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.

Different Paint Brushes

I decided not to work on a specific painting today, but rather to play with some different brushes. Getting over GPS (goopy paint syndrome) opens new possibilities.  I did 4 quick, not very accurate, drawings of a portion of a monarch butterfly wings and tried painting them with 4 different brushes.

The obvious conclusion is that the filbert brush was a terrible choice. No surprise there. Mostly as I kept working with the different brushes, I found myself really thinking about how to use a brush more effectively for a sharp line or edge versus fill in color more broadly.

Just as the first time I dabbled with using different paint colors helped me learn how to better mix color with my regular palette, I hope this will give me some ideas and things to think about and work on with my paint strokes.

No Rules

I didn’t use grids. I didn’t do an under-drawing. I didn’t care about accuracy. I didn’t crop the picture. I didn’t worry about color. I didn’t have a plan.

I looked at a picture, hopped all over the place, and made big, bold strokes with a huge brush. This isn't abstract. I don't know what it is. I am calling it practicing with no rules, since it felt good to just do and leave rules behind.

I might try a cabin sunset like this.

#262 - Catharsis - 8” x 10” - paper

By the way, I used this brush. I also acquired the 2 inch version. While I wish the handle was not flat, I thought the bristles might work well. So far, I like that I can pick up a lot of paint with these brush and can apply with a reasonable level of control. I wish that the handle was round and that it didn't leave strokes which are quite so smooth.

Palette Update

This is mostly a note to myself. I changed my alternative palette. It now contains both the alternative blue and the alternative yellow.

The specific colors are located here.

Feeling Good

I have been thinking about how to better use the time that I have to paint and why I procrastinate. Two problems are deciding what to paint and trying to paint after I've either had a "breakthrough" or finished something that I really like. The worst is when both of these things happen at the same time. I realized that my own behavior makes this happen more than necessary, since I frequently will push to finish up a painting in the evening. That leaves me with nothing in process the next day, which can start the procrastination cycle. Last month deciding to paint cats, cats, and more cats made the decision making easier and I found that I painted more.

The solution is to never finish a piece at the end of my "art time" on any given day. If I do finish, I need to leave enough time to choose the next subject and start drawing it. I've been trying this the last several days and it feels good. It feeds into the ideal that painting is a process. There is no true beginning or end and any work on any given day does not matter. Continuing the process and feeding it is what matters.

I really enjoyed painting cats last month, but have felt the need to stretch myself this month. My current plan is to have two paintings going at the same time. One will be complicated, such as a landscape or which contains multiple objects, and one will be simple.

I've also decided to branch out and test drive several new colors. I made myself a little crazy, since it felt like I was being unfaithful to my existing colors, especially since I like my palette. They are good paint colors and I'm learning how to use them. I use the following Golden Heavy Body Acrylics:

• Titanium White #1380
• Quinacridone Magenta #1305
• Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) #1255
• Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) #1260
• Primary Yellow #1530

Still, I thought it would be fun to experiment with several new colors. While Wet Paint had my brand on sale, I decided to buy a small tube of:

• Hansa Yellow Opaque #1191
• Ultramarine Blue #1400

Since I have two of the same palette, I'm keeping my original colors in one palette. In the other palette, I swapped out the Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) for the Ultramarine Blue. I'm marking my paintings so I know which palette I used. Plus, I am going to use this as an excuse to paint some of the same things twice, (which I frequently do anyway) using the two different palettes. At some point, I will change the second palette back to the Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) and substitute Primary Yellow for Hansa Yellow Opaque. Way, way down the road, depending on what I learn, I might set up the second palette with both of the alternative colors.

Here is what I finished today. After I was done, I decided on my next complicated subject and easy subject and started the drawing for both.

Original palette

Too Much White

I need to get back to playing with my paint! I started and finished this one. I've painted this bird before and keep coming back to it.

The problem occurred about 5 minutes into painting. I wore through the paper in my palette. So I could finish, I removed the paper with the paint on it, set it on top of some newspaper, finished my painting, and set up the palette with a fresh piece of paper and paints.

It's ready for me to paint again, but there is way too much white staring at me.

It's a little intimating and typically takes several paintings before the fresh palette feels good.

White Gesso (Ick)

I've painted a few apple duds in the last several days.  The apples have not been duds.  My paintings have been.  The red apples I purchased are very, very dark and I'm not getting the colors right when I'm painting over black gesso.  I decided to experiment and paint over white gesso.  Ick!  The colors lack spark or gravitas.  I can't quite find the right word.  The white "adds" nothing.  I don't like it peeking through, so I covered up most of the surface.  Also, you can see my grid lines and drawing lines.  When some of the drawing lines peek through on a painting over black gesso, it looks kind of cool.  Over white gesso, ick.

It was a good experiment.  I'll probably try the white gesso again or a different color of gesso at some point in the future.

On the plus side, I am very happy with the shape of  this apple.

Homemade View Finder - Take 3

I decided to try and solve one of my current frustrations.  A well-defined grid helps me draw.  Grid lines can go directly on a picture. With branching out into still lifes, it's back to using a view finder. I want a number of view finders, but don't want to spend a lot.

My first attempt to create grid on my homemade view finders was to use dental floss. This idea came from a blog. It worked for about 2 days, after which the floss got loose.  I also was worried about remember to always put them away, since I have string-eating cats.

A better solution was to get a cheap clear surface that easily attached to my homemade view finders. I found some clear (paper) sheet protectors and tested to make sure that lines drawn with a thin Sharpie marker would not smear.

It was easy to cut a piece slightly larger than the opening, tape it to the back, and draw grid lines on the front.

Here's the back.

Here's the front.

This may not be a perfect square, but it's pretty close. I'm using a pad of 3" by 3" post it notes to figure out the piece that I want to cut out.  If I want a smaller opening, it's easy to draw a smaller square inside the 3" one and cut that out.

I think this is going to work and I feel extremely clever!

Wednesday Night

Wednesday night I had a painting class with Kat Corrigan.  It was good to be able to ask her 1,000,000 questions.  We mostly talked, but also did a quick still life. While I had a view finder to use, it only had marks along the edges.  I discovered how much I still really, really need/want a grid to help me with drawing.  When there's a copy of a picture, I can draw my grid and that works great!

I did a quick Google search and someone suggested using dental floss to add grid lines to a simple home-made view finder.  Viola!  I did that with one of my existing ones and am pleased with the result.

The still life wasn't quite a timed painting, but was done much more quickly than when I work from home.  It's good to speed things up a bit.  It was my first time trying to paint a piece of silverware.  It's hard!  Also, it looked better before I got my shadow too close to the side of the spoon.

In any event since I took a short hiatus, it felt good to paint.

My Favorite Painting Tool

I like paper, paint brushes, and paint, but my favorite painting tool is a viewfinder.  I was introduced to this handy, dandy tool on the first night of painting class.  I was feeling nervous and not sure what to expect.  When I was given the viewfinder and told how to use it, my anxiety went down immensely.

You use a viewfinder to compose what you are going to paint.  For now, what works best for me is to break up the horizontal and vertical frames into 4 equal pieces.  It's a bit tricky to hold the viewfinder in one place, look through it with only one eye open, and draw on your painting surface, but it gets easier with practice.

I made the bottom one myself using a light weight piece of cardboard.  Heavy card stock would probably also work.  I outlined a square pad of post-it notes and cut out the square.  Viola!  For a different aspect ratio, you can easily make an appropriate viewfinder or use one like the composition finder in the picture.  On the back, it shows different aspect ratios and there's a sliding piece that blocks out to just the aspect ratio that you want.

If I'm working directly from a picture, I just draw lines directly on the picture.