From Trees To Landscapes

I finished out February with doing negative space trees.  This is one of the last ones.  The overall goal was just to paint. Check. The side goal was to explore different paint strokes. That one still needs a lot of work, since all of them turned out remarkably the same. 

I still want to keep things simple.  My follow up project is to work on outdoors scenes from photos.  Since I don’t want to rush, I’m shooting for finishing 10 paintings.

This was the first one and it’s a revisit of a painting I tried awhile ago using a photo that I liked. I like the photo and I also thought it would be a challenge with getting different shades of green for the different parts.

While I can’t say that I like the finished result, I am glad that I finished it. I also focused on getting a clear foreground, middle ground and background. Also from the time I stopped after day 2 to finishing it on day 3, the green part of the tree looks more like it belongs to one tree. Mid-way through, it had this bizarre abstract quality and didn’t read as a single object or as being part of a tree.

Some things to work on are figuring out a way to make the lighter areas of the tree look better and truer to their actual size and getting the peak through color of the sky more distinct from the light colors of the tree. 

The Best Process Change So Far

Currently, I have a sustainable project.  In February, I plan to paint one household object each day.   I started several days early.  Since my time is really limited, I’m doing a simple painting.  There’s no time limit for drawing, although I try to keep a pretty brisk pace for all of it.  When it comes to painting, I give myself 15 - 20 minutes.  I’m also not going for something I’d hang on the wall.  It’s almost like I’m journaling. 

All of this is good, but the single biggest change is that when I am done painting I clean up and walk away without looking at what I just did.  Occasionally, I’ll give take a quick glance.  

The next day is when I finally take a look and write a few comments about things to work on and, at least, one thing that I like or enjoyed about yesterday’s painting.  This is something which got drilled in by Roz. 

This is a game changer.  It gives me energy, rather than taking it away and I feel better about every painting, even the clunkers.  The time and space gives the editor a chance to emerge rather than the bully.  

This is really significant.  If I try and look right after I’m done, I have to get past a place of disappointment.  I’m finding that waiting to look the next day, I start from a place of potential.  When I look at a so-called clunker, the chatter in my head is more along the lines of “well, that went off the rails a bit, why was that, does that give you something to focus on today”.  It’s a much kinder and helpful conversation in my head.  

Here are two paintings of a light bulb.  This bulb did not work in the lamp it was in.  It had the slightest flicker which I could not stand.  I think it will be fine in a different lamp. 

I painted it two days in a row and I can see myself doing that for much of February. This is the second version.  I think two paintings of the same object is generally going to be enough.  In most cases if I try more, it unleashes the perfectionist, which is not good. 

Here is my first attempt.  I got quite off in the angle and direction between the drawing and the painting. 

I also wanted to share the third painting I did with the same pepper.  I did this one before the lightbulbs.  The goal was to try and capture the shape and lean of the pepper more accurately than in the second painting, so I did a similar set up.  In this case, I’m glad I used the same model for a third painting.

Keeping It Simple

In order to have time to paint, I want to keep it simple.  Right now, the most important thing is to pick up a paint brush on way more days than not.  At the same time, I also want to develop better habits for when I paint.

One new thing is that I've started warming up, by practicing getting different shapes in 1-2 strokes as suggested in one of Patti Mollica's books.  I'm also doing a quick thumbnail value drawing. 

Oof!  There's a lot to getting back in the saddle including, values, color-mixing, brush strokes, not to mention managing the paint on your brush, trying to capture the actual thing you are painting, and breaking in a fresh palette. 

I tend to have a habit of getting the paint too far up into the brush.  So today, I focused on managing the paint on the brush.  

Co-op Citrus #3

I Was Gone And Now I’m Back

When I say I was gone, I mean that I was gone from my daily art practice. It’s hard to come back once I’ve lost the daily habit. The project approach has been a good one, but I think I need to define what it means to me so I can make it sustainable again.

I’ve been playing with gouache a bit, along with slowly working my way through Shari Blaukopf’s class about sketching skies in gouache. I both want to work through this class and play with gouache and also find myself avoiding it all at the same time.

While this makes me feel as though I’m flitting around too much and probably should decide on one thing to focus on, I also just gone done (about 5 minutes ago) taking with a short class from Wet Paint. It was about using the Caran D’Ache Neocolor II crayons. Up until now, I’ve just been using them as crayons. In this short, but very fun class we added water. In one excercise, we used them almost like watercolor and in the other exercise we used them more opaquely, but activated with some water. It was super fun.

I went too complicated for the subject matter for the first exercise. For the opaque one, I went with a simple apple. 

Quick Thoughts As "Do It Anyway December" Comes To An End

I followed Roz's guidance for doing a project in December and found it to be useful and productive.  The actual project was an exploration of color by painting apples in acrylic.  This branched into exploring and learning more about value.  Along the way, I also started to do thumbnails and try a bunch of new things such as:

• Painting objects in unrealistic colors.  I was surprised how hard this was to do at first.  I haven't some pretty strong rules in my head about how things should be and I want to bust through them.  
• Using a different colored ground. 
• Copying other people's apple paintings to get some ideas about how to do different brushwork, and 
• a lot more. 

As part of focusing more on values, I pulled together some additional tools and used some new things.  Most of these, I already had, although I did buy the gray and black paint.   

I'm not good at making up backgrounds in my head, so awhile ago I had painted some folders in different colors to use when I set up a still life.  Once I started focusing more on value, I found it extremely useful to painting the folders into neutral or gray scale tones. 

Another thing I discovered (or rediscovered) is that I was never making my lights light enough and I used to shy away from using light backgrounds.   All of this meant that my consumption of titanium white paint has gone way up. 

On December 1, I started out essentially have to start all over again, since I had not been painting.  That was painful. 

Day 2 went a lot better than day 1.

Along the way, I discovered that I'm more interested in learning, so I experimented a lot, rather than getting as caught up in the results or the output. 

The month ended well.  I wasn't trying for that.  It just sort of happened.  I especially like the shape of the green apple. 

The Latest

It’s been a productive week. I am making an effort to draw and paint every day, while also finding the balance between pushing myself to do it without becoming too militant about it. For drawing, my plan is to work on drawing a simple object with crosshatching each day in January. So far, I’ve done two drawings for the first 4 days of January. Here’s one.

In addition to getting better at crosshatching, I want to figure out better which direction to crosshatch when building a particular shape. This does not come naturally to me at all. I hope this will cross over into better paint strokes.

Here is the last painting of 2019 and the first one of 2020.

#360 Mandarin - 5” x 5” - paper

#361 Yellow Pepper - 5” x 5”

My 17-year old cat, Dorian had surgery on Thursday. I am so grateful that it all went well. She has to endure 11 days of wearing a cone, so she can’t disturb her sutures. Once she is past that, she should be happier and healthier. I am so relieved that surgery was successful, that I decided to do a painting of her. She is one of my favorite models. I love to paint from pictures of her and to take pictures of her. However when she was a kitten, I used the flash too many times, so she almost always scowls or has a fierce expression for the camera. 

I liked the drawing.

The painting is okay. I didn’t like it last night, but today it doesn’t seem so bad, except for the whiskers. 

#363 - Dorian - 6” x 6” - hardboard

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.

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.

Three Is A Magic Number

When I do a series of timed paintings, I typically take an 8 inch square block and divide it into 4 equal parts for 4 different timed paintings. Every time it seems as though versions #1 and 4th are lacking. The 2nd version has some good stuff going on. The 3rd attempt is always the best one. Why is three the magic number?  I have no idea.

In a different realm, if I am part of juggling pattern with other club passers, it never fails that after a particularly good run of a new or complicated patterns the next several tries will fail right away.

My guess is that there is some scientific explanation  for all of this based upon how people's brains work.

#348 - Timed Pear Painting #3 - 4" x 4" - paper

I finished this one several days ago. The shadow is goofy, but besides that I like it. My attempt to use paint strokes to build the shape worked much better than usual, especially for a timed painting, I also liked the colors I mixed, since this was different pear from the last timed painting I posted. That previous pear was part of Saturday's dinner. By the way, the last painting I posted was version #2.

Last night, I finished painting #4 and also just played around with mixing pear colors and playing around with painting a pear without drawing it out first. None of this was particularly successful, but it still felt great to do.

Today, I went to a meeting of nonprofit financial types and worked on some quick, basic sketches of people, in margins of the handout when I got bored. Here are the two of them. While the poses are similar, it was two different people.

A Non-Painting, Painter

That's what I've been, but it's not what I want to be.

#348 - 10 Minute Pear - 4" x 4" - paper

Even if it's only one 10-minute painting per day, I need to make this a priority, again, and see about painting on more days than I don't.

It's hard to express how good it felt to mix up some colors and make some brush strokes, even though I was feeling awkward about it all.

Self Conscious

I've been feeling a little self-conscious and I've also busy. When I get out of the habit of posting to this blog, drawing, or painting, it can be hard to pick it back up. To get the habit back, this is a "just do it" post.

My hubby got a new bike last week.  It's a step-through bike.We don't have a secure place in the garage, yet, so it's in the living room. Here is a very quick sketch from last week. I wasn't warmed up. I didn't measure. I didn't plan. I just started with the seat and went from there. It might sound like I'm making excuses. I'm not. It was fun to have no expectations. It was interesting making decisions about what to include and what to skip.

I've passed on posting a few things, which is a bad thing to do. That starts me down the self-conscious path. Here are two timed pear paintings. Last week at the co-op, I saw an adorable red bartlett pear. The other timed paintings were limes and I lost my ability to make round objects have depth and volume, so those aren't presented.

#341 - Timed Pear Paintings - 4" x 8" - paper

In the spirit of painting from life, I also did another, non-timed, pear painting. I reached a stopping point on this one and didn't stop. The light bounced back up on the pear on this one and I was pleased that I really saw it and saw that it was a cool, blue-lavender color.

#342 - Co-op Pear - 6" x 6"

Last week, I also had fun drawing a peony flower that I placed in my little vase. I didn't have the patience or time to do the entire flower, since there is a lot of detail! Instead, I really enjoyed doing the outline and adding some of the inside shapes for volume.  It was almost hypnotizing looking and drawing the shapes of  the larger outside petals. Here's my favorite. The vase is wonky, but  the flower reads to me.

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. 

Truthfully

I like to paint from pictures more than from life, a lot, lot more, so I avoid painting from life unless I am in a  class or something. Although, I would like to do some plein air painting. In order to grow, I've finally realized that both are necessary and needed. So that I don't completely avoid painting from life, I am going to do a minimum of 2-3 paintings from life each month.

Last night, I purchased some food for tonight's dinner. That meant one shot at painting the red pepper, which should become part of tonight's chicken and green curry dinner. This was a semi-timed painting. I'm in the middle of a cat painting, but last night was a good opportunity to paint from life.

#330 - Red Pepper - 6" x 6" - paper

I like the form and volumes in the top and right side about as much as I don't like the paint stroke hugging the middle of the pepper from the left to the center.

Something is currently happening with my painting and drawing. I feel like my mark-making vocabulary or something like that has either expanded or improved somehow and I am enjoying how this feels, while it lasts. When I first started trying to draw and paint, it felt like there was a solid, impenetrable wall between me and what I wanted to learn and do. Today, the wall seems just as thick, but it seems to be made up of a number of curtains or veils and that one of the many, many ones recently dissolved.

Faces

I am still practicing faces using pictures from Sktchy while I am sitting with the cats when they eat in the morning. Here are several recent ones.

They are a bit cartoonish, but at the same time I do see a basic likeness when I am done. While I have been selecting people with long faces, my drawings are too long!

Next up is a timed painting. I planned to work on it for 15 minutes. Instead, I did 20 and still wasn’t happy, so I just went a little crazy with it. My biggest problem was that I didn’t do a very good drawing. I've been painting on paper prepped with black gesso. It felt good to paint on hard board prepped with black gesso instead.

#327 - Purple Teapot - 6" x 6" - hard board

Timed = Less Angst?

Who knew that timing oneself when painting could led to less stress and less angst rather than adding to it? In Kat’s online class for lesson 3, she asked participants to keep track of the time they are spending. I decided to do this, plus also time myself more actively. The self-designed rules are that I get unlimited drawing time and before I start painting I decide on a set amount of time. Whatever amount of time it is, I divide it into 3 chunks. For each chunk of time, I set a timer which goes off. I have been using a visual timer (as an app, not a clock) rather than a countdown timer. When the timer goes off, I stop, walk away for a moment, regroup, and set the timer again. After the last timed segment, I take another short break and give myself a few more minutes to add a few finishing touches. After the timed painting of Dorian, I have finished these two paintings in this way.

There have been a lot of positives and I think I need to add this to my mental tool kit. Most important is that it keeps me working at a reasonable clip without feeling rushed and without overthinking things. Plus, it forces me to step away, which I know I should do but don't. It's also prevented me from falling down the rabbit hole of "something is not working and I must dwell, focus, and fixate on it until I can make it better", which by the way never works. While I am not necessarily reaching that magical feeling of flow, it does help me turn down my analytical mind and turn up my doing mind. I've been walking away from painting feeling refreshed and happy, even if I look back at my painting and see things I wish I would have done differently or better.

Here is my first attempt at painting a beautiful handmade mug that a friend gave to me last year. Total painting time was 15 minutes. I don't like the shadow or the colors that I used in the shadow, but I think I am happier with the overall painting than I would have been if I used unlimited time to paint it. I really think painting this way might help me develop some better habits.

#324 - Favorite Mug - 6" x 6" - paper

Last night, I painted from one of my many, many butterfly pictures in my backyard. I grew a section  of zinnias along the alley just for the butterflies and was richly rewarded. Also, there is something very special about painting a plant which I grew from seed.

#325 - Backyard Butterfly - 6" x 6" - paper

This one was painted in 30 minutes. The stamen of the flowers became a gloppy mess, although the flower "reads" better in the picture than in the actual painting. It also seemed like I got closer to painting how I felt about the background, rather than trying to paint each individual green thing in the background. That felt good.

Who knew that using a timer could be such a good thing?

As an aside, I've been using a visual timer when I work. I set it for 45 minutes and focus on whatever task is at hand for the 45 minutes. When I am done, I take a short break or a long break and repeat. It's been helping me feel more focused and productive. When I am working, I am working, and when I am not, I'm not. 

A Very Long Post

I am getting ready to mail off a package to Art 4 Shelter for their event on May 15th. It’s hard to believe that I’ve submitted items for 4 years! This year, the plan was to submit 12 items with one being painted each month. That didn’t happen. The current count is 6 paintings. While they are still accepting artwork through the end of April, I want to get my items in early. In two weeks, one of the members of my household is getting a hip replaced. With that and Kat's online class, I don't see myself getting more of these done and mailed. 

Here are the pieces I am going to mail. 

Whenever I paint something on a 5” x 7” piece of paper, the intention is that it's for Art 4 Shelter. As always, there are items which get rejected. For those, I’ve gotten better about tossing them in the garbage, since I don’t need them around. It’s a balance between being honest, but also not being too picky.

The biggest motivation I get from drawing and painting is not the end product, but instead how it changes how I interact and process the world. I notice more and, when that happens, I try to slow down (at least sometimes I do) to really process and enjoy what I notice.

This morning, Hammett, one of the orange cats, was sitting in my lap. He was looking up to watch the birds and squirrels through a very high window in our kitchen. I found myself looking at and really seeing his eyes. The edges of his eyelids were a delicate light shade of lavender, except in the lower corner where it transitioned to a slightly-darker-in-value, soft, rosey pink color. The color of his eyes closest to his pupils was the same color as some of the lighter color of his fur, which is an orangey-yellow, more towards orange. While the rest of his eye color is more yellowy-orange, more towards yellow. I also could see two different highlights in his eyes. The reflections back from the windows created  highlights in his eyes which were horizontal, but slightly curved, in the color of  light gray with overtones of blue. He also had the smaller, bright highlights which are a color closer to white. When you paint these in they make the eyes in a painting come to life.  Until I started painting, I never noticed these highlights.

Hammett has been my cat for years. I've looked at him many times. I've studied pictures of him in order to paint him. He has very light color fur around the outside of his eyes which frame and highlight his eyes so beautifully, I've never gone deeper to really see his eyes. It was shocking and wonderful to see the orange in his eyes, the lavender eyelids, and all the rest.

Not long after the experience with Hammett, I opened up my refrigerator. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the green apple with a sticker/label on the apple. Instantly, the thought flashed in my mind, how would I show the label in a painting? The label has a curve to it, one side is slightly larger, and so on. 

It was that kind of a morning.

I am sure there are many people out there that don't think any of this matters. I'm not sure how to express this, but I think it matters greatly. For now, I'll just say that it's adding a richness to my life. 

Changing subjects, I've been taking Kat's online painting class. Maybe, I'm not changing subjects as much as I thought, since I find myself noticing things watching the videos that I either missed or couldn't "see" in her live classes. Since she has a camera pointing down, the vantage point is different. As a result, I am picking up things about how she grabs paint to mix colors and get paint in her brush in a way I wasn't getting in live class. I've never understood how she can get the "right" amount of paint on her brush, so that the brush isn't either too dry or too globby with paint. I have a bad habit of loading up with too much paint, making it hard to get a variety of paint strokes and I haven't been able to figure out how to get the "right" amount. Something clicked when I watched the videos. Currently, I am bouncing between trying to break my old habit of a globby paint brush and picking up paint more effectively.

For class, I am planning on posting what I paint here and only send her the stuff I want to be evaluated.

We started with a color wheel and mixing gray and brown.

Mixing a good brown is still a mystery to me. However, this color wheel made me happy. I can't explain why, but I smile whenever I look at it. Because of that, it's hanging in my office where I can see it. 

We needed to do a value study of a simple object and paint it. This is a clementine. The top is flat, not that you can tell from my drawing.

Here's clementine 1. Blah. That's all I have to say. Blah. Okay, I'll also say that the top does not look flat. What's really interesting about working on simple shapes is that there is not a place to distract or hide.

#303 - Blah Clementine - 6" x 6" - paper

Here is take 2 when managing the amount of paint on the brush started to click. I took this photo part way through and I am glad that I did, since I should have stopped. Instead, I continued. At this point, this one looks like it has a flat top at the very top. Hurrah!  I do confess that it looks like a complete copy of Kat's style.  It's not my goal to copy her style.  It's been helpful to read some of Roz Stendahl's comments where she thinks beginners get too hung up on developing a style too early when what they should be doing is focusing on learning and developing skills. 

#304 - Flat Top Clementine - 6" x 6" - paper

Yesterday, I painted a lime. There are things which don't work and there's something which bugs me about it. I like the greens which I mixed and there is a shape to it. I do find it interesting that the clementine above has a lot more energy to it than this one.  The energy just seems to drain out of paintings which are overworked. Some people can layer paint and still keep the energy, but that's another thing I need to work on figuring out.

#305 - Lime - 6" x 6" - paper

This is a very long post, so I am going to wrap it up with one final thought. The challenge of switching back to painting from real objects rather than pictures always surprises me.