Hello There

I have been painting more days than not, but my time has been limited and I haven't had much to say. I was a little afraid to finish the painting from my most recent post, so I put it off. This is the second version of a background. I didn't like the first version and I don't like this one. The cool color seems worse than the warmer color of the first version, but I think I'm done and I'm moving on.

I really enjoyed painting from a picture with dark, dramatic lighting and painting with such a different aspect ratio. I will use the source picture again and I would like to think about other pictures I can crop with this ratio.

#336 - Mr. Biggs - Drama Shot - 5" x 10" - paper

One other interesting thing about this painting. When I was painting the cat, it was easier to stay in the world of values and value shapes. When I was painting the bed frame, I found myself painting a bed frame.

Since it's almost the end of May, I also did three paintings from life. Each was excruciating. For one of them, I really wanted to paint my heavy, white/beige, glazed mug, but I struggled with the view finder. Since it's almost June, I am thinking about picking up a simple roundish fruit from the store and doing some 10 minute paintings to get past this. 

I am willing to share the painting of one of my other ceramic mugs.

#338 - Mug - 6" x 6" - paper

I had some trouble with my paint brush. There's a part of the background near the lip at the top where I tried to fix a boo-boo. The paint stroke direction and the paint color makes it visually confusing between the edge of the lip and the background. Also, the handle of the mug at the bottom doesn't connect quite right. Right next to that, there is a part that juts out a bit which was very, very light, but my brush stroke was way too big and makes it look kike the light part goes down to the bottom. It doesn't and that creates some confusion about the bottom of the mug and the background. 

I think some 10-minute paintings and maybe grabbing a few spring flowers in my yard and just painting without going for accuracy might be the ticket for getting out of my painting malaise.