Hammett In Repose

After not having time to paint, it always feels good to pick up the brushes again. I'm a little rusty, but I am pleased. I want and need to branch out. Let's face it. I paint a lot of cat faces. It was fun to paint a cat in repose.

Even if I'm never completely happy with a finished work, I still get a thrill when I try something new and the painting reads as object that I was trying to capture. I've written similar thoughts many times on this blog. This feeling might go away at some point, but I hope that it doesn't. Especially in these current times, I am glad to have a way to plug into feelings of delight.

I was worried that the eyes being closed would not "read". When I looked closely at the picture and added the light highlights around his eyes, they finally stood out. It continues to amaze me that when you paint an orange cat, you need to use purple (although it is an orangish purple). The shadowy fur parts read as purple.

More Plants

Since I have house cats, I don't have house plants. Here are rough sketches of two of my Aunt's plants. Family visits are busy, so I was glad to get a tiny bit of sketching done.

I like today's version of the African violet better than the first one.  Less is more / better.

I wanted to be able to do some sketching at Gamma Phi Circus, but the performers moved too quickly and my skills aren't to this point. Instead, I took pictures. There was amazing stuff to see. It sure has improved, since I was a participant.

Spending Time With African Violets

My Aunt always has African violets. When the plants are lush and full, she will start new ones. I warmed up with a partial doodle of one of the mature plants using a micron brush pen. Using the brush pen meant that I couldn't go for as much detail.

I moved to one of the starter plants and gave that a couple of tries. 

Lastly, I tried a simple watercolor, using a travel watercolor kit. Watercolor is tricky. It also does not lead itself to control, which is probably the understatement of the century!

After all of this, I walked away thinking about choices, practicing and trying new things, and not judging oneself too harshly. There are so many choices and so much to learn! One of the things that fascinates me is how much information is needed to convey meaning or convey an object.  I trend towards offering more detail and want to get to a place where I present less. 

Cat In Pen - Study 3

I'm still at it! When I take a break for lunch when I am working at a client, it's very relaxing to work on one of these for 10 minutes or so. It clears the brain and gets me ready to do accounting, again.

I met someone last night who was surprised that I do accounting work and am interested in drawing and painting. The overlap for me is in the world of process. For many years, I've had a strong process orientation in my work. Being completely ignorant about how art is planned and created, I was surprised that it is so much about process or at least it can be approached that way. Plus, it's a process where you get to use color!!

There is room at the creative table for all and it saddens me that many people are afraid to take a seat.

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.

Revise, Revise, Revise

After finishing this one, I took it back down to make minor revisions three times!

While I have not been painting as often as I would like, I have been fairly obsessed about painting for Art 4 Shelter, when I do find time to paint. I am enjoying creating things to both go out into the world and help support a good organization.

Yesterday's Painting

It turned out slightly comical looking.  That was not the intention.