Sadie

This gets you to my first attempt.  This gets you to attempt #2 through #7.  It's still not quite there, but attempt #8 is getting much closer.

#171 - Sadie - 8" x 10" - paper - std palette

Year-End Painting Review

Two years ago on 12/29/15, I walked into a morning class at Wet Paint with Kat Corrigan and painted my first painting. I signed up for the class mostly on a whim and it was a birthday / Christmas present to myself. While I had already made a New Year's resolution to work on learning to draw in 2016, this class made me add painting to this goal / resolution. What a wonderful two years it has been. I like looking back. It's the main reason for this blog. It helps me capture where I was at and how I was feeling at the various steps in this journey. While there is so much to learn, it makes me profoundly happy that picking up a pen, pencil, or paint brush to try and capture a moment or image has become a normal activity in my life as compared to January 2016. Back then, putting a line on a piece of paper was anxiety-producing.

A lot of good things happened with my painting practice in 2017. First of all, I figured out how to fit in daily painting during a very, very, busy time this fall. Each day, I get up and paint. On most work mornings, this might mean only five minutes, but even in this short amount of time it is a good way to start a day. I also figured out that I have trouble maintaining focus at times, so painting in shorter spurts has actually helped.

After two years, I'm beginning to understand some of the basics. This includes mixing paint colors with the limited palette that I use. With paying more attention and experimenting a bit more, I figured out things like using more blue when mixing the tans and light oranges found in orange tabby cats or making grays more neutral. Some of this came from starting a second palette with a different blue and a different yellow, which caused me to slow down and think more about what I was doing. 

The biggest change happened over Thanksgiving when I had a major breakthrough with values and shapes. On the one hand, it's frustrating. Why did it take 2 years? Every bit of information out there focuses on these two concepts. I took classes. I read books and blogs. I watched videos. I thought that I was listening to the message, but I wasn't really hearing it. Experiential learning is like that sometimes. Understanding comes in its own time.

On the other hand, who cares. The message finally started to connect and it has improved my painting. I want to bring this over to my drawing in 2018. While I got better with line drawing, I mostly outline things and haven't figured out how to add depth, dimension, and volume. Working on values and shapes should help and this is a goal of my drawing practice in 2018.

To finish up this year-end review, I looked back on the paintings that I completed in 2017. Here are four of my favorites from throughout the year.  This one is from January 2017. I am not sure what to say about this one. I just like it, although maybe I included it so there would be one non-cat painting.

Next up is Chandler in the sink from May 2017 from when I was in a small group that met with Kat. She would give us homework assignments and the assignment was to paint your kitchen sink. I ignored that and went with the upstairs or downstairs bathroom sink. Trying to build any type of interesting composition was beyond me. I was having trouble mixing colors. My values were off. I did 4-5 paintings, which were disasters. Then one morning, Chandler was being Chandler and he crawled into the bathroom sink. I took some pictures. This put me back in my comfort zone, I was painting a cat with an unusual background.

This one and the next one tie for my favorite paintings of 2017. This one is the breakthrough painting from November 2017.  I was back in my hometown over Thanksgiving and decided that I would try painting 4-value paintings using the app, Notanizer. This is the first one I did. I painted this standing in the basement of the Airbnb where we were staying. I did not paint a cat. I painted the shapes that I saw in each of the values. It just flowed off of the brush. Yes, it is on the stylized side, but I love this painting. It makes me happy whenever I look at it. With this one and all of the other 4-value paintings, I still can't get over how little you need to actually paint an eye (or the entire cat for that matter). Both of the eyes in this painting are 3 fairly small paint strokes. Overall, this experiment really got me thinking.

My other favorite painting of 2017 is from December 2017 and, of course, it is a cat. It's great when  you capture the physical essence of something. It's even better when you luck out and also capture part of the spirit. This is Jacques and I like this one because it captures a bit of the Jacques-ness of Jacques.

 

Christmas Painting Present

Nope, it's not what you think. My niece wanted acrylic paint and I didn't want to decide the brand, type, or colors in case she had something specific in mind. On Christmas Eve, I decided to paint up some trading cards that she could trade for the actual paint when we went on a shopping trip. I had fun doing this, although the experience really made me a fan of red and less of a fan of yellow. The longer the word, the harder it was to fit and paint around. Each of the cards was something like 5 inches long.

I wrote up a card for her and tucked the trading cards in that. Since I was on a roll and feeling silly, I decided to write on the back of the card. Coupons always have so many legalistic warnings that a grabbed one and copied the warnings with a few revisions on the back of the it. 

I also gave her one of the Masterson's sta wet palette and a few other supplies. Yesterday, we went shopping and got her the paint! I hope she has fun playing with it.

Dorian

I finished this on 12/23/17. I started drifting back to being a little more fussy with details rather than shapes. Also, the face and position of the body are not quite right. Through a combination of the alternative yellow being a bit stronger and paying more attentions (because of the new yellow), my grays are closer to neutral.

#170 - Dorian 8" x 10" - paper - alternative palette

Currently, it seems easier to focus on shapes with creatures who did not live in my home.

Hummingbird - Take 2

I started this one back in the middle of Thanksgiving. After drawing it out and starting the bird, it got put aside. It was my main project this week.

#158 - Hummingbird In Flowers - 8" x 10" - paper - alt palette (both blue & yellow) 

I did not fuss with this one nearly as much as the first time back in October. Plus, the values are better in this one. I am so glad for the breakthrough over Thanksgiving. I just feel a bit more in control of an important aspect of painting!

This one will get another try, since I want to figure out better paint strokes for the flowers. There's also the issue of masses of shapes versus painting the individual flowers and I'd like to explore and play with that.

Something New

I've never tried to paint sheep before. This is from a picture of a sheep and a very sweet lamb that I took back in 2015 when I went to a class at Kristin Nicholas' farm house. It makes me wish that I had taken many, many more pictures of the sheep.

#169 - Sheep and Lamb - 5" x 7" paper - alternative palette

This was a bit of a challenge for a number of reasons including:

• It was painted on a small surface, although I did use a smaller brush..
• I have never painted sheep before. There are unique things about each animal that you figure out after awhile. 
• There are two subjects close together. I still mostly play it safe and stick with one thing at a time. 
• I'm transitioning back from 4-value paintings to trying to see more nuances than 4 values.

This may sound like a bunch of excuses, but it's not. I did find myself bouncing in my head between painting shapes and painting sheep. 

I'd like to revisit this one or a different sheet, but go for a larger size. 

Palette Update

This is mostly a note to myself. I changed my alternative palette. It now contains both the alternative blue and the alternative yellow.

The specific colors are located here.

A Happy Finish

This is Jacques.  He is a big, sweetie-pie of a cat owed by friends of mine.

#168 Jacques - 8"x 8" on paper - std palette

I painted this as a "regular" painting, not a 4-value one, although I am being much more mindful of values these days (now that I see them or realize that I don't see them well enough, so I check them using Notanizer).

A Happy Start

I pulled out a new #10 bright brush and started this painting. It just felt good, plus I am feeling better. Last night was the first night in a week with a good, mostly uninterrupted night of sleep. Until last night, it seemed like I was waking up every 20 minutes or so coughing.

Anyway, these paint strokes just felt lush and happy to me.

It Is A Cat

On Monday morning, I finally started getting my brain back from the never-ending cold of 2017. I actually felt like picking up paper and a pencil and drawing cats. I played around with different things for 20 minutes or so. At one point, Hammett was sitting on the back of the recliner and suddenly I saw him in shapes. I did a rough sketch in pencil and filled in the lines much darker so you can see them. Ignore the horrible lines in marker that are bleeding through the other side of the paper.

It was interesting seeing him as a collection of shapes and in a very simple form.

It's Not A Cat!

That's what he said when I first showed him this painting.

#167 - Peony In Yard - 8" x 8" - paper - alternative blue

This one was painted both from looking at the original photo (below, which was cropped) and a version of the photo in my beloved app, Notanizer. I'm not sure that I would have painted the darkest parts of the flower dark enough if it wasn't for the app. When you look at the flower in 4-values with this app, the darkest parts of the flower are black. My eyes / brain still want to stay, but wait! I know it's a dark value, but how can it be that dark when the native color is white. Actually, that's not 100% true. I'm finally starting to get it, but it's taken a long time and I suspect that I will continue to struggle with this. It made me think about the donut painting from painting class last fall and the follow-up donut painting. While I may not be the quickest at picking up on these concepts, I don't give up either. 

I think my lightest colors in the flower and the darkest ones are pretty good. The middle values could probably use some more distinction between them. I've wanted to try and paint from this picture for some time, but didn't know how to approach it. I knew that I didn't want to try and paint every petal, so I wasn't sure what to do. What I decided was to try a mix of going with the shapes and going for the feeling of the petals. 

For a person who loves bright, bright colors, it always surprises me how much I enjoy painting different types of white. When I looked at the picture, there were yellowy whites, gray whites and pink whites. 

I did this in one sitting, yesterday. It went fairly quickly. I'm still getting over my cold, so the analytical part of my brain was too tired to get in the way. That made doing the background easier. For a change, I didn't over-think it. 

Just Ignore The Green

I get rules in my head, so sometimes I set out to break them. That's how I ended up painting a green cat. This painting is from yesterday. I did it in one sitting and it came together fairly quickly. 

This started as another 4-value painting, although it morphed to five values even before I went even farther with it. Throughout this painting, I also tried to have more paint on my brush.

After I painting the original values and shapes, I decided to add a background.

From there, I added another dark color to define the cat, since the black parts looked odd with the background. I wish I would have taken two more progress pictures. The first several paint strokes of the extra dark body color did amazing things. Next, I finished all of the formerly black background with a dark green. It would have been good to take pictures of both of these steps. However, my energy level was terrible and I didn't feel like going upstairs two additional times to take pictures in natural light. I have been fighting and, mostly, losing the battle with a wicked cold this week.

The very last thing was suggesting the other eye. The finished result is below. It was fun pushing this to completion.

#166 Marvin In Green - 8" x 10" in paper, regular palette

Here is a painting from the same source picture from back in August 2016. Even with the hideous green, this painting reads so much better.  It's all about the values and the shapes (which is the mantra that I need to keep repeating to myself).

Also in all of these value paintings, it's been amazing to me how little you need to represent an eye. This is especially true of the suggested eye that I added at the last minute. It's just one stroke with a tiny, tiny highlight and it adds so much!

Quick And Simple

I started this on Monday and finished it on Thursday. Each morning, I only had a few minutes to work on it. Plus, I have been fighting a monster cold, so my energy level has been less than zero.

I liked the idea of leaving a lot of the space unpainted. Most of the time, I feel compelled to fill every bit of surface with paint.

#165 Chandler In 4 Values - 5" x 7" on paper

In Other News.......

I am home sick today. I don't stay home sick very often, but I have a cold and it sapped all of my energy. If I take it easy today, I hope to bounce back sooner.

I don't just sit very well. Last night, I finished knitting the thumbs for a new pair of gloves and washed them. They dried on the radiator last night. While there are two of them, it was easier to take a picture of one of them and I am all about going with the easy route today.

I have needed a new pair of gloves for a long time and, fortunately, I got them done just in time for colder weather. I have short, stubby fingers, so handmade gloves fit me so much better!

A Trio Of....

I'm a tad obsessed with 4-value paintings of cats. Since it's good to switch things up (even though I am doing the same exercise on the same subject matter, so the irony is not lost on me), I decided to switch a 5" x 7" format and play with background colors. My thought was that if I liked any of these, I could put them into Art 4 Shelter next year.

Here is my work since my last post. Painting in the morning for a few minutes and fitting in additional time when I can has kept me painting each and every day. I've gotten over feeling like I need a big chunk of time to paint. As a result, I paint more and finish more, even though life is very busy!

#162 - Ella In 4-Values - 5" x 7" paper - alternative blue

I am just going to call this one a warm up. My darkest paint color (my second darkest value) should be lighter. Especially when viewed from a distance, the two darkest values merge together. Also, I had trouble using a #8 sized brush. Things just did not gel with this one.

I took several in-progress photos of the next one.

While I really enjoyed the beginning stages of this one, I'm only okay with the finished result on this one.

#163 - Chandler In 4-Values - 5" x 7"on paper, - alternative blue

I was still using the #8 size bright brush on this one. For this one and the last one, I felt as though I regressed away from just doing the shapes and ignoring the details. Plus, it was more difficult to work smaller.

I finished this this morning and like it the best.

#164 - Marvin In 4-Values - 5" x 7" on paper - std palette

I used a #6 brush and that helped. I tried to be less fussy. The picture had the dramatic lighting that has been working well. Working in this way has been a valuable experience and I feel like I am learning tons. It will be interesting to see what creeps into my color paintings when I switch back to those. Although, I'm not quite ready to go back to that. Next, I want to try a few of these paintings using a different color than gray.