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.

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.

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.

My Eyes

As much as I grouse about how poorly I see, I am feeling vastly superior to my camera phone this morning. I have been working on drawing a single iris flower last night and this morning. I remembered a small, handmade vase I can use to prop up a single large flower or several smaller flowers. Mostly, I just enjoy flowers out in my yard, due to El Destructo 1 (Chandler) and El Destructo 2 (Hammett).

The bearded irises in my yard are past their peak. I thought I would try to paint them this year, but was too busy cleaning up the gardens, an ongoing project. Rather than completely missing the opportunity, I brought one in last night to draw. I also drew it this morning before I started to work from home.

My camera phone simply cannot capture the depth and richness of the color. I tried with several different backgrounds in the house. Earlier in the week, I also have tried taking pictures of them in the yard at different times of the day. These irises are that deep, rich purple, which is a true purple but is more closely related to cobalt blue than the camera can pick up. Cobalt blue seems like it would be a third cousin to the color in the picture, but in life it's more of a first cousin. The phone sees the color with too much red in it. Also what I see in life, the form and structure of the flower has so much more depth, volume, and beauty than the camera captures.

Here's the best, quick picture I could take.

While my drawings were not blind contour, I consciously tried to look much, much more at the flower than at my paper. This flower made for very good practice, since there are a lot of edges which curl back onto themselves. I find this to be a particular challenge to process and draw correctly. This morning, I also tried to draw smaller. All of these fit onto a 10" x 10" page. Last night, I did a similar number of drawings, but used 3 sheets to do it. For me, it's not so much about burning through paper. I would like to have more control and I feel like I drawing from life in one size, large. I'd like to add medium to the mix.

Last night's and this morning's drawings felt really good. I got out of the word processing side of my brain. It also gave me a boost of self confidence, since my painting has currently plateaued and even taking a step backwards. Yesterday with two timed paintings of a lime, I could not get the lime, a spherical object, to have depth and volume to it.

Another One For Art 4 Shelter (And Another Revisit)

Art 4 Shelter is going to be at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, this year on May 9th. It's mind-boggling to think that I am sending in paintings for the 3rd year. I still feel like such a beginner. How could it be the 3rd time? It still does cause a little angst and causes the internal critic to make an appearance.

I went back to revisit the peony. The last time the decision to "suggest" a second flower at the bottom of the painting really annoyed me. I'm not sure if this was the editor or the critic, but I decided to give this one another go. This time I tried to "suggest" the irises in the background of the actual picture. Overall, I like this version better.

#189 - Peony - 5" x 7" - paper - standard palette

I also went back and added a few strokes to Dorian, the value cat. Two things bothered me in the original version. First, her chest didn't seem grounded enough. Second, the outline of her face on the left side seemed to just float in the world of black. I added some additional brush strokes and I like the end result better.

Take that internal critic!

Finished Flower, Plus Cabin Sunset

I finished the second version of the pansy. It was interesting that this is the first time that I did not try to represent the little black lines that appear on the lower petals. Guess what! You don’t need them. I also added another layer of color in the flower petals. I think that helped.

#186 - Pansy in Pot - 6" x 6" - hardboard - alternative palette

Over time, I want to paint up a bunch of 6” x 6” paintings on hardboard. I want them to be of things which have some sort of meaning to me. The other day, I realized that much of the wood work in the living room and dining room is perfect for perching this very size of painting.  My goal is to fill these spaces with paintings over time and to make sure that they are not all paintings of cats.

Next up, I revisited a scene of a cabin sunset.

#187 - Sunset on Dock - 8" x 10" - paper - standard palette

While it's getting better, I still struggle with a complicated scene like this. In this version, I think that sunset and reflection of the sunset is much better than in the past. The sky and water look more distinct from one another, although I do think the far shoreline needs a tab more weight. That's all I'm going to say.

It would be easy to point out the things that I don't like. Unfortunately, I've been fighting some negative situations in life and it's spilled over into how I look at my paintings. This is temporary. It will pass. For now, I  am only willing to write down what I like or find positive as a way to also fight the negativity.

Bully On The Playground And Other Thoughts About Color

Where did the last 1 1/2 weeks go?  It doesn't seem as though that much time has past since my last post.  Last weekend was devoted to the MONDO juggling & unicycle festival.  I've also been taking some time to watch the Olympics in the evening, but still the last 1 1/2 weeks flew by.

Since my last post, I finished up the deer painting.  This is the second painting from the same picture.  The last time was almost a year ago.

#184 - Deer In Woods - 5" x 7" - paper - alternative palette

I also fussed with a painting a pansy in a pot.  I am a bit sentimental about this picture, since I grew the flower from seed. I've painted from this picture before.  The most recent time was three months ago.  The time before that was more than a year ago. 

#185 - Pansy In Pot - 6" x 6" hardboard - std palette

Fussed is the accurate word for this one, especially with the flower.  I struggle whenever I want a "purer" yellow or orange that is saturated. So I paint and I paint over and I paint over and I don't like the end result. When I'm doing the tawny oranges of the orange cats, I've got blue mixed in to help give the color strength.

This time, I sat back and realized I used my standard palette.  My standard palette consists of primary yellow, titanium white, quinacridone magenta, pthalo blue green shade, and pthalo blue red shade.  My alternative palette replaces the yellow with hansa yellow opaque and the red shade of blue with ultramarine blue.  While I've been painting with both palettes and noticing the differences, I haven't really thought about it in a focused way.

Meet my two different yellow colors.

The difference in strength is apparent.  The top row is "pure" color not toned down with white at all.  The hansa yellow opaque was a little dry on my palette, so it went on heavier than usual.  I compensated by doing two layers of paint for the primary yellow and the primary yellow still could not keep up.  While I am willing to concede that part of my problem is skill and experience, I am a little tired of fighting with my yellow paint.  On the back of the paint tubes, the difference in these two yellows is in the opacity and tinting strength and hansa yellow opaque is stronger in both categories.  

I also decided to compare my blue paint.  

I have enjoyed using the ultramarine blue.  It's easier for me to use and I figured out why.  Pthalo blue red shade is the playground bully on my palette.  It's the middle color. In the top row, it's pretty darn close to being the same value as the black gesso.  While the other two blues are dark, they aren't quite as dark and enveloping as pthalo blue red shade.

Since I've only recently figured out that I need to use a lot more white paint with all of my paint colors, it's no wonder that I let pthalo blue red shade dominate. This should be an easy bully to tame.  

In comparing the blue paint side by side, I noticed something else.  I like how the two pthalos related to each other.  They compliment each other in a pleasing way.  I don't find that when I look at ultramarine blue and pthalo blue green shade.  I'm not sure it makes that much difference in color harmony when using a limited color palette, but for now it's a reason to stick with pthalo blue red shade. 

Once I'm done with the primary yellow on my main palette, the refill is going to be with hansa yellow opaque.  I think I'll keep my alternative palette going and it will have primary yellow and ultramarine blue. 

This morning, I started a new pansy painting with my alternative palette, so I could see if the flower colors improved.  I think they did, although I still needed more than one layer of color. I'm still a long way from painting a flower with lyrical paint strokes, but trying is easier with the stronger yellow. 

Peony

I really wish that I hadn't tried to add the portion of the second flower at the bottom of the photo. That was an unfortunate choice.

#182 - Garden Peony - #182 - 5" x 7" - paper - alternative palette

I have a long history with this particular plant. It self-seeded in the yard and I had to wait 3 growing seasons to see what color the flowers would be.

Hummingbird - Take 2

I started this one back in the middle of Thanksgiving. After drawing it out and starting the bird, it got put aside. It was my main project this week.

#158 - Hummingbird In Flowers - 8" x 10" - paper - alt palette (both blue & yellow) 

I did not fuss with this one nearly as much as the first time back in October. Plus, the values are better in this one. I am so glad for the breakthrough over Thanksgiving. I just feel a bit more in control of an important aspect of painting!

This one will get another try, since I want to figure out better paint strokes for the flowers. There's also the issue of masses of shapes versus painting the individual flowers and I'd like to explore and play with that.

It's Not A Cat!

That's what he said when I first showed him this painting.

#167 - Peony In Yard - 8" x 8" - paper - alternative blue

This one was painted both from looking at the original photo (below, which was cropped) and a version of the photo in my beloved app, Notanizer. I'm not sure that I would have painted the darkest parts of the flower dark enough if it wasn't for the app. When you look at the flower in 4-values with this app, the darkest parts of the flower are black. My eyes / brain still want to stay, but wait! I know it's a dark value, but how can it be that dark when the native color is white. Actually, that's not 100% true. I'm finally starting to get it, but it's taken a long time and I suspect that I will continue to struggle with this. It made me think about the donut painting from painting class last fall and the follow-up donut painting. While I may not be the quickest at picking up on these concepts, I don't give up either. 

I think my lightest colors in the flower and the darkest ones are pretty good. The middle values could probably use some more distinction between them. I've wanted to try and paint from this picture for some time, but didn't know how to approach it. I knew that I didn't want to try and paint every petal, so I wasn't sure what to do. What I decided was to try a mix of going with the shapes and going for the feeling of the petals. 

For a person who loves bright, bright colors, it always surprises me how much I enjoy painting different types of white. When I looked at the picture, there were yellowy whites, gray whites and pink whites. 

I did this in one sitting, yesterday. It went fairly quickly. I'm still getting over my cold, so the analytical part of my brain was too tired to get in the way. That made doing the background easier. For a change, I didn't over-think it. 

Busy, Busy, Busy, Busy

In spite of being busy, busy, busy, busy, I have been drawing and painting every day. Although, it's not as much as I would like nor as much focused as I would like. Painting comes at the beginning of the day. If it's a work day, I may only spend 5-10 minutes, but that's better than skipping a day. Plus, it is a great way to start the day. No matter what the day is going to bring, I start it with a bit of high-quality me time. Drawing mostly comes at the end of the day. While I post almost all of my paintings, I'm only posting an occasional drawing.

I finished this painting yesterday. While I'm not thrilled with the paint strokes in the flower, I do like the colors. I found a new app to help with values. Value Viewer is app that I was using and I love that one, but it has not been updated to the new iOS. Notanizer is the app that I found last week and will use until, hopefully, Value Viewer gets updated.

#156 - Pansy in Purple Pot - 8" x 10" - alt blue

 I have also been drawing. I signed up for Liz Steel's Foundations class awhile back. I am only on the second lesson. This is partly because I've been busy and partly because I got distracted with leaves. I really enjoyed drawing leaves and I miss them.

This is a blind contour drawing from one of the exercises. It's almost relaxing to do these. You know you aren't going for a finished drawing, but you are working on getting your eyes and hands to work together better. While I was drawing this, I was thinking about edges and lines. While these never end up looking like much, I do see progress! I did not cheat at all by looking either time, so I was pleasantly surprised with the "relative" cohesion. In both drawings, I set up and used a box of Morton's salt with a bowl of small, homegrown potatoes in front.

This was followed up with a continuous line drawing. Those pesky ellipses are still a challenge and I didn't quite get the potatoes positioned in the bowl. The second try with just the bowl was better.  

Last, but not least, when I came home from work late one night rather frazzled, I did a partial drawing of a cut up pepper followed by drawing the right side again, since I wanted to improve upon my first attempt. It still surprises me how much my brain will feel almost cleansed after doing a bit of drawing where I am concentrating. After some of my long days at work, I've really needed that!

Hummingbird At The Cabin

When I was at the family cabin of a friend this summer, I managed to get a photo of a hummingbird in the phlox. The resident hummingbirds feed from the hummingbird feeder, so it was surprising seeing one feeding from the flowers. My photo was a bit blurry, but still I was lucky to get a picture at all. These little birds move so fast.

147 - Hummingbird At The Cabin

The flowers required capturing a bunch of fussy, little details, which also means that there are a lot of decisions to make. I knew I couldn't do this in one sitting. Even with working on it 3 separate times, I still need more stamina. My brain just gets tired. This is an 8 x 10 and was painted with my standard colors.

This painting looks better at a distance, plus the photo looks better than the actual painting. I will give this one another try. Now that I'm looking at the above photo as a type up this post, I especially like the flower directly above the bird's head. It has some depth to it and captures the light.

Good First Attempt

For last night's daily drawing, I went over and worked on sketching some of my neighbor's lilies in bloom. The mosquitoes were out, so I finished up inside sketching a cloth rose that someone gave me. Since one of the things for the next painting club meeting is flowers, I figured I'd try some flower sketches as a way to practice seeing a flower as a bunch of shapes.

I'm not sure what to think, although this sketch is slowly growing on me (and yes, I did mean to include a groan-worthy play on words).

There are so many shapes and details that it mostly felt like an accomplishment to not get completely lost. Back in May, I remember doing just that in a sketch of an iris bloom where I was looking straight down at the flower. I got lost and had to abandon that sketch.  The right side of the flower is a little on the flat side and I'm not sure that I captured all of the detail in the center, but I still think this was a worthy first attempt of a complicated subject. It has some good shapes. Plus, this was a good opportunity to play with hatching. One thing I learned was that it really helped me make the dark crevices on the left side of the flower dark enough.

I will return to this as a test subject for sketching some time in the future!

Flower In My Garden 1

The first iris bloomed in my yard yesterday. Tonight, I came home from work, did a quick drawing, and painted it with watercolor. I also did my homework for class and posted about it in the class forum.  I'm passing on documenting it here, since I'm tired and going to bed!

Sketchbook!!

I would like to start keeping a sketchbook. While doing scribble-type drawings is fine, I'd like to start documenting things in my life, and think about layout and design. It would be fun to develop some skills with this. I love the idea of being able to capture some of the small special moments of day to day life or those unique ones from traveling. One thing that I like about drawing and painting is that it  can sear a moment in time in your heart and brain.

Since I enjoy gardening and growing things, inspiration over the spring, summer, and fall is readily available. Today, I went out and captured one of my rhubarb plants. It's still early in the growing season, so the plant is not full sized yet.

I'm also debating whether or not to sign up for another online class. There is one that starts tomorrow. I'm not sure that I have the time, but I am really intrigued. There's lifetime access to the content, so I suppose the worse that can happen is that I will fall behind (like I have on several other classes).

Art 4 Shelter 2017 - 2nd Mailing

I mailed 8 pieces for Art 4 Shelter back in March. The original batch was painted from June of 2016 through March 2017. Since March, I've done 8 more pieces for the event, so it's time to mail these in. My goal after last year's event was to create one piece per month.

I branched out with this batch, which is one of the things that I like about making things for this event.

I tried painting wildlife from nature pictures taken by my friend, Jeff. For the deer, it's amazing how much the tiny dots of white in the eyes make them come alive.

I tried some pen and ink drawings. These were a blast and were a fun way to focus on values.

There's one water lily painting.

Of course, there are more paintings of cats. There can never be too many paintings of cats!

Close examination will show that one of the pen and ink drawings and one of the paintings was from the same source picture.

This Weekend

I had a lot of output this weekend, since I was away for an arts and crafts focused weekend. We stayed in a state park. Everyone did their own thing, so there were many different activities going on. I brought up knitting, acrylic, watercolor, and drawing. Since there wasn't any WiFi, I got a little behind on my Sketchbook Skool class, but I don't mind and it certainly was not a problem to not have WiFi. All that meant was that I did not do much drawing from life, since I needed to watch the Sketchbook Skool assignments, but I did a little bit of  everything else. Plus, the Sketchbook Skool class that I am enrolled in, Seeing, goes for six weeks and I was bound to get behind at some point!

I did do a few quick sketches, although it was hard to concentrate. There was a lot of hubbub in a small amount of space. Hopefully as I get better drawing skills, that won't be a problem. these tangerines could have used more work and some corrections, especially to the top one. Still, I enjoyed trying to capture the values and shapes with different directions of pencil marks. 

While I worked on a double-knitted hat for a friend, my main goal was to start a scarf that I intend to finish and enter in this year's state fair. The pattern is called winter birch. It's two-color brioche knitting and it's the most complicated thing that I've done. With two-color brioche, you have a "separate" front and back. For the front, you work across with one color of yarn, slide back to the beginning and work the other color of yarn. For the back, you essentially do the same thing. On top of that every row in this pattern is different and there are about 1,000,000 symbols (slight exaggeration) to look up to see what you should be doing. I got about 3 inches done before I figured out that I made an error the last time I was working a row on the front side with the light-colored yarn. That means I have to rip back 4 rows to make the correction. At the time I made this discovery, my brain was too fried. When I took the brioche knitting class from Nancy Marchant, she cautioned not to do brioche when you are tired.

With unlimited time, I finally had time to try a grand experiment! Many years ago at Art 4 Shelter, I purchased the following pen and ink, called "House Cat" by the artist, Mary Lingen. It's completely done in hexagons. I love this piece. I had it framed and it hangs upstairs.

Nope, it's not by me. It's "House Cat" by Mary Lingen.

Some time last year I read a blog post where a person talked about drawing little circular shapes that touch each other and just letting the overall shape grow in whatever direction(s) you want. I don't remember where I found the blog post, but it's a really meditative form of doodling. You get these beautiful shapes. It also does not require any thought, so it works in meetings where you are bored out of your mind, but have to pay attention. 

I've been wanting to try and do a value study using circles, just to see if I could do it and see what type of result that I would get. This piece is 5" x 7". My source picture was 8" x 10" and already had grid lines on it. I decided "what the heck" it will make the dimensions a bit off or weird, but let's see what happens.  

I did another one.

I liked having a background, so I went back and modified the first one.

These were really fun. I really enjoyed the process, but they did take quite a bit of time. Each one took a couple of sittings. My intention was to use bigger circles, but somehow small circles came out of my pen at the start of both drawings. 

I played with watercolor a tiny bit, but I'm not willing to show the results! Here is an acrylic painting for Art 4 Shelter. 

Lastly, I made another attempt at painting Sadie. This is an 8" x 10". Since I don't paint dogs that often, they are hard. It took many tries to get decent eyes. I feel like my paint strokes are getting a little better, but oh, that nose.  It could use work. 

Pansy

I'm still not quite getting the paint strokes and depth of color that I want from painting a pansy, but it felt good to paint. This one is a 5" x 7" on paper and it will probably go to Art 4 Shelter later this year.