Chandler - Take 2

I am still at the family reunion.  Here is take 2 of my favorite wacko-doodle.

It's challenging to paint around people!  Here is the picture.

Chandler

It's supposed to be Chandler.  The drawing went well.  A few out of control paint strokes went a different direction than the drawing.  The left side of his face (the less round side) is closer to his face shape.  The other side should have been darker in value. Still, I like it.  It was great painting a cat, after a long hiatus. Chandler can be a crazy, frenetic cat and his personality is captured a bit.

His nose is pink, but there was enough going on that I left it dark. I really like the background.  

I am at a family reunion and it was a distracting place to paint. Also, the lighting was terrible.  I did find out one of my relatives on my hubby's side is very creative and it was fun getting to know her better and to hang out with her.

Revisiting Landscape With Road

I used a filbert brush for the trees, as an experiment.

Even though I tried to go slightly lighter with the color values, this is still too dark. In spite of that, I like this one better than my first attempt.  Many times, it takes 3 tries, so we'll see what happens the next time.

Reflection

One of the things that I really like about learning to draw and paint is slowing down to really look at and see something. It seems so simple, but it is hard.  Even when I try to focus, it seems like this happens about 10 percent of the time.

When I am slightly successful, it feels so good!

I Painted A Truck!!

When I look at the truck, it makes me smile.  I like this one.

I may ask Kat for help on how to paint the reflection through the windshield.  I'm also not sure, if I should paint the lighter edges of the trees.

Landscape With Truck

I got started, but did not have time to finish.  The truck is not finished and it's a bit too dark.  Still, I am thrilled with the shape of the truck so far.

I started practicing with different brushes on a scrap piece of paper to see which one to use when it's time to paint "TOYOTA" on the truck.

Again, it's weird, but the picture of the painting looks better than the painting. Why??

Landscape Drawing

When I was away at a cabin weekend with a bunch of friends, I took lots of pictures.  It's a beautiful place and there's so much to capture.  This picture is one of my favorites.  There is something about my friend's truck parked in the woods that is really engaging to me.

I am happy with this drawing, even with the eraser smudges, and the choices made about what to leave in and leave out.  In the top and bottom, I left a lot open since I want to paint more how it felt.

An Apple A Day

Drawing and painting a landscape takes me a lot of time!  I wanted to paint, but only had a bit of time, so I grabbed an apple.

I really feel like I nailed the color value of the background.  For a long time, my background have been much darker and very saturated.  It felt good to paint one differently at last!!

Landscape With Tree And Road

I like this picture a lot.  It is a lovely tree.  I plan to return to it and paint it again.

This one is interesting.  It looks better at a distance, which most of my stuff does when I am first trying something.  Also, I think the picture looks better than the painting.  I wonder why that is?

A Learning Landscape

Take 2 of the landscape that I first tried in painting class.  This just does not work for me at all. Still, it was good practice.  I'll give it another try.  It's a a complicated composition for me.

Also, I am going to try and dial down on the negativity.  When I started up painting classes again and first started focusing on still life paintings, I was very negative.  I seem to have started down this path with landscapes.  I'm going to tone down the negativity.  It is what it is.  I'm learning.  I'm having fun. In a couple of weeks, it should fall into place better.  That's what happened with the still lifes.

Another Landscape With Road

Picture:

Painting:

I don't like this one.  It looks clumsy to me and the colors are way too dark.  I am also having trouble with too much detail.  You can barely see the wires in the photo, so I shouldn't have tried to include them.

Landscape With Road

I would like to try this one again.

It was a good attempt.

There are things that I like and things that I don't.  I'm really off on the value of the road.  There's so much to a picture of a landscape.  It's hard to figure out what to include and what to exclude.  When I look at the painting and the picture, I'm pleased with the major trees / branches that I included in the painting.

First Garden Tomato

The first tomato of the season was ripe at my community garden this evening.  It was a beautiful, orange, cherry tomato.  For one brief moment, I thought about bringing it home and painting it. Instead, I ate it.  Yum!!  There will be many, many more tomatoes to paint this summer.

Sketches and One Blind Contour

I had a little extra time on Monday, so I sat down to do some sketching.  I started by trying to sketch the outline of a sleeping cat.  I was using a viewfinder for this. Every time, I got more than a few strokes into defining a shape, the cat did a major re-positioning.  It was fun to try and gives me an appreciation for how hard it is to create a good drawing or sketch. I never got far enough to take a picture.

Instead, I started sketching items that were jar or bottle shaped.  Rather than using the viewfinder, I used my pencil to take measurements.  It was fun!  The little bowl did not turn out very well, but I like the other three items, especially the salt shaker.  I've drawn it before.  This time, I really felt as though I could see it so much better!  I finished up with trying to do a quick blind contour drawing of my pepper mill.

Today's attempt to sketch a cat reminds me how far I have to go, while the salt shaker shows me how far I've come along!

Value Study - Take 3

This week, I did a quick value study using one of the five paint colors that I use. My self imposed rules are:

• Start with a color that you think will fall in the middle of the gray scale.
• Bounce around the scale.  Don't go completely in order, but try to stay with the same color.
• At each point on the scale, use the same paint color on a paper primed with black gesso and paper primed with white gesso.
• Just mix the colors.  Don't get slow and fussy.  

My lights are finally getting lighter!

I still am not found of paint over white gesso.

Landscape With Water - Finished

It's done!  I got a little lost in the lower part.  I'm most happy with the sky and the water.

This is my first, completed landscape and I am happy with this attempt.

Landscape With Water - Take 1

I am going to try and work on landscapes until my next painting class.  I selected an easier picture to draw and paint.  Still, there is a lot more to capture and consider than I am used to.

On Thursday night, I started a drawing of this.

It didn't go well. I was distracted by events at home.  I didn't get a chance to try again until yesterday.

Sunday morning, I had a little time to paint and got started.

As I was working on it, I got confused by my own drawing, which is hysterical. I was too detailed in some spots and not detailed enough in others.

I want to finish this painting and paint the same scene at least two more times.  Maybe, I will even get out the tracing paper for one of them.  That should be a fun experiment!

Sunday evening, I worked on it a bit more.

It's coming along and I am learning a lot.

Painting Class And Landscapes

I had a painting class with Kat on Wednesday night and we talked about painting landscapes. We also started working on one.

I wish that I would have put more lines in to represent the branches. Without them, I am rather lost at this point, so I might not finish it.

Value Study - Take 2

This is my second try at a quick value study.  My goal is to replicate the values along the gray scale with a different paint color each week.  My self imposed rules are:

• Start with a color that you think will fall in the middle of the scale at 5.
• Bounce around the scale.  Don't go completely in order, but try to stay with the same color.
• At each point on the scale, use the same paint color on a paper primed with black gesso and paper primed with white gesso.
• Just mix the colors.  Don't get slow and fussy.  

I did this in about 3 minutes.

• The darks should be darker.  
• I did a better job making the lights lighter.  
• The mid-ranges aren't that distinct and are not in order.

Drawing Exercises

Here are some drawing exercises from the book, Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner.  This may not look very exciting, but it was fun to do.

Flashlight and Other Contour Drawings

Earlier today, I wanted to paint a flashlight with some batteries next to it.  I could not get the outline of the flashlight.  I drew.  I erased.  I drew.  I erased.  After taking a break, I tried again, but decided to do a contour drawing.  No view finder. Just trying to draw the outline.

Here are some other contour drawings from the cabin.  I loved the utensils.  They all had character or soul.

Abandoned Effort

I am still at the cabin.  It's challenging to concentrate.  The original composition that I selected was a flashlight with several batteries next to it.  It was too hard for me to draw.  I switched to a different one, but that didn't help.  My drawing was way off.  I'm still having trouble holding the view finder in the same place.

I got frustrated and decided not to finish.  When I came back, I decided that it wasn't as bad as I originally thought.  The cup shape is way off.  At first, I despised the background colors.  However once they dried, I rather like them.  My backgrounds have been too dark and heavy-handed.  This was a good change of pace.

There is a lot to do at the cabin and friends to hang out with, so I am fine with not finishing. I really like this cup.  I borrowed it, so I can try to paint it when I am home.

Guest Appearance On The Blog

I am at the cabin.  I gave my friends, Penny and Abbie, about 2 minutes of guidance and let them paint.  Here is Abbie's tree.  I really like the band's of color.

I

Penny did a tree.  She also helped use up excess paint and did two other paintings.  I especially like the color mixing on the tree, especially the green.

Penny might join me when Kat has painting classes in the fall.

Here is my tree.  It's similar to ones I've done in the past.  I like adding snow.  It was fun to share this with friends.

Pepper Plus Spoon

This is a different pepper from yesterday.  I am very, very pleased with the shape, especially the top.

Pepper Plus Plate

I am away at an annual cabin weekend that has been taking place for over 20 years. I brought drawing and painting supplies and hope to get other people interested. It's fun looking for items to use for still lifes.  I've been doing some contour drawing of well used kitchen implements.

Here is today's painting composition.  The picture is not at the same angle as the drawing and painting.

Here is the drawing.

Lastly, here is the painting.

The side of the pepper nearest to the plate is off. Also, this is an 8" x 8" painting, rather than the usual 6" x 6". 

Three Rolls of Duct Tape

On a whim, I decided to paint 3 rolls of duct tape.  I gained confidence with each one.  It's pretty obvious that the painting order was blue, pink and purple.  I'm happy with the purple one, especially the highlights. The blue one is pretty wonky.  The drawing wasn't too bad, but it sure did not work when I painted it!!

Also, I'm not sure how to represent the writing on the inside of the roll. Hmmmmm.

White Gesso (Ick)

I've painted a few apple duds in the last several days.  The apples have not been duds.  My paintings have been.  The red apples I purchased are very, very dark and I'm not getting the colors right when I'm painting over black gesso.  I decided to experiment and paint over white gesso.  Ick!  The colors lack spark or gravitas.  I can't quite find the right word.  The white "adds" nothing.  I don't like it peeking through, so I covered up most of the surface.  Also, you can see my grid lines and drawing lines.  When some of the drawing lines peek through on a painting over black gesso, it looks kind of cool.  Over white gesso, ick.

It was a good experiment.  I'll probably try the white gesso again or a different color of gesso at some point in the future.

On the plus side, I am very happy with the shape of  this apple.

Pear Plus Friends

Meet pear and this friends, plate and spoon.  I set up and painted on the front porch yesterday afternoon.  The light was good, much better than the basement!

It was hard to draw, but I am pleased with the finished painting.  It's the first time I've painted a plate. Trying to fit in multiple items in the same painting is still very new.  The spoon still needs work, but it's getting better.  

I'm supposed to bring 6 still life paintings to my next painting class.  This one I will happily bring!

Apple Plus Spoon

I'm still painting in the basement.  The light is bugging me.  Although, I have an idea about how I want to change the lighting.  Today, I'm working on cleaning up the front porch, as well as many, many other house-related things.  My hope is to set up a space on the porch where I can paint with natural light when I want.

Here is the apple and spoon from yesterday.  The part of the spoon on the right side where the bowl of the spoon meets the handle does not work!  Also, I forgot the highlights!!

It's weird, but the picture looks better than the original.

I went to Cub Foods yesterday and bought some different apples and a pear.  I want to work on capturing the unique shape of each new apple.

Drawing A Still Life

I tried to paint a similar "scene" last night, but did not get past drawing the outline.  I has having trouble "seeing" the shape of the spoon.  When the outline was done, the distance between the cup and the spoon was way too close and the drawing just did not work.  With limited time last night, I just put it aside.

Today, I decided to just try and draw the scene and it went much better.  The spoon shape is looking good!

I may have to figure out something to hold the view finder.  At least some of my trouble involves keeping the view finder in the exact same place, as I draw.  It's hard to do, but I really, really need it.