Looking Back

When I look back over the past year, art-wise, it was a year of photography. It's not that it was any special priority. Instead, I had several, tremendously, enjoyable experiences taking pictures and I think I got some good shots.

What I like best is using the 60x zoom on my fancy, but older model, point and shoot camera to capture candid moments. It's become almost a game to try to capture what I want to capture without cropping or editing the picture afterwards.

Drawing and painting was not at my core like it's been the last several years. I suppose the best thing is that I got past my first long hiatus. It surprised me how hard it was to get my regular practice back. While I am back to painting, I hardly drew at all. When I looked back at my blog posts in 2019, I was surprised to see that I started the year working on cross-hatching. I would like to work on that in 2020.

Going back to photography, here are some of my favorite images.

Most of my favorite photos came from the week I spent at the Tofte Lake Center.

This one is new and is from Christmas Eve of a very little girl contemplating a very large box. This present wasn't directly for her, but it didn't matter.

The single most important picture from this past year is not one of great photography. In fact, it's a picture of a high school yearbook picture of my biological mother. I found it at the public library in the community where she grew up. She, along with all of her immediate family, have already died, so I don't have many opportunities to get pictures or information, so this picture is very precious to me.

I didn't write about it much on this blog, but I spent a lot of the past year making discoveries about my biological and adoptive roots.

Still Painting More Than Posting

Here's what I've been up to, recently. 

I started this one the day after Christmas. 

It was finished the day after that.

#357 - White Ceramic Mug - 6" 6" - hardboard

I completed these, since then. 

#358 - Pear - 6" x 6" - hardboard

#359 - Mandarin - 6" x 6" - hardboard

One, new, good thing is that I'm working on background colors other than blue and green. For some reason, I do a lot of blue and green backgrounds and wanted to change that. One thing is pay attention to is that I have a lot of very, very similar brush strokes. I would like to mix it up, more. 

Painting, Not Posting

I have been painting, but not posting. What can I say? It’s a busy time of year. Ever since I played with pears for a month, I’ve been more interested in trying to paint from life rather than pictures. I’m a little surprised by this, because drawing with a view finder has been frustrating. Overall, I don’t think I’m seeing particular well these days.

It’s good to have these problems and minor gripes. I’ve been finding the time to paint almost every day and that is a very, very good thing!

#353 - New Purple Teapot - 6” x 6”- hard board

This is a replacement for my prior, purple teapot which broke. This one has a shiny finish. I did not get the spout. Initially, the background was a duller version of these colors. It’s better brightened up.

Next up are two tangerines. Both of them had fairly flat tops and, once again, I’m having some difficulty representing that.

#354 - Tangerine 1 - 6” x 6” - hardboard

#355 - Tangerine #2 - 8” x 8” - paper

This morning, I did a very quick painting of a grapefruit. It wasn’t a timed painting, but I was working pretty fast since there’s a lot to do today. The shapes aren’t quite right and I got a little sloppy.

#356 - Grapefruit on Plate - 8” x 8” - paper

I am glad I squeezed in time to paint today and to post.

Several More Paintings

I am still painting. Both of these are from several days ago.

#351 - Pear - 6" x 6" - hardboard

#352 - Red Pepper - 6" x 6" - hardboard

I started another red pepper this morning, but did not finish it. Later in the day, a friend and I went to the American Swedish Institute to see the house decorated up for Christmas. Different rooms were done up in different eras of different Scandinavian countries. The Finnish room represented the future. As part of the overall description and as part of approaching the winter solstice, I copied down this part.......

“We await the winter spirits who eat the worry and darkness of the previous year and bring new light and joy. Life is good.”

May it be so for all.

One of Three Completed

Since I last posted, I have tried several cat paintings. The first two attempts, I abandon early. That's not a habit I want, so I finished this one.

#350 - Mr. Biggs - 6" x 6" - hardboard

It's funny, but I never felt like I settled in with any of the three paintings.

An Old Friend

During my diversion into watercolor, the acrylic paints were set aside. Occasionally, I added water to the palette so they wouldn’t dry out, but other than that they were ignored.

Yesterday morning and this morning, I pulled out the acrylics and it was like visiting with an old friend. The relationship felt both comfy and rusty and I felt both less in control and more in control. Mixing colors was much harder and just working with the acrylics felt unfamiliar. At the time time, in same way I can’t put into words, my understanding of the medium deepened or changed somehow and that came from working in a different medium. I don’t know if it’s simple as coming back to the medium with a fresh brain and less expectations or if it’s more than that. What I do know was that prior to taking a break from acrylics, I was in a rut. It was like running lap after lap on the same track, in the same way, in the same place, until there were deep grooves which preventing seeing other possibilities.

#348 - Pear - 6” x 6” - paper

I did both pears with a #10 brush. I want to work on my paint strokes. Too often, I think mine are big and blobby and could use more variety. Plus, playing with watercolor made me think about how to build shapes with paint strokes (and values) in a different way.

#349 - Pear - 6” x 6” - hardboard

This one is on hardboard, so I will keep it as a reminder of the great pear adventure of the last 30 days. For the rest of December, I am going to paint more on hardboard, since I haven’t done that for some time.

I Did It!

I kept up with my pledge to paint a watercolor pear each day for most of November. I am back to carving out time each day to make art, which is the best takeaway. The next best one is that it got me playing with watercolor.

On those days, I could get out of my own head and do rather than think, I had better results. This, literally, was hard to do. It was a bit of a fraught month with family issues, but it also was a problem inherent to me with this medium. Having to wait for things to dry gives me too much time to start thinking and I would find myself picking up the brush when it would have been better to sit, wait, and let things be for awhile.

Over the course of the last month, I've frequently walked away thinking that less really is more. Most of the time, I found (and continue to find) myself doing more, more, and more. Eventually, I hope to find my way to less. For example, my favorite pear is here. I tried to emulate this one again, but never could. This one just happened in the moment.

Since I haven't posted for awhile, here are several pears from the week of Thanksgiving. I did not have an actual pear. I was working from "memory". From these, I can see a bad habit of making things too symmetrical. This also happens to me when I work from life of a picture. That said in the top one and in some of the other ones farther below, I got better at capturing the top of the pear, so that it was in a different plane than the body.

I was gone over Thanksgiving. Once I got back, I had access to actual pears again. These are from last night. I've been in a bit of a rut. Last night, in the last few minutes of painting, I made a conscious effort to let go and just explore in the bottom one.

This morning, I made another conscious effort to try and stay loose and ended with this one. It's a good ending to a fruitful (tee hee) month.

I like that it suggests pear rather than screams it.

Where does that leave me? Ready to paint something besides pears, although I am going to do 1 - 2 in acrylic paint to see what happens. I am going to start watching this on line class. Having played with watercolor on my own, I think I'm ready for it. I purchased it several years ago and while it is for all abilities, I think I will get more out of it now. Otherwise, I don't know, but I am committed to keeping up the daily habit.