Painting With A Cold

I've been on vacation this week and had a very long list of things that I wanted to get done.  All of that come to a halt, when I started coming down with a cold last night.  Today was a lazy day, so there was more time to contour drawing. I don't have much to show for it.  Three different sleeping cats all had to shift and move when I was part way through drawing them.  After multiple tries, I gave up.

I also completed a painting.  I wish I would have selected a different background color.  Other than that, I like it.

Sadie - Take Four

Today's painting of Sadie:

The last time time that I painted Sadie:

I like today's painting better, especially the fact the the values are lighter in today's version.  The only thing I like better about my prior version is the eyes.  She looks a bit bug-eyed in today's version, plus I could not get a good reddish brown color mixed today.

Line Drawing

I like line drawing.  This is the bottle that I use for yogurt smoothies.

Ella

This is a very enjoyable picture of Ella.  I really like the way the light hits her face.

I sketched it yesterday.

I painted it this morning.

Part way through, I did not like it.  I finished it, stepped back, and evaluated it. After fixing a few things, it works much better.  For a first attempt, I am pleased. I will definitely use this picture again.  

I need to think about my approach to painting.  Too often, I zero in on fussy little details too early in the process.  It would be better to start with the broad areas of detail and leave the fussy little details for the last bit.  

Next time, I will try, try, try, to leave the really dark part on her chest in black gesso. 

Two Week Painting Hiatus Is Over

I can see why daily or at least frequent painting is so helpful.  It felt a bit strange and foreign to pick up a paint brush after 2 weeks.  On Friday, I did a couple of drawings in the hopes that I'd have time to paint on Saturday.  First attempt was a dog.  I really, really, really did not like how I started, so I abandon ship after about 5 minutes.  When I went bad to look at this later, I think I made the right call.

My second attempt was Wingnut.  This is an 8 inch by 8 inch painting.  It's hard figuring out how to paint his colors, so I went a little crazy again.  What I'm most pleased about is the shape of his face and that his gaze is in the same direction as the picture. I also like how his eyes turned out.

One challenge is that his back and sides have a lot of dark, dark, black/brown.  It really would be better to just let the black gesso background represent these parts as is, but for some reason it's hard to do that.  If I had to put this to music, think of Elmer Fudd signing "kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit". Now replace that lyric with "fill the canvas, fill the canvas".  It almost feels like cheating to not fill in large sections of the canvas with "real" paint.  I think I need to challenge myself on this and paint something with a large empty section!

Still Contour Drawing

I'm still here.  Work has been busy.  The contour drawing each morning has been a little bit of sanity at the start of each day.

Here is one from yesterday.  I tried drawing a Coleman's mustard tin from several different angles.  I like this one.  Again, I am mostly drawing blind and it seems like my brain and hand are working together much better!

Contour Drawing - Update 1

I'm 3 days into my goal to do at least 10 minutes of contour drawing every day and here are some of my drawings. With each item, I'm trying to go slowly with the lines I draw and focus more on looking at the item that I'm drawing. It's not blind contour drawing, but I'm leaning that way. I'm also trying to draw "confident" lines.

One of the things that I'm learning is the way that my eyes lie. This should be useful, since it can help me learn how to compensate or figuring out when I need to really, really slow down to see.

The pencil sharpener was from Thursday. I was trying to draw at a 1 to 1 scale. My drawing was much larger with a scale of approximately 1 to 1.75.  The strawberry hullers weren't too bad.  When I drew the one on the left, my first long line across the top looked wrong to me.  It was enjoyable to see how the drawing came together and the first line worked pretty well!

In painting, silverware has been my nemesis. This one is not too bad.

I'll return to my beloved Bee House tea pot.  When I'm drawing, I'm not taking measurements, but I do stop to look to see the relative comparisons of how one part of an object compares to another. When I was done drawing, I  measured from the top edge of the lid to the bottom and compared it to the height of the tea pot.  In actuality, the lid was been approximately 1/3 of the total height.  When drawing, I sure did not see it that way!  Again, it's a good lesson about how hard it is to truly see!

I miss having the time to paint and it's going to be hard to squeeze it in this week.  It's good to have this goal to work on, since I can fit it into a busy schedule. Contour drawing is really, really fun. Plus, I still feel like I'm learning.

30 Day Drawing Challenge

Some work deadlines have resulted in work taking over my life.  It is letting up a tiny bit. This morning I took 10 minutes to contour draw (mostly without looking) several objects in the kitchen, instead of using the computer to look at what other people are doing.

I find it tremendously refreshing to engage in the process of seeing and capturing what I see.
For the next 30 days, I am going to take 10 minutes every morning to practice contour drawing.  It's more important to do, rather than to post about it, so I am not going to fret about taking pictures and posting them.

Rant

All work and no play leaves no time for art.  It also makes me exceptionally cranky.

Still Busy, Busy, Busy

The past week was busy and the next several weeks will be, as well.  Carving out time to draw and paint may get interesting!  I drew this one, yesterday, and painted it today.

It is a 5 by 7.

Wingnut - Completed

Here it is!

This is an 8 x 10.  I have to confess that I love it and I love the actual painting even better, than the picture.  Just to throw in a bit of criticism, the values are too dark in places.  That will come with time (some day I hope).  On the plus side, the little brush stokes leave a wonderful energy.  Also for some reason, it lets me suggest, rather than be so detailed and specific.

Just for fun, I took a second picture of this painting on Saturday morning and uploaded it to this post. The picture above was taken at night.  I tried my best to get light that was not too harsh.

The picture below was taken with north light coming in from a window. The colors are so much richer and nicer.

Wingnut - The Beginning

I decided to do "dotty" again.  Here is the start of this painting.

Idea

When I was posting about Sadie's painting, yesterday, I was struck by the things I saw in her picture from looking at it on the computer.  There is a fairly obvious triangle formed above her nose, down the sides of her muzzle and up to the place between her eyes.  There is another triangle that is upside down and above the first one that is from the top of her head down to between her eyes.

Funny, I did not see these before.

For a couple of paintings, I might try to do a drawing before painting where I:

• Draw the outline.
• Look for a mark key shapes. 
• Do some shading to reflect the values (lights, mediums, and darks).

Sadie - Take 3

I'm stuck in my brain about how to mix Wingnut's lighter colors, so I diverted to painting Sadie for the third time today.  In many cases, three is the magic number.  For this one, my guess is that four might be the magic number.  Still, I feel good about the improvement each time.

I did the sketch at work at lunch today.  It was on a 5 inch square surface.  It made the drawing harder, since I'm using a version of the above picture that is 8 inches square.

Here is the finished painting (a/k/a my third attempt).  The nose is getting better!  I'm also pleased with the lighter background.  I don't know why, but for a long time it was really, really hard to paint lighter backgrounds. Sadie is still a little too dark. Also, her eye color is hard. They should stand out more. There are so many orange and brown colors, I'm not sure how to do it.

This was my second attempt, painted in mid-August:

This was my first attempt, painted in mid-June:

Long Weekend, But Less Time For Art

This was a 3-day weekend, but somehow I drew and painted less than usual.  What is up with that?

Here is my latest victim, Wingnut. He is one of those cats that photographs, beautifully.  It's almost hard to take a bad picture of him.  One of my orange guys is like that.

I'm also going to try painting both his body and face. I am taking creative liberties and will show him as though he is on a rug, rather than on a folding chair.

The other thing that I did this morning is plan a little for the week.  I pulled out some pictures and my notebooks, where I've already gessoed some pages and made grid lines.  It's going to be a busy week, If I can draw during lunchtime, I'll be ready to paint when/if I can make time!

Flower

This is my first try at an iris.  I painted it from a picture taken in my yard.

I also am happy that my paintings haven't been as dark.  I used to have a shop light directly over my painting spot in the basement.  This was too much light directly overhead and was part of the reason that I was painting so dark. I moved the shop light behind and fiddled with a temporary light, so that I wouldn't have shadows. It is working much better!

Landscape With Sunset

This is the second time that I've painted this scene.  I like this one better than the first attempt.  Plus, it just felt great to have some time to paint.

Landscapes are hard.  There are a lot of decisions to make and sometimes it's hard to see if you made good ones until way later.  The biggest thing that I could do to improve this is to figure out a better color scheme for the water and sky.  The picture is dark and I think I'm trying to be a little too literal with the actual colors.

Busy, Busy, Busy, Busy

Life, in general, and work, in particular, got very busy this week!  I am looking forward to a long weekend and getting back to my painting and drawing,  It's become a habit, a good one, and I truly miss it when I can't make time for it.

Last week, I took a quick buzz through this blog.  It has more than 100 posts. I made a list of things I've learned or observations that I want to revisit in the next several weeks.

Drawing is an integral part of painting.  At first, I resented the time that it took to make a drawing. Picking up the paint brushes and putting paint on them was painting, not the work that comes before that!!  Eventually, I made peace with the fact that drawing is an integral part of the process. Now, I enjoy it. Many times, but not always, a good drawing leads to a good painting.  Over time, I'm figuring out what lines and "reminders" that I need in the drawing, so that I don't get lost. One of the things that I recently started doing was marking the edges of things before I start to draw.  That helps, immensely!

I also like drawing in a sketch book, especially contour drawing. Very, very slowing, I'm working through the exercises in several drawing books.  If I ever have a luxurious surplus of time (meaning that I've already had time to draw and paint something), I like to pick up a pencil and try to do a quick sketch of something.  My hope is to have more time this fall and winter to do this.