Water Is Hard

I find that I want to paint too many individual "waves" in water. Plus, I'm out of practice.

#289 - Mississippi River Duck - 5" x 7" - paper

All I Want For Christmas Is The 1890 Census

Did you know that most of the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire in 1921? I didn’t either until recently. I have been repeatedly falling down the rabbit hole of genealogy research trying to map out potential family trees as part of trying to solve the mystery of my biological roots. While I believe the paternal side of my biological mother has been addressed with the help of a person who has been researching 8 branches of his family for 30 years, I have been building out the maternal side of this line and also trying to figure out the mystery of my biological father. There’s much less to go on with trying to figure out my biological father, so it’s been quite a bit harder.

On the bio-father side, I believe I solved one mystery without the 1890 census, but it would have been easier if it was available. I was trying to figure out Anna and Albert U1 to see if they were the same or different than Anna and Albert U2, since both the Anna's and Albert's had birthdays within several years of each other, both families immigrated to this country within several years of each other, and they immigrated within several years of each other.  It turned out they were the same. While there are a lot of family trees to look at on Ancestry, I'm finding that there is a lot of inaccurate information out there.  

Don’t even get me started on how useful it would be to have the census from 1950 going forward. Another thing, I’ve learned recently is that the census is not released to the public for 72 years, so I have to wait until 2022 for the one from 1950.

Having the progress slow down is frustrating, but probably for the best. It easy to get a little overwhelmed by it all.

On the art side, I am slowly getting back to making this more of a priority. I started this painting at Kat's Friday night open studio several weeks ago and finished it yesterday. I am out of practice, but it felt good to put paint on paper.

#288 - Chandler - 8" x 8" - paper

As part of getting art-making back into my life. tonight I spent some time organizing my art-making corner in the basement organized and that felt good, as well.

A Pause For Station Identification

It's so much easier to keep a habit going rather than trying to resurrect one, but that's where I am at with my art. I did not draw or paint while I was on vacation. It was a good vacation and sometimes it's good to take a break. However I wasn't home very long before I got distracted and consumed by something else.

When I look back on this year, I think the theme will either be addressing or attacking secrets or tying up loose ends in parts of my life.

The latest one is that I took a DNA test, recently. Given the lab processing time on their website, I was expecting results towards the end of the year. Instead, they showed up on Thursday. As an adoptee with only vague, non-identifying information until this point, all I can say is that I fell down a rabbit hole, a reference to Alice in Wonderland,which fits since it's all been pretty surreal.

I started this journey just wanting to know more about where I came from and in less than one week, I have some answers and information. Through the DNA testing site, I connected with one of my matches and it turns out this person has been researching his family's genealogy for 30 years and documenting it, extensively.

While I am not 100% certain, I am pretty darn certain that I've identified my biological mother. She died several years ago and she was the last member of her immediate family. However, if I go back to my grandfather's brother and two sisters, there are a lot of people out there. It's a story of immigration and I don't think any of the rest of this family is in this country. By the way, I'm 2nd generation of this country on the maternal side.

I'll get back to drawing and painting, soon. Right now, I just don't have the brain power for it, since I can feel my brain working on processing this new information about my roots.

There's also the paternal side to research. That won't be as easy, but I do have some clues from the DNA test and the information about my maternal side. I'm not planning on starting on this until late December or January.

While the last 6 days have a been a roller coaster. Yesterday, when I was drive between work sites, I had the most powerful feeling of gratitude wash over me. My partner is so supportive and my friends are also supportive. One of them has been helping me figure things out, including creating a cheat sheet of how family relationships work along with the genetic stuff, since I am really clueless on this stuff.

Stay tuned. Art will be back on the agenda soon.

Tired of Painting Apples

I have no one to blame but myself. When I got back from vacation, I didn’t have a plan about what I wanted to paint, so I grabbed an apple. Between the lack of focus, jet-lag, work, and laundry, I found a few pockets of time here and there to work on this. That means it took me 3 days to finish a small, simply apple painting.

#287 - Another Apple - 5" x 5" - paper

In other news, I have been sketching a bit and I stopped at the Como Zoo on my way home and worked on sketching the giraffe. Since I’m working close by the Zoo and Bell Natural History Museum tomorrow and most of next week, I might try to do a little more sketching. I am excitied about trying to sketch from animals in the dioramas at the Bell which do not move!

Pleased To Be Jet-Lagged

Yesterday afternoon, I returned from a 12-day vacation in London. It was a very, very good idea to take today off, as well, to unpack, do laundry, and generally recover from jet lag.

It was a fabulous vacation. I was with my hubby and 4 other friends. It was a good thing that I took notes each day of the things we did. Otherwise, I am not sure that I would remember it all. If time permits, I might do a few blog posts. Most likely, I will get busy with other things now that I'm back home, including getting back to drawing and painting and wanting to document that! However, I want to mention one of the most amazing exhibits from this trip.

The Tate Britain currently has an exhibit of Edward Burne-Jones which continues until February 2019. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wowwy, wow, wow.  One of my friends is a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. I am a fan of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts era, so this was right up my alley. I haven't studied up on Morris' contemporaries, so I didn't realize the connection until the night before we went.

I enjoyed the exhibit so much that I purchased the book about the exhibit in the gift shop. It was an extensive exhibit with more than 150 pieces. There were early pen and inks. There were unfinished paintings and studies. As beautiful as all of the finished work was, I especially enjoyed the studies.There were paintings in watercolor, gouache, and oil. There were tapestries and other forms of art, including jewelry.

There was something so spiritual and sensual about his work. It just drew me in and took my breath away.

I don't think it's legal for me to post copies of the pictures that I took, so I won't.  If you are interested, go look to the link above, since it shows two of my favorite works. You could also look at this wikiart link, search online, or borrow my book.

Many, Many, Many Layers Of Paint

After class on 11/08, I came home and painted another apple.  I wasn’t concerned about the shape. Was trying to get the feel for the paint and medium. It was amazing watching how Carl could change things so easily.

I started to play with my apple and tried to do the same by deliberately making a hard edge and going back later to try and soften it. I picked up wet paint and tried to fix the spot later.  I played with the apple color going from predominately greens and yellow to adding a lot of blue, magenta, brown, purple and back again. While I tried to stay true to the values, I never got the whole apple to work at the same time.  Sometimes the top worked, Sometimes the dark side worked.  Sometimes the light side worked.  The apple shape got distorted.  It didn't matter.  I would paint it all over and over and over again.   It was practicing.  It was play.  It was fun.  I stopped when it was time to feed the cats and go to bed and it didn't matter what point I stopped at. Yup, it looks like a cross between an apple and a pear. Plus, there's a hard edge and a splotchy part. Still, it just doesn't matter.

#286 - Layered Apple - 5" x 5" - paper

The Next Classroom Painting

This painting is from last week's class on 11/08, so I am still behind on my blogging. In last week's class, we painting on white canvas panel that we tinted with color before we started.  The first layer of tinting I did was a muddy color.  I think it was burnt umber. The next layer was mostly Pyroll Red Light with a little Titanate Yellow.  Both layers were really diluted with thinned down matte medium.

I'm still not getting how to work in this diluted, layered way, but by the end of class I was getting a tiny bit of insight.  It helped that Carl come over to help.  I also watched him paint when he helped the person sitting next to me.  When he demonstrated things, it was amazing how much he could change the character of an area with a few brush strokes.

#285 - Classroom Still Life - 11" x 14" - canvas panel

While he uses some of the same colors I use, I played with new paint colors.  Also, we used gloss medium (ick, ick, ick) rather than matte medium with the paint.  It was good to try, yet, another new thing.  I found the gloss medium to be too glossy, plus it makes it harder to figure otu when your paint is dry.

A Trio Of Apples

For class on 11/08, I knew we were going to start working with color.  We were going to be painting on different color backgrounds.  I've tried this several times in Kat's classes.  The different this time was that the color was going to be more translucent.  Additionally, we weren’t going to try to paint the actual colors of the actual objects.  That meant it was time to practice using a simple object.

First up, I went crazy with the colors and put no thought into creating anything cohesive.  You can see the tinted color that I used for the ground.  That is because I keep trying to add a layer of paint in an area where the previous layer is not dry. I do this over and over again in class and outside of class.  This is a perfect example of what happens.  You end up picking up a lot of the previous paint, rather than laying down the additional paint. I could have tried to fix it, but I decided to memorialize this, as a reminder to stop doing this.

#282 - Apple - 5" x 5" paper

The next time I went to painting, I worked on two paintings at the same time and used two different ground colors.

This is the painting done on the orange background.  You can see how it really dulls down the purple colors. 

#283 - Apple - 5" x 5" - paper

This is the painting on the purple background. I like how this apple turned out better. 

#284 - Apple - 5" x 5" - paper. 

Another Painting From Class

I am a little behind on blog posts. We have been working on a complicated still life in class.  First we painted it in black and white and for class on 11/08, we painted it in color (any color - - - not the actual color of the objects - - - there will be a post about that later).

Carl has the class working in a different way than I usually work. It's been good for me to stretch and try new things!  While I'm used to using a view finder, I'm using one without my handy-dandy grid lines. We draw on paper and might do several studies to get a composition to explore.  The drawing is used to transfer the outline of the drawing to the painting surface. The lines on the painting surface are sealed with the matte medium and left to dry for several minutes and then you are good to start painting.

I decided that I was mostly in class to learn skills, so I didn't agonize over my drawing. I also edited out several elements.  In last night's class, Carl was saying that sometimes you are making an artistic decision, since the point is not to just reproduce what you see.  While that is a good out, at this point, any goofiness is due to my drawing skills (or lack thereof), not artistic license.

This painting is from the 11/01 class.  Working in gray scale has been good practice.  I can't say that I feel very successful working with the medium and the paint.  I feel like I use way too much medium and my paint strokes just feel big and sloppy. I hope I don't sound too negative.  In actuality, I am enjoying learning a new way to paint and think it's going to help quite a bit overall.

#281 - Classroom Still Life - 11 x 14 - canvas panel

Carl helped me with the painting.  My vase looked really flat and he added the extremely light part on the side.  At first, it looked too harsh to me, which means I must be back to not making my lights light enough.

Perspective

Yesterday, I had a lot of art thoughts rumbling around in my head. There was painting class, plus I came home and painted more after class. When I was out and about during the day, I was keenly aware of buildings.  Mostly, it was noticing their tilt given my point of perspective.

There are several blogs of Urban Sketchers that I will look at from time to time.  In Stephanie Bower’s blog, she did 10 posts with sketching tips this summer.  In the past two weeks, I’ve been reading one or two of them when I have time.  The ones here, here, and here sort of blew my mind.  For the most part, I don’t get perspective in drawing.  On a macro level, I’m still lost, but on a micro level there are certain concepts starting to make a bit more sense.  I need to keep working through these blog posts, take a break, and work through them again.  At some point, I might even try to read about perspective in drawing.  When I’ve tried before, the information got too advanced too quickly and I got lost and frustrated.

Yesterday, something clicked.  When I looked at buildings, I could see the different corners reaching up to the sky and how they tilted at angles that went from less extreme to more.  It’s subtle, but it’s there and I thought about and imagined lines going up and meeting in the great vanishing point in the sky.

Evolution Of A Drawing

I'm not drawing as much as I would like.  Here is the evolution of Sunday's drawing.  I started with trying to block in the shapes.  The attempt on the top was not close enough to help, so I started over lower on the page.

I got a little lost with shading, but I think 3 of the eggs "read" as eggs.

Another Look Back

Back in June, I did a long post in "honor" of using up one of my first spiral-bound Bee Paper books with paintings. It was the first 9" x  9" book and I started painting in it, not long after I started painting.  Prepping pages with gesso is easier with multiple books, so I purchased a second book in June 2016.  I finished this book several weeks ago.

This is the last page.  It was one of my earlier, practice apples. I like that it shows that I am trying to expand how I paint, so I can learn more. This was painted on 10/21/18.

#269 - Practice Apple - 8" x 8" - paper

Here is the first page. I still remember being excited having the highlights in the water turn out.

Water Lily from October 2016

This painting goes to October 2016 when I was taking the second set of classes from Kat.  At the second class, I was struggling with seeing values.  The white powdered sugar on the donut was throwing me off in class and I declared the powdered donut to be my frenemy.

Break Time from October 2016

Here is my favorite painting from this book and, perhaps, from all time. I think that's because it was such a powerful learning experience about values. It's from Thanksgiving last year and I wrote about it here.

Hammet Value Painting from November 2017

There are a number of other cat paintings in this book and here is a sample.

Ella from February 2017

Hammett from February 2018

Chandler from August 2018

While I painted some dogs. None of them turned out very well. I also painted some birds, including these two. 

Chicken from January 2017

Hummingbird from August 2018

I did timed painting exercises in this book, including this one I did as an exercise while I was taking my third set of painting classes from Kat this spring.

Timed Painting Exercise - May 2018

When painting club was operating one of the homework assignments was to paint a sink.  This particular assignment made me nuts.  While I still struggle with composition, today, I feel like I have a tiny bit of knowledge.  With this assignment, I didn't have a clue.  I tried and tried and tried to paint my downstairs bathroom sink and each one was a disaster in so many ways, including this one.

Wretched Bathroom Sink Painting from May 2017

I wanted at least one decent sink painting when painting club met the next time, so I added a cat.  Fortunately, one of the professional cat models in my home used to like hanging out in the sink.

Chandler In Sink from May 2017

Last, but not least, when I was in the last 25% of the pages in this book, I went on a spree of painting landscapes or outdoor scenes.

Farm Buildings from June 2018

Minnehaha Park Umbrellas from June 2018

Since I bounce around painting in different spiral books, on loose paper, and on hardboard, it takes a long time to fill up a book, so it feels like a milestone to do so.  It's a good excuse to look back!!  

An Apple A Day

Yesterday, I purchased an apple from the co-op. It’s a nicely shaped, green apple with a long stem and a tiny leaf still attached. It’s a ridiculously cute apple, making this the first time I’ve ever used the adjective “cute” to describe an apple. It’s been my test subject for painting today and yesterday. I’ve been doing a quick outline (without grid lines) and just going for it.

This is yesterday’s painting.

#279 - Cutie Pie Apple - Take 1 - 5" x 5" - paper

Here is this evening’s painting. 

#280 - Cutie Pie Apple - Take 1 - 5" x 5" - paper

Both paintings were good practice and came together fairly quickly. It helps that they are small and are simple objects. Since life is incredibly busy, I'm glad I've figured out a way to squeeze in some painting time each day. While I would also like to be working on my drawing, I haven't been able to squeeze that in. Although this weekend, I did do a quick outline of part of my medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I'm trying to focus on being more accurate withe relative size of each object. 

Fussy-Wussy Versus Just Do It

Yesterday, I fell down the rabbit hole of fussy-wussy-ness. I am trying to figure out  how much paint versus how much diluted medium (which is another variable to figure out) will get me the results I want. This painting was on a piece of hardboard, which was lighted painted with medium and allowed to fully dry. This acted like a clear gesso. I set up the board in the table easel and painted away. I  did want some of the panel to show.

Overall, I went too far both by over-painting, which it may not look like, since I also over diluted my paint. Towards the end, the paint mixture started to run down the panel. At that point, I decided I was done and let it dry flat.

This may sound negative. It's not. It was a worthy experiment.

#277 - Acorn Squash - 6" x 6" - hardboard

Today, I had very little time to paint, so I went with a different experiment. Not being familiar with the materials is bringing out too much fussiness, so I just decided to practice and get on with it. I used a stiffer brush and that seemed to work better. 

#278 - Onion - 5" x 5" - paper

Gesture Practice

Tonight was the second night of class. One thing that I really appreciated was that the instructor demonstrated a gesture sketch for me. As I was watching him draw, it made sense, in a different way, what he was doing as he was working out shapes and relationships. He finished it by making lines which more clearly defined the objects.

While it made sense to me in the moment, it’s not as clear to me now that I am home. Still, I came home and practiced three quick sketches of items in the kitchen. While I am trying to loosely show the object’s relationships to each other, it’s still way to easy to go to the outlines.

The best of the three is this one, although I really should have placed a line showing the edge of the kitchen counter and should have show the shadows underneath the objects. Still, the proportions and relative size of each object were pretty good, except for the sad delicata squash in the lower left. While this may not be a gesture drawing, it’s less fussy than what I usually do.

Practice Makes ???

Tomorrow is the second painting class. I've been practicing. Since work is busy, I haven't had the time I'd like, which is both good and bad. It's probably good, since it means I just have to move along, try new things, and not fret. It's also making me draw more quickly, so I don't have time for accuracy or details. The bad part is that I'm way outside my comfort zone.

Earlier this week, I painted a pepper.

#273 - Pepper - 8" x 8" - paper

 I am finding it challenging to mix the paint with the medium. I probably need to go darker with it all, since it's hard to get light lights. Overall, this painting seemed very sloppy to me, so I took several additional minutes to try and focus on the stem. From there, I tried to build the shapes that came up to the stem. I did this in a very small area below the painting, so it's probably on 1" x 1.5".

Focusing on a very small part felt more doable. 

Tonight, I took the time to do 2 paintings. I rather like how the scissors turned out, especially since the underlying drawing was really rough. Also, it felt like I was painting the values and shapes rather than trying to paint scissors. I did give myself a break and used pencil to draw rather than charcoal. 

#274 - Still Life Practice - 5" x 7" - paper

For the second painting, I used diluted matte medium on the paper before I painted. It suddenly occurred to me that the instructor did this (or at least I think he did - - this is one of my questions for tomorrow's class). Some of my challenges might be from painting on "raw" paper. I was tired, so I did this one fairly slap-dash. 

#275 - Mug - 5" x 7" - paper

New Painting Class

Last week, I started taking a 5 week painting class with Carl Oltvedt at Wet Paint, although I’ll miss the last week of class. While it’s good to branch out, it’s also blowing my mind, since it’s a very different way of working plus currently my painting ability is either broken, rusty, or just in an awkward period. We warmed up with gesture sketches of a still life. I really, really don’t get gesture sketches, but I’m trying. For now, I just feel like I’m making a bunch of scribblely lines on paper.

When we started painting, we used matte medium diluted around 25%. We will also be using gloss medium. Other than using glazing liquid, I haven’t used any mediums with my paint. It’s another thing to figure out, as well as painting on a light surface. One of these, I did in class. The other one I did at home. Just for the heck of it when I was done, I tinted some glazing liquid and very lightly applied it to both finished paintings.

#270 - Still Life From Class 1 - Take 1 - 5" x 7" paper

#271 - Still Life From Class 1 - Take 2 - 5" x 7" paper

As time permits, I’m practicing painting this way at home.

#272 - Apple Practice - 8" x 8" - paper

Plus, I am trying to practice doing gesture sketches.

My goal is to stay open, go along for the ride, and embrace stepping WAY WAY out of my comfort zone. Stay tuned......

Other Paintings And Drawings

During the period I was not posting, I did keep drawing and painting, although I did lose my daily habit. Here is a quick and brief summary of some of the stuff I did. There are a few paintings, which I am not posting. that is partly because I don't care for them and partly because I want to get caught up, so I can post about what is happening now.

My niece has a beautiful cat. I downloaded this picture from Facebook. Here is my first try.

#265 Munchkin Take 1 - 8" x 8" - paper

Here is the second try.

#265 Munchkin Take 2 - 8" x 8" - paper

Also, fall arrived, which means leaves. I am either in an awkward or rusty phase with painting, but I know if will pass eventually.

#268 - Leaf - 8" x 8" - paper

#268 - Another Leaf - 8" x 8" - paper

I also did some drawing. Partly dried leaves curl up in ways which are interesting to try and draw.

One morning, I sat with a green pepper. While I didn’t finish this sketch, I do like it, even though the proportion of the stem is comically off! I drew it the morning after I read someone’s blog post about the importance of making your darks really distinct.

“Eggs”-cuse Me

Back to our regularly scheduled programming and normal blog posts.........

Yesterday morning, I knew that it was going to be a busy day. It turns out that I didn’t have time to paint (darn), but that made it especially important to draw for a few minutes.  Since my hubby was making pancakes, there was an egg shell sitting on the kitchen counter. I rinsed it off and set it down across from me at the kitchen table.

I warmed up with trying to do gesture sketches (in spite of the fact that I still don’t understand what they are or how to do them). After I did the sketches in the top row, I got up to fill my water glass. When I got back to the table, the egg shell was gone. My hubby thought he left a drippy egg shell on the kitchen table and was cleaning it up. I retrieved my egg shell and we had a good laugh.

I like the loose drawings at the bottom better than the gestures at the top.

"Eggs"-cuse Me drawings - 10/20/18

This set of egg shells was from several weeks ago. It was a weekend morning and my hubby was making eggs. He likes to cook breakfast on the weekends. Lucky me! The egg shells on the counter just looked interesting, so I tried to draw them.

Eggshells 10/06/18