I See

Yesterday morning, I started with painting the person looking out into the woods. After that, I bounced around. While I liked the person, I didn't like what I added after that.

I gessoed over the area of the path and walked away.

Last night, I went down to finish. Something clicked. I kept looking at the person thinking that he turned out and all I had to do was imply the shapes, values, and colors of the different parts of the person. I thought “why can’t I do that with the rest of the scene”. Why does my brain go into this whirling vortex of overdrive when faced with a whole rather than focused on one small part? After that, it felt like I got out of my own way and I could finally see things like how the path curved in the photo. The different parts and pattern were visible to me. While they were always there, I could finally start to see them. Even better when my hubby got home and I showed him the painting, he could identify the person I painted!

#226 - Looking Into The Woods - 6" x 6" - hardboard

Sometimes I feel like a need a better or an updated manual on how my brain and eyes work.

Stone Arch Bridge

The best type of day is when you have painted something that you like or mostly like. The next best type of day is when you've painted something you don't like, followed by the worst type of day when you haven't painted at all. This doesn't mean each day has to result in a finished painting, just that something painting-related occurred, since I have to keep reminding myself that painting does not include just the time you have paint on your brush.

This is today's painting. There is more that I like about it than I don't, which is a big deal for me for a landscape painting. The best part is that there is a background, middle ground and foreground. I don't know how it happened or how to try and do this next time. It might be a combination of the background greenery being really dark, plus looking to see the outline of the foreground greenery and trying to keep it distinct (thanks Kat for the feedback in last week's class).

The values seem truer to me than what I've been doing lately and that helps cover for the fact that some of my colors are off. I wish I would have made the lightest bits under the bridge a warmer color, but I fussed with this enough. At least, I can look at it and say "that should have been a warmer color". As far as the water is concerned, I'm trying to see different colors, so I picked a picture which had some readily apparent differences. While I don't like my paint strokes for the water, I do like them for the trees. At first, the bridge railings looked to fussy to me, but I'm starting to like them.

#225 - Stone Arch Bridge - 8" x 8" - paper

Plein Air

Tee hee! I went out with two friends, yesterday, and painting outside. I've wanted to try this, but thought to myself that either I wasn't ready, didn't have enough or the right equipment, or some other  nonsense. One friend asked. I said yes and that was that. I packed what I thought I needed and all was well. The only note to myself is to bring additional paper towels, next time. I brought just enough, but could have needed more given my incident with the yellow paint. Also, my camp stool was okay, but it would be nice to have something with some back support.

We met very early, since it was ridiculously hot over the weekend, plus yesterday was the hottest of the long weekend. It hit over 100 degrees......in Minnesota......in May. We arrived around 7:30 and were done by 8:45.

I'm not sure I have the words to describe how much fun it was. Mostly we worked, but we also chatted. While we were setting up a guy came by who was walking a 3 month old golden retriever puppy. I'm not sure that it should be legal to be this cute (referring to the puppy). The experience introduced a new set of challenges including balancing a piece of hard board and paint on my lap, while keeping water and paper towels in reach and using a viewfinder on the big complicated world. Every so often, one of the legs of my 3-legged stool would sink into the ground a bit more, but I managed to not fall off or drop everything. It was a blast!

I started this painting, but did not finish. As usual, my brain got tired.

Later in the day at home, I used a picture to try and finish.

#224 - Plein Air #1 - 8" x 8" - hard board

I think I like the trees and the grass on the bank better in the in-process version. Still, I will probably keep this one, as a happy reminder of my first plein air experience.

Also, I did start a second painting, but I did not finish it. My brain was in overdrive mode. Rather than starting a second painting, it would have been better to pull out a pencil and paper and tried to do a little sketching.

Spying On The People

These 3 watering cans were extremely interested in what goes on inside the house. What do those humans do while they are in there?

#223 - Spying On The People - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I like how the watering cans are arranged and I like their different shapes. When I try to arrange objects to paint, it always looks forced or phony to me. I'm glad I took the picture I used to paint this, since the scene caught my eye. It helped that this week's homework included doing a painting from looking outside a window. Still, sometimes I will notice something when I am out in the world that I like, but more often than not, I won't take a picture. I regret not taking a picture of the table when I was at Icehouse with friends awhile back. There was candle holder and candle and a few other things on the table. I think about this as the scene which got away. 

I started this one at 10:30 pm on Saturday, which is past my bedtime. It was a busy day. Once I got home, I realized I hadn't painted. This was the next thing I wanted to paint, so I drew it out and did a few paint strokes. I finished it yesterday. I am trying to keep up my daily painting habit. My daily drawing habit has fallen away, but I want to resurrect it. 

This week's class is the last of the session. Darn!  I really like the people in this session. 

Lighter Leaves

I lightened the leaves in the lilac painting, per Kat's suggestion. They probably could be even lighter. Even so, it looks better than before.

I started this landscape yesterday and finished it today. The goal was not to get so fussy. Somehow, I manage to get fussy, anyway, but at least I completed the painting!!

#222 - Quebec City Rainbow - 8" x 8" - paper

The source picture was taken while I was in a car outside of Quebec City. It brings back good memories of a vacation up there.

It's Still A Problem

I am experiencing challenges with painting landscapes and it's all about capturing values accurately. My detailed nature gets in the way. It makes it hard to sort out values into blocks and decide where the edges are. Also, I think I get caught up trying to "see" or think about too many value changes.  I will look at something and think, this is the darkest dark, but within that darkest dark there is some variation. Then, I try to figure out where the values change and I'm off into a tiring and not very productive loop.

These days when I'm painting a simple or distinct subject matter I've gotten better. I experienced these same feelings back in October 2016 and I wrote about it here. It's funny how closely this captures how I am feeling today when dealing with landscapes or complicated subject matter.

While I may sound negative these past few days, I actually don't feel that way. Yes, I am frustrated, but what it comes down to is figuring out the problem and figuring out how to address it. I like doing that. I do wish I had learned some rudimentary skills earlier in life, so I had basic knowledge or habit to fall back upon. I know that it's hard for most people to learn how to read music as an adult and I can relate to that.

One thing to do is get serious about doing preliminary value sketches and start making a flipping decision about where the value shifts are. Carol Marine talked about this in her book. Alphonso Dunn talked about it in his book (which I am going to check out from the library again). If I recall, I think he said that you only need 6 levels of value at most.

My other idea is that I might purchase several earth-toned colors of paint and use those plus white to paint some landscapes. It would take away the need to mix color, plus I think using the bright colors in my palette would be distracting. It's the same idea as when I painted Hammett back in November, but applied to more complicated subject matter.

It's humbling to have to learn the same lesson over and over again.

Ever Feel As Though You Are Being Watched?

I'm noticing things outside my windows more. This morning, the three watering cans on the deck caught my eye.

I may have to try and paint this.

Warning - You Are Entering An Awkward Learning Phase

This is a warning to myself.

I decided to paint the comorant on a log. I tried to paint this last week in class and got myself to a frustrating place. For this new attempt, here is the value sketch.

Here is the painting.

#221 - Comorant On Log - 6" x 6" - hardboard 

My values are still off on this one, but it's better than the first attempt. The values are off the most in the water around the bird. My brain just goes into overdrive with trying to sort out values and colors at the same time, plus trying to figure out paint strokes to evoke shape and pattern. This is not a bad thing. While I wish I was farther along in what I know and what I can do, this is where I am at, currently.

One interesting thing I noticed this week is that I can't solely rely up on the IPad application, Notanizer, to help with values. This app has a function where it will show a picture with only 4 values. When I paint from pictures, I've been relying upon it, heavily. It's really helped when I am painting one subject (usually a cat) with a fairly simple background. For a more scene with more than two elements to it, 4 values is not enough. For example, the darkest water and the dark parts of the bird show up as the darkest dark in the app. In reality, the darkest parts of the bird are much darker. Duh, of course. The app still does help me "see" the lightest lights.

Speaking of values and perception, yesterday, it was interesting to see how my eyes captured a scene out a window versus what the camera saw or what my eyes saw through the camera.

I think all of this leaves me in an awkward learning phase. While I'd rather end up with paintings where I like more things about them than I don't, that's not the direction I am currently headed. I have mixed feelings about that. Of course, I would like to end up with something that I mostly like, but what I really find most compelling about painting is figuring out the process and the various problems which come up along the way. Plus, I feel like you have to be willing to paint (and also post, since I want to document the full journey) a lot of awkward paintings in order to paint better ones later.

For example, and as a reminder to myself, this was the cabin sunset in September 2016.

This was the cabin sunset in March 2018.

I believe if I keep trying, thinking and evaluating my work, and getting feedback from time to time I can continue to improve.

Painting #220

Paint #220 did not come into existence easily. First, it was started 3 different times and each time I tried a completely different painting. Abandoned attempt #1 was a vase with a flower and abandoned attempt #2 was a pepper cut in half. Neither of these will see the light of day. This is not a good trend or habit.

For my third attempt, I decided to try the homework exercise of painting something outside your window. This exercise brings up all sorts of insecurities. Plus, there are too many options and I really struggle with composition. Given all of this, I decided that I was going to find joy in this assignment, dammit.

I went around almost all of the windows of the house to see and think about what would be good to paint. I took a lot of pictures. Many of them were at weird angles. When I tried to crop them into a square, most of them did not work. Still it was a good exercise and I mostly enjoyed it. I also played with looking out the windows, looking out the window using a viewfinder, and looking out the window through the camera lens. It was interesting to see how that changed things. The picture which cropped the best had a cat in it. Many of my pictures had a cat in them, since each time I opened a new window one of the orange cats would appear. 

When it came time to paint, I decided that I would complete and present the finished painting no matter what. I also started with a thumbnail sketch. It would be better if I took a little more time and represented the values better, but at least doing/thinking about the sketch has me slowing down to try and see.

There was so much detail to figure out. I wish I was better at just focusing on the important items. Hopefully that will come with practice. At this point, I took an extended break.

Later in the day, I finished it.

#220 - Cat in Window - 6" x 6" - hardboard

While there are things I like about it, I am a tad annoyed that the window looks twisted. My drawing wasn't, but somehow in the execution I twisted things up a bit. There were a lot of decisions to make. The most confusing one was how to represent the side of the house peaking out between the lilacs. I don't like what I tried, but trying to fix it would have made it worse.

Conclusion - - This was a good exercise that stretched me in good ways.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I've had several productive and good weeks with painting. On Thursday and Friday, it felt as though I took two steps backwards and I was not happy about that. On Saturday, I lowered my expectations and just drew out something to paint the next day. My biggest problem has been that I've been tired...really, really tired. When I reach a certain point, my ability to evaluate shapes and values, mix colors, or make paint strokes goes down the tubes.

In addition to the normal day-to-day stuff of life, it's gardening season. On top of that, my household has been getting ready for a garage sale. My neighborhood had Garage Sale Days on Friday and Saturday this past weekend. It's an annual neighborhood tradition.  On Saturday, we had a what we called a reuse sale, since we were only charging 25 cents per item.  It was a lot of work getting ready and setting up for the sale, but it was a good way to put things back out in the world with people who will hopefully use them.

On Friday, my sweetie and I took the day off as usual. We have a tradition of wandering the 'hood and check out random sales. We have lunch while we are out and about. After lunch, I'm usually done. This year, that meant it was time to do more to get ready for our sale. This year I picked up an oak rocker for $2, which needs work, plus some artwork.

I knew that Michael Sweere lived in the neighborhood, but I didn't know where. Well, we stumbled upon his household's garage sale. He was selling some old oil paintings, mostly from the '90's for a ridiculously inexpensive amount and I purchased three of them. The bottom one makes me especially happy.

Plus, I got to meet him. He was working in his studio which is built onto his garage.

Now it's time to show my work.

#218 - Ella - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I got too fussy again. After this one, I decided that I need to start doing small thumbnail studies in order to think about composition and values. Even though my next subject was fairly simple, doing the thumbnail sketch first helped. Ever since I took the online drawing class last year, I've known that I should start doing thumbnails and I've been completely resistant to doing them. I've finally reached the point where I just need to add this to my process. I drew this out on Saturday and painted it yesterday.

#219 - Block Island Swan - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I forgot about my new resolve to do thumbnail sketches prior to painting and just painted today. The end result was not good and is going to be re-gessoed before it is ever shown. Must remember my new commitment to do a preliminary sketch first.

The Most Prolific Flower In My Yard

If you have 'em, you might as well use 'em.

#217 - Mug With Dandelion - 6" x 6" - hardboard

The background and mug were done with one stroke per color, which means there are a lot of strokes where the color did not change much or where the stroke was very   l    o    n    g. The flower was just painted (and painted over and over and over), plus I had to touch up the shadows with gesso. I'm not sure what's the best way to do a ragged-edged shadow of a flower.

This morning, this mug was sitting on my kitchen counter. As I walked by, I stopped to take a look. The values, shadows, and highlights were so much nicer than when I actively try to set up something to paint. Plus, there was a lovely reflection and the inner lip had a green tone to it. I suppose I could have set up a still life and painted it in place. Although, I'm not inclined to do that with cats in the house. Also, currently, I want to paint from life rather than from photos.

Stretch Goal

The lilacs are fleeting each year, especially when they are just starting to flower so that each clump contains both flowers and buds.

I did this painting in one sitting. It took 1 hour and 10 minutes and, yes, I did take several short breaks.

#216 - Lilacs in vase - 6" x 6" - hardboard

This painting was a stretch. While I don't mean to sound whiny, there were so many decisions to make, especially about how much detail to include. When I was done, the leaves were too close in value to the background, so I adjusted them. Now that it's finished, I can see things that I would do differently. Instead I am focusing on my growth, since 6 months ago it would have been much harder to tackle than it was today. Also, I painted this with the mindset that I was going to enjoy the process and just practice (take that internal critic).

Lastly, there is something magical about trying to paint a new subject for the first time. You are out there without any prior experience or preconceived notions, so you just have to start and go for it.

New Lighting Is Better

I like the lighting arrangement we set up yesterday. Covering up the dark, unfinished ceiling in my painting corner with something light was a good idea.

Today, I went back to a simple mug set up with two walls and a floor.

#215 - Coffee Mug - 6" x 6" - hardboard

While I like the finished painting, I noticed two bad habits throughout. The first is that I keep forgetting to take a break partway through. The second is that the ratio of thinking to painting is off. I found myself laying down paint strokes and, if the values were off, just painting over them. In the last class, I thought more and painted less and felt better about that.

Boring Composition

I was partly through this painting before I realized that it was a boring composition, plus the lighting did not leave enough different values. Still, I finished it, which was good. Yesterday, I started painting this same coffee pot and stopped partway through since I didn't like what I was doing. This morning when I looked at it, I decided that it wasn't so bad, but I didn't want to try and set the thing up in the same way with the same light and all.

#214 - coffee pot - 6" x 6" - hardboard

The handle and spout aren't bad. I don't like the lid or the highlights.

On the plus side, we added some white shower board directly above where I paint in the basement. Using clip lights, I can bounce light off the the shower board and get some nice indirect light. This is a new lighting experiment, so I can figure out what I want in my little, basement, art-making space. 

Have You Ever Become Obsessed With A Mandarin?

I got a little obsessed after my last painting where the murcott mandarin looked like a peach. I did one painting each day the last 4 days, where I tried to play with paint strokes in order to capture that flat top with that round body. These were slow and fussy paintings (on purpose). The order was from the top left in a semi circle around. I'm not sure that I am getting it, but it's good to have thoughts about paint strokes floating around in my brain.

#212 (collectively) - 8" x 8" - paper

However, all of  this focus left me feeling tight, so this morning I did 4 different 10 minute paintings of the same piece of fruit. The total time (drawing and painting) was 10 minutes. In each one, I only marked a center grid line, while I usually divide my grids into 4 equal pieces. The mandarin was positioned stem up for the first two paintings and stem down for the last two. The non-stem side had a lovely concave depression in the center.

In the last one, I didn't have time to finish the shadow. I missed doing the highlights in #2 and #4. The third one looks much better as a picture, especially the concave part. 

#213 (collectively) - 8" x 8" - paper

I am ready to move on and paint something besides this, or any other, mandarin.

A Peachy Finish

I am fairly pleased with the colors, background, shadow, and highlights. An unexpected benefit of trying to create interesting shadows is that I'm not filling up the painting with the subject matter. For some reason, I always want to maximize the size of my subject matter and that doesn't make the overall scene very interesting.

However it wasn't supposed to end like this. The end result looks like a peach, but I was painting a murcott mandarin with a very flat top.

#211 - A Peachy Finish - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I can see, in a way that I haven't before, how paint strokes really make the shape read correctly (or not). I lack an intuitive sense about this, so I guess it's time to experiment and play. Let me rephrase that. I give myself permission to paint (and post) awkward looking items as part of figuring this out.

Paint strokes and their direction is yet another element to consider in this vast sea of skills to learn.

Backed Into A Corner

We talked about ellipses and shadows in Thursday night’s class. We also did the one stroke per color exercise. This exercise also has the added benefit of making you plan / think about your paint strokes.

Here is my painting from class.

Yesterday, I took additional time to do a better set-up. I painted a folder a medium dark color on two sides and positioned the light for some distinct and different types of shadows. I started out with one stroke per color, but abandoned that, although I did focus and plan the paint strokes in the mug. It feels like the combination of last week’s and this week’s exercises have unlocked something.

#210 - Backed Into A Corner - 6" x 6" - hard board

I am feeling inspired. When I’m operating solo, I try to mix things up, stretch myself, and keep the bad habits away. Overall, I do okay. I like experiential learning, but at some point something is missing. What’s missing are other people and seeing what they are doing. I like seeing the subject matter choices of my classmates, the composition decisions they make, the colors they mix, what they do with backgrounds, and so on. That’s just the visual stuff. I also like hearing what they have to say about their own work and what they have to say about everyone else’s work. Finally, it gives me a better context for understanding the feedback and other information that Kat provides.

At the same time, I am getting more comfortable with simple still life paintings. It really is a different thing than painting from photos and when I’m on my own, I get lazy and just work from photos. There are more colors and nuances in life.

Personal Gallery

It suddenly occurred to me that I have finished many paintings, but have very few of them out. Until recently, I mostly painted on heavy paper in spiral notebooks, which is harder to display. For this round of painting class, I've switched to hardboard. Most of these are not long-term keepers, but I still enjoy looking at them.

Problem solved! The archway and many of the window in my home have nice thick ledges. My current paintings can lean on a ledge, until I want to replace them with a new crop. Then, I can gesso over the old ones and start over. If my feelings change about any of them and they become keepers, I can always add the hardware to hang them up later.

One More Homework Painting

I did this one yesterday. The lower right corner looks off to me or maybe it's just lost in the shadow. It was fun painting the browns for this, especially the chocolate brown for the liquid and the orange/brown for the mug.

#209 - Handleless Mug - 5" x 5" - hardboard

16 Minutes

Today, the rules were unlimited drawing time, 16 minutes of active painting time, picture taking, 2-3 minutes of revisions, and lastly, picture taking, again.

Here is the result at 16 minutes.

Here is the final version.

#208 - Sturdy Mug - 6" x 6" - hardboard

The process felt less frantic, partly from adjusting to a faster pace and partly from giving myself unlimited drawing time.

20 Minutes

The stress was completely self-induced. On Monday, I tried another 20 minutes painting as part of this week's homework. This time I followed "the rules" more closely. That means I did the drawing and painting in 20 minutes. I did not pick easy subject matter for me. My subject contained several  pesky ellipses. As a result, I spent a lot of time drawing, which cause me to feel all clenched up when it came to painting. I had trouble with values, color mixing, and all the rest. Again, the stress was completely self-induced. An apple on a plate would have been a better choice.

After 20 minutes, I was at this point.

I continued to fiddle after the 20 minutes and ended up here. The plate is till wonky, but the cup shape is a bit better.

#207 - Cup & Saucer - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I did this as a timed painting and may continue to do so, since I've been battling a bad case of overworking-itis. With Sunday's timed pepper painting, it felt like a tiny step away from that. To get the benefits I want, I think I will give myself unlimited drawing time and just time the painting part.