to see.  

I took a picture of that, cropped it, and painted it and I felt a bit of that same rush from trying something that I am afraid to try and I think I found a little more freedom to keep trying paintings like this, so I can get better at them. 

One of the many challenges was how to make paint strokes interesting when you are painting a flat surface with straight edges like a garage door or all that sky, since I edited out some trees  I plan to ask Kat about that in class.  Also, how can I imply the boards of wood on my garage, instead of making them so obvious.  That’s just a few of the things!

Last week, I tried to paint the tiny glass bottle and an orange in Kat’s class and it was hard. She let me borrow it and I gave it a second try, which I think shows improvement from the first try.  I also had fun with the pepper. 

I have been painting most days, not every day, and I am so thrilled to be back at it.  It was a long and frustrating drought. 

Paint Something In Your Bathroom

One of the assignments for class yesterday was to paint something in your bathroom.  I was planning to do that on Friday, but did not factor in my morning eye appointment.  When I came home, my eyes were dilated and I figured I would not be able to do this.  By the afternoon with my eyes back to normal and carving out an hour to paint, I did this.

This one is for Art 4 Shelter.  

I had so much fun giving this a try and I am pleased with how it turned out.

Between this painting and yesterday’s class, it feels like I have my groove back. I am inspired.  I have a mental list (that I really should write down) of things I want to try.  I want to push myself.  

There is so much to learn and try.  I would like to improve my compositions.  Here are several attempts.  I am not thrilled with the results, but it felt really good to give both of these a try.  Although I got frustrated with the spoon and just stopped working on it. 

 

10 Minutes For A Painting

I have been painting more and blogging less.

Last Saturday in class, it was the 10-minute painting exercise and I felt really good in class.  All the sludge going on in the world receded and I felt very present and open.  

It’s a nice group of women and a big part of what I enjoy is seeing what other people are doing.  We are using the same materials and working on the same assignments for the most part.  The biggest variation between people seems to be paint brushes.  

It’s fascinating what people do.  One person uses a tiny brush and just sets things up and goes to work.  One person for last week’s homework took a deep dive into shiny things and the colors she found in the shine was amazing.  

I always feel so inspired.  

It can be hard to put your own work up for others to see.  After that initial reluctance, it’s okay.  Enough time has passed that everything looks a little better for a fresh eye than I might have recalled.  

In class last week, we did the 10 minute painting exercise.  In one of my spiral notebooks, I already had an 8” x 8” ready to go where the ground was pink and I had brought a green apple. 

While I can’t quite replicate this exercise as well at home, the forced pressure and limitation of doing a 10 minute 2” x 2” painting 4 different times is actually freeing.  There is no “do not”.   There is only do and even if the piece ends up with significant issues, there is something magical about the process and result as well.  You are in the moment.  Some decisions work out.  Some don’t.  While there is pressure, the stakes are very low and it’s a good way to get into “the zone”. 

I like painting on black, but, occasionally, it’s also fun to try a different ground.  When I do this and my first stroke goes down, my visceral reaction is slight panic.  OMG.  What have I done?  This color is not behaving the way it should.  The passes quickly and it’s time to get to work.

Here’s what I did in class.  

Since class last Saturday, I have done 2 more sets of 10 minute paintings, although I did cheat and go longer on several ones.  Also, time constraints meant that I would do 2 of them and go back and do the other two later.  You lose a bit by not doing 4 of them. 

Pears could become my favorite fruit to paint.  

Someone in class last week had some lovely deep red apple paintings.  I find it difficult to paint deep red apples and decided to give it a go.  I think I still need to add some more white and have been practicing this in some other paintings.  

For the rest of these, I’ve been trying to do 37 paint strokes or less, although I always seem to lose count, or trying to limit the time spent painting. 

This one was painted on a green background. I’ve been playing around with using a flat brush rather than a bright.  I can get juicier paint strokes with the flat, but my edges get sloppy and I’ve been losing the outer shape of what I’ve been painting quite a bit.  That happened with this one.  I also find that I tend to lose shape more often or worse on the left side of things and I have no idea why. 

For some reason, this one really annoyed me until I noticed the top.  Here’s a crop of just that. 

This pear seems boring to me.  

I took an in process photo of this pear painting.  

This was a 15 minute painting and I got too fussy and lost my original paint strokes.  

There is so much to learn and so many experiments to try and I am really thrilled to be back and painting more regularly.  

Missed Class. Been Sick.

 The second painting class was last Saturday and I woke up with a 101 degree fever, so no painting class for me!  When Kat sent out the class recap, it sounds like they did the one stroke per color, but in addition in her recap email she mentioned 37 brush strokes method.  On a whim, I did a google search and the best thing I found was this from the Painters Keys.  I also saved this with a bookmark.  When class is done, I am going to do this for 1 month and I am going to reread this letter.  It really spoke to me and it got me started.  The first few strokes were much more dynamic.  The finish was not, but I caught a glimpse and have something to strive for. That was the mug in the group below.

Here are some of things I’ve been painting.  I’ve been trying to paint every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. 

Orange Baseballs

I am painting again.  Last week, I saw that Kat Corrigan was starting up a session of painting classes and I signed up.  The first class was Saturday and it seems like a nice group, as always. 

I started painting a bit on my own prior to that and I am so, so, so out of practice.  It’s sad to be so out of practice and struggling with my paint brush, shapes, values, mixing colors and all of it.  At the same time, I feel comfortable with practice that it will come back.  However where I am at right now is that I have painted a series of orange baseballs.  

Here is the latest one.  It’s not where I want, but I can also see improvement.  

I am shooting for painting everyday, but not sweating it if I miss some days here and there.  Kat suggested that we try to shoot for 4 pieces to bring each week and that seems like a good pace. 

Since I have been sick and haven’t been going to the gym in the morning, I’ve been going down to paint in the morning.  This morning, I had a wonderful experience.  I got to the flow state.  In the past, I’ve written out this as that glorious place where I get to the other side of my brain and I really do think that’s what happens. 

This morning, I was working along and I just got into a groove.  I felt like I could see better, that I could mix better (although I switched to using a pear) and all of it.  It’s like a veil lifts and I am fully present. 

It’s the best feeling ever.  It clears my brain and leaves me feeling refreshed.  I don’t try to force this, but sometimes I wonder if I paint more for this experience rather than the end result.  

Garden Flower

I am slowly working my way through the first painting in Jim Musil’s online class.  The class seems well organized and thought out and he is teaching his process.  My progress on the one painting that he covered in month of May has been slow for many reasons.  I hope to finish this week.  

On a different note, the irises in my gardens have been spectacular this year.  I kept wanting to do something with the purple ones by the alley, but they have come and gone.  The same is true with the Siberian irises. They are getting close to being done.

When it was lightly raining this morning, I went out and cut one that still looks pretty good.  I brought it in and went down and tried some rough sketches of the shapes. 

Nothing fancy and no goal to capture an actual likeness.   It felt good to have a pencil in my hand and explore.