Drawing Project

Yesterday when I read Roz’s blog post about projects, an idea flashed in my head to work on finishing one small, daily, quick portrait. I decided to make this a project. The plan is to spend 15 - 20 minutes per portrait and to shoot for 6 days per week. The overall goal is to get back to daily or almost daily creating. 

I started yesterday. Both the drawing from yesterday and today were done with a 6B pencil. I am using rather small paper and a dull pencil, so fine details are out. That makes it easier to “finish” a drawing.  

I am not posting the source photos, which come from the Museum app. For the top drawing, both eyes were looking up and I only got that with one eye. When drawing females, it’s hard not to “age” them. I really enjoyed trying to capture the shapes of her hair. 

Art 4 Shelter 2025

 I don’t have as any paintings as in the past, although I don’t think I did any last year. 

Here’s the one from the homework assignment from the latest session of Kat’s painting class.

I’ve still been working on copying paintings and one of the things I’ve been doing is copying some citrus paintings of Elena Katsyura.  She is on the web and Daily Paintworks.  I love the glow she gets.  I believe she is working in oil.  Given that and the limited palette, I am not getting that, but it’s been a fun exploration.  Here are two from life.  

The last thing to share is a quick drawing with my beloved Neocolor II crayons.  This is not for Art 4 Shelter.  I just wanted to do something this morning and didn’t have much time.  

The ground is from a mixture of color and pastel ground thinned with a bit of water.  It was a 15 minute or so quick study using one of the above pieces. It was fun, since I haven’t had the Neo IIs out for a long time. I am getting a knee replacement in a few weeks and wanted to have some easily accessible art materials to use as a I recover. 

The rind color needs to be a bit more distinct from the background. 

Transition

The last two weeks of art class involved landscapes and pets.  Working on a landscape that I started, but did not finish, and one that I did finish brought back all my insecurities in a surprising way.  Given that and the end of class, I stumbled a bit, but pushed through to not lose the painting habit.  

Here is the landscape that I brought to class.  

The week had some unexpected demands on my time, so I only painted on Sunday and Friday and I rushed the ending to just get it done.  At the same time, one of the lessons from Kat really sunk in about squinting and look for big shapes.  When I was mostly done, I caught a glimpse of my photo across the room, squinted and saw that my reference photo was mostly made up of 3 sets of shapes from the greenery along the edge, the bowl of the falls and the falls.  I don’t think I tend to notice things with this type of cohesion and I think this will help as I continue to practice.  

Here are a couple of cat paintings. 

One thing I want to focus on is paint strokes!  When I’m doing simple objects like fruit, I like the blockiness I get a lot of the time.  With a complicated structure, I don’t know what to do.  So much to learn!  

One of the people in class mentioned copying paintings off of Pinterest and she had an owl painting.  I went out and pinned some cat and owl paintings and.want to work off of some of these to see what I can bring back to my paintings.  I’m not sure it’s appropriate to post a picture of the entire copy, so here’s a partial.  

It was a good learning experience.  I’ve never done this and think I could learn a lot.  

Best of all, I am still painting and will continue to post, but probably not as much as I did the first few years after I started.  

Try Harder Things

That is the theme of the next two paintings to share - - try harder things.  I remember the first time I tried to paint a cat.  I was slightly terrified.  The painting represented the best I could do at the time and I have always felt a tiny bit of pride when I look at that painting on this blog.  No one would say it was a good painting, but I faced my fear and did it anyway and that was the start of working to learn how to paint a better cat portrait.

I like buildings and structures and Brendon Farley’s paintings of scene of the streets and alley’s of South Minneapolis and I have been afraid to try doing that. 

One of the homework assignments for today’s class was to painting something from outside your window.  While I miss the tree that used to be in the alley next to my garage (and I wonder if it will impact my hummingbird sightings this year since that was the best place for a hummingbird to perch to guard two of my feeders), I do like looking out the kitchen window at my purple garage and across the alley to the neighbor’s house and garage.  I love color and the pop of the orange-red of the flat part of the neighbor’s garage is always fun to see.  

I took a picture of that, cropped it, and painted it and I felt a bit of that same rush from trying something that I am afraid to try and I think I found a little more freedom to keep trying paintings like this, so I can get better at them. 

One of the many challenges was how to make paint strokes interesting when you are painting a flat surface with straight edges like a garage door or all that sky, since I edited out some trees  I plan to ask Kat about that in class.  Also, how can I imply the boards of wood on my garage, instead of making them so obvious.  That’s just a few of the things!

Last week, I tried to paint the tiny glass bottle and an orange in Kat’s class and it was hard. She let me borrow it and I gave it a second try, which I think shows improvement from the first try.  I also had fun with the pepper. 

I have been painting most days, not every day, and I am so thrilled to be back at it.  It was a long and frustrating drought. 

Paint Something In Your Bathroom

One of the assignments for class yesterday was to paint something in your bathroom.  I was planning to do that on Friday, but did not factor in my morning eye appointment.  When I came home, my eyes were dilated and I figured I would not be able to do this.  By the afternoon with my eyes back to normal and carving out an hour to paint, I did this.

This one is for Art 4 Shelter.  

I had so much fun giving this a try and I am pleased with how it turned out.

Between this painting and yesterday’s class, it feels like I have my groove back. I am inspired.  I have a mental list (that I really should write down) of things I want to try.  I want to push myself.  

There is so much to learn and try.  I would like to improve my compositions.  Here are several attempts.  I am not thrilled with the results, but it felt really good to give both of these a try.  Although I got frustrated with the spoon and just stopped working on it. 

 

10 Minutes For A Painting

I have been painting more and blogging less.

Last Saturday in class, it was the 10-minute painting exercise and I felt really good in class.  All the sludge going on in the world receded and I felt very present and open.  

It’s a nice group of women and a big part of what I enjoy is seeing what other people are doing.  We are using the same materials and working on the same assignments for the most part.  The biggest variation between people seems to be paint brushes.  

It’s fascinating what people do.  One person uses a tiny brush and just sets things up and goes to work.  One person for last week’s homework took a deep dive into shiny things and the colors she found in the shine was amazing.  

I always feel so inspired.  

It can be hard to put your own work up for others to see.  After that initial reluctance, it’s okay.  Enough time has passed that everything looks a little better for a fresh eye than I might have recalled.  

In class last week, we did the 10 minute painting exercise.  In one of my spiral notebooks, I already had an 8” x 8” ready to go where the ground was pink and I had brought a green apple. 

While I can’t quite replicate this exercise as well at home, the forced pressure and limitation of doing a 10 minute 2” x 2” painting 4 different times is actually freeing.  There is no “do not”.   There is only do and even if the piece ends up with significant issues, there is something magical about the process and result as well.  You are in the moment.  Some decisions work out.  Some don’t.  While there is pressure, the stakes are very low and it’s a good way to get into “the zone”. 

I like painting on black, but, occasionally, it’s also fun to try a different ground.  When I do this and my first stroke goes down, my visceral reaction is slight panic.  OMG.  What have I done?  This color is not behaving the way it should.  The passes quickly and it’s time to get to work.

Here’s what I did in class.  

Since class last Saturday, I have done 2 more sets of 10 minute paintings, although I did cheat and go longer on several ones.  Also, time constraints meant that I would do 2 of them and go back and do the other two later.  You lose a bit by not doing 4 of them. 

Pears could become my favorite fruit to paint.  

Someone in class last week had some lovely deep red apple paintings.  I find it difficult to paint deep red apples and decided to give it a go.  I think I still need to add some more white and have been practicing this in some other paintings.  

For the rest of these, I’ve been trying to do 37 paint strokes or less, although I always seem to lose count, or trying to limit the time spent painting. 

This one was painted on a green background. I’ve been playing around with using a flat brush rather than a bright.  I can get juicier paint strokes with the flat, but my edges get sloppy and I’ve been losing the outer shape of what I’ve been painting quite a bit.  That happened with this one.  I also find that I tend to lose shape more often or worse on the left side of things and I have no idea why. 

For some reason, this one really annoyed me until I noticed the top.  Here’s a crop of just that. 

This pear seems boring to me.  

I took an in process photo of this pear painting.  

This was a 15 minute painting and I got too fussy and lost my original paint strokes.  

There is so much to learn and so many experiments to try and I am really thrilled to be back and painting more regularly.  

Missed Class. Been Sick.

 The second painting class was last Saturday and I woke up with a 101 degree fever, so no painting class for me!  When Kat sent out the class recap, it sounds like they did the one stroke per color, but in addition in her recap email she mentioned 37 brush strokes method.  On a whim, I did a google search and the best thing I found was this from the Painters Keys.  I also saved this with a bookmark.  When class is done, I am going to do this for 1 month and I am going to reread this letter.  It really spoke to me and it got me started.  The first few strokes were much more dynamic.  The finish was not, but I caught a glimpse and have something to strive for. That was the mug in the group below.

Here are some of things I’ve been painting.  I’ve been trying to paint every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. 

Orange Baseballs

I am painting again.  Last week, I saw that Kat Corrigan was starting up a session of painting classes and I signed up.  The first class was Saturday and it seems like a nice group, as always. 

I started painting a bit on my own prior to that and I am so, so, so out of practice.  It’s sad to be so out of practice and struggling with my paint brush, shapes, values, mixing colors and all of it.  At the same time, I feel comfortable with practice that it will come back.  However where I am at right now is that I have painted a series of orange baseballs.  

Here is the latest one.  It’s not where I want, but I can also see improvement.  

I am shooting for painting everyday, but not sweating it if I miss some days here and there.  Kat suggested that we try to shoot for 4 pieces to bring each week and that seems like a good pace. 

Since I have been sick and haven’t been going to the gym in the morning, I’ve been going down to paint in the morning.  This morning, I had a wonderful experience.  I got to the flow state.  In the past, I’ve written out this as that glorious place where I get to the other side of my brain and I really do think that’s what happens. 

This morning, I was working along and I just got into a groove.  I felt like I could see better, that I could mix better (although I switched to using a pear) and all of it.  It’s like a veil lifts and I am fully present. 

It’s the best feeling ever.  It clears my brain and leaves me feeling refreshed.  I don’t try to force this, but sometimes I wonder if I paint more for this experience rather than the end result.  

Garden Flower

I am slowly working my way through the first painting in Jim Musil’s online class.  The class seems well organized and thought out and he is teaching his process.  My progress on the one painting that he covered in month of May has been slow for many reasons.  I hope to finish this week.  

On a different note, the irises in my gardens have been spectacular this year.  I kept wanting to do something with the purple ones by the alley, but they have come and gone.  The same is true with the Siberian irises. They are getting close to being done.

When it was lightly raining this morning, I went out and cut one that still looks pretty good.  I brought it in and went down and tried some rough sketches of the shapes. 

Nothing fancy and no goal to capture an actual likeness.   It felt good to have a pencil in my hand and explore.

Off On Another Tangent

I have gone off on another tangent. I think it will be a good one and lead me back to having a regular art practice again. I started following an artist, Jim Musil on Instagram and he started to offer an on-line subscription to learn his process.  At first, I signed up for 1 month, but when I saw the quality of what he was offering, I changed that to a full year subscription.  

His process is very different. One thing he does is create his images from a combo of drawings, photos, and artificial intelligence, so it is heavily composed.  The first month was focused on his painting process, so this will be shared later.  Another big difference is that we also are using fluid acrylics. 

I think it's going to be a good contrast to what I've learned and how I've worked up until now.

There also is a very active Facebook group and it seems like a good group of people.  People are both kind and constructive in their comments.  

We are all working on off of the same image.  Here are the process photos so far the very beginning with creating a drawing using graphite tracing paper through painting the light clouds.  

These clouds may not be 100% finished, but they are far enough along that I don't want to do anything else with them until I'm farther along with the rest of the painting. They turned out okay.  Actually, I feel pretty good about them given that it's the first time trying this, along with everything else that is new.

That's all for now about this. 

I'm not being chronological with this post.  Here is the last piece I did for Art 4 Shelter.  This was with Neocolor IIs.

Several to Share

I have been working slowly and with what seems like a lot of layers.  There are several pieces that I am not sharing, but here are two I will share.  I would like to get better at showing brushstrokes with the Neocolor IIs.

This week I also went to an informative and interesting talk about paper-making at Wet Paint.  Since I don’t work with watercolor, it was not as applicable to what I do, but it was fascinating.

Cake, Take 2

It was really fun to revisit this piece. I like more things about this version than the first version.  

I plan to revisit the other two pieces of artwork we copied as part of the Neocolor class that I took at Wet Paint. 

Mind Blown

Recently, I finished reading Get The Picture by Bianca Bosker and several pages towards the end  completely blew my mind in the best way possible.  Big picture, all of it relates to the idea of color constancy.  It's easier for me to just share a clip from Wikipedia to explain it.

"Color constancy is an example of subjective constancy and a feature of the human color perception system which ensures that the perceived color of objects remains relatively constant under varying illumination conditions. A green apple for instance looks green to us at midday, when the main illumination is white sunlight, and also at sunset, when the main illumination is red. This helps us identify objects."

In the book, an example is given related to Claude Monet and his paintings of Rouen Cathedral at different times of day.  In one of his renditions, it's a painting from the morning and the stone masonry is painted dark blue.  The book explains this was not artistic license, but probably came from Monet's ability to be able to override his brain's color constancy mechanisms and that there are people who can do this.  Mostly artists.  The scientist that the author was talking to thought that artists have the capability to switch this ability on when they want.  

This was at the end of several pages where it talked both about how miraculous our vision is in how it can make sense of things, but then it went into how our vision gets filtered and constrained by expectations.  

It also made me immediately thing of an early painting of Hammett.  I am sure that I posted about this one, but I can't find it in my blog and I didn't put the date of the painting on the back.  Darn.  Anyway, here is the finished piece from long, long ago.

My guess is that this was from the 2nd set of painting classes that I took from Kat.  One week, we used tracing paper for the image and this was the painting that I did.  While working on it in class, I got stumped on the colors and I remember Kat coming over and asking me what colors did I see in the shadowed areas of his face.  She was very patient, because I had to look for quite some time because I just couldn't see what color it was.  At some point, it's like a veil lifted and I could see a color, but I didn't believe it.  Finally, I muttered in a questioning tone "purple"?  

Even when I said it I still didn't quite believe it.  While the inside of his ears frequently are a light pink or purple, I've looked at this cat a lot in real life and I've never seen purple.  If there was such a thing as a cat with purple fur (naturally not dyed), I am quite certain that I would want one.

I wasn't blogging much when I took the most recent set of painting classes with Kat at the beginning of last year, but another interesting thing happened with seeing color.  When we were painting oranges, I suddenly became aware of or could finally see the color of the shadow that bounced back up on the orange.  If I put the orange on a blue piece of paper I could see the blue that bounced back up on the orange on the dark side of the orange.  I remember feeling slightly bit giddy about this, plus it was so much fun to paint these crazy color shadows.  I really do wish I was actively blogging when it happened, but I still remember the feeling.   

Both of these are strong memories and it's interesting to have a little better idea of what happened and why it's been so hard in the first place. 

I know artists can just geek around color and it works if you get the values right, but I also think a lot of the time they are just seeing more than the average person.  

All of this is fascinating.  

Third Sitting

I'm done.  I added a background and fussed with a few details.  Backgrounds challenge me and after I was done I had a different idea about what I could have done, but overall I had a really good experience with this one.

A few of the others that I've finished recently (not the copies from class) will probably go to Art 4 Shelter.  This one will for sure. 

Also, I wanted to post the last copied piece of artwork from the Neocolor II class at Wet Paint Art.  The original piece was Andre Derain's portrait of Matisse.  I really need to do a better job of lightening my pencil lines before I get started.  I do not like them peaking through.  As much as I love color, it actually made me nervous, especially in the background and in the jacket, to have such differents in color and shapes just next to each other without understanding why.  That means it was a good thing to do, since bumping up against those self imposed constrictions in my brain is part of what all of this is about for me. 

One last thing.....I found a new app that I like.  It's called DrawingGrid.  There is an Apple version and an Android version.  It is very easy to use and it has a diagonal feature that I like.  It really helps my drawing.  I have finally made peace with the fact that while I want to continue to learn how to draw it works 1,000 times better for me to use a grid when I am drawing something to paint. I just don't see well enough.  The grid and diagonal lines both are a useful tool and they help me see things and relationships better and I am finally okay with that.  

Occasionally if I am planning to paint from something relatively simple in nature like this one I might free-hand draw it, but otherwise it's the DrawingGrid for me. 

 

After Two Sittings

I hope to finish this one tomorrow.  Here's where I ended up after my first sitting last night.

Here's where I ended up tonight. 

Water based media is very, very different, but I am having fun exploring.  I like the Stonehenge paper in the craft color. 

How To Bee Better?

I am still working with Neocolor IIs.  Here are 3 pieces using pictures in my yard.  The most recent one is on the top.  It is on black paper.  It’s hard to get coverage, but I also like how the colors behave. I also like the top of the flower and the bee the in this one.

The other two don’t do much for me, but working on the same subject matter multiple times was useful.

I am interested in figuring out how to blend better when I am using these more like watercolor.

Copied Artwork #2

For the second week of class, we treated the Neocolor IIs like watercolor.  Since I have not played much with water based media, I found the blending to be challenging.  This took me about 4 sittings to complete.  Class finished up this past Thursday, so I am a bit behind.  When I am done, I am thinking about doing a second version of each piece.

Here is an in process shot.

After spending so much time on this one, I’m looking forward to seeing a Georgia O’Keefe in person.  I think I will appreciate it more. 

Hodge Podge

Before I started the class at Wet Paint, I pulled out the Neocolor IIs and started a piece the way I used to use them (small piece on its side and layering up color).  It didn’t get finished before class started.  When I  pulled it out to work on, I tried doing what we did in class last week on top (filling in color and activating it with water).  Last night, I decided to finish it and I scribbled, painted, or whatever.

One of the many things I love about the Neocolor IIs is their opacity, making it possible to try and fix things.  A lot of the time I find that my lights need to be lighter. For this one, I used the side of a white piece, plus some scribbles to make that happen.

The photo I used was from a trip I took in the fall. I didn’t know what flower was, but I liked the crazy center part.  Using Google Lens, I believe this is a Japanese anemone.