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.

Six Months Of A Twelve Month Series

I worked at the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, so it was time to tackle a drawing of the historic bust on the front porch of the building. Each month, I spend 10 to 20 minutes on a quick sketch. This time I used a very different tool. Last week, I purchased a Pental Pocket Brush Pen, so I decided to use it for today's sketch. Even though it's new to me, I love it. The ink flows out of the pen so freely. I can see why Roz Stendahl gushes about this pen.

I am 6 months into this and my sketches have only the tiniest resemblance to the actual subject. That's okay. On a micro level, I don't warm up and it's the end of the work day. Sometimes, this is the only time that I try to tackle facial features in the month. On a macro level, it is still miraculous to me to be developing the skills to draw something like this. While there's still a lot to learn, it wasn't that long ago that I was petrified to put a line on a piece of paper. 

Month 6

My plan is to post my sketches on a quarterly basis, so here is the one from the beginning of September. I was a little uptight with this one and did some erasing, which leads to more erasing. Generally, I try to avoid that. It makes me start to doubt any line that I've put on a page.

Month 5

This one is from the beginning of August.

Month 4

Oh heck, I might as well post the first three sketches as well.

Month 3

Month 2

This is the one that started it all. I did this sketch while I was taking the on-line drawing class. The subject matter was so far out of my league, but I was really pleased with myself for giving it a try at the time. From there, I thought the once a month sketch would be an interesting way to see what changes in my sketches. I may just keep doing this for as long as I do work at this client.

Month 1

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

Sometimes My Brain Operates At The Same Level As A Fruit Fly

I have been known to tell people, "sometimes, I'm smart, but sometimes I'm that other way". I asked Google, "what creature has the smallest brain" because I was so mad at myself for how I started this painting. After deciding that I was going to slow down at the start, be deliberate about my goals for all new paintings, and document what I hoped to accomplish before picking up a paint brush, I found myself well into this painting before I remembered all of those good intentions.

Guess what? This painting started out poorly. I ended up covering up most of it with gesso and putting it away for a day. When I returned, I thought about what I wanted to accomplish, documented it, and mostly started over. For my last painting, everything just worked and I never felt as though I was fighting myself or the painting. I never got to that place with this one. In fact at times, I think I was trying to paint a cat, rather than paint shapes and values. However, starting again and setting intentions made for a better outcome than I expected given this one's rocky beginning.

Other than remember to start effectively, my takeaway from this one is is seeing and painting the rounded triangle of the inside lower part of each eye.

It's the end of the month of painting cats. For the next month, I need to mix it up and step outside my kitty, comfort zone. It was a good month. The painting notebook should help me going forward. I saw improvement in painting cat eyes. I worked on making my values more distinct (thanks to the Ipad and Value Viewer). I made some discoveries in mixing paint colors.

Still Drawing

I am still drawing every day, but have not been as disciplined with my practice. Here is a quick sketch from Saturday night of my replica, Galapagos tortoise. Figuring out how to show the shell, in terms of volume, depth, and markings is a challenge!

Confession

I like to paint. This seems obvious, but I mean something specific. The deciding, planning, drawing, mixing, and so on are all perfectly fine things to do, but what I like best is applying paint to a surface. At the last demo Kat did, I noticed that she seems to spend more time thinking about where a paint stroke goes or mixing the right color than actually putting the actual paint on the surface.

I've been thinking about this, but was also distracted and a bit frantic getting ready for out-of-town visitors last weekend. Now that things are quieter, I decided to put this to practice and, also, to start keeping a painting notebook. To keep track of my paintings in the notebook, I randomly decided that this one is #143. Before I put any paint on a surface, my goal is to write several intentions for the current piece. This should also help slow down the process a tiny bit. Most times, I just start and I don't think that serves me very well.

There were two goals for this one. While the background of this picture was dark, the lighting on the cat's face was dramatic. I wanted to play up or, at least be, true to the values by having a stark distinction between the lights and the darks. I also wanted to have bigger and bolder paint strokes.

One thing I learned was that mixing browns or oranges tending towards brown requires quite a bit of blue.

Background

The cat theme continues! This month, I've been thinking more about backgrounds. There's all of this space. While it's not the focal point, it is important too. Many times the actual background from life does not work, so you have to decide what to do and move forward. Most of my cat backgrounds this month have had a strong color and it's been fun deciding what color to use and how to shift the values to denote the light. Last night, I decided to go in a different direction and experiment.

When my cats are in the kitchen, frequently, the background is a striped, flat pillow. The fabric is busy and from time to time, I try a different way to represent it.

On this one, I had to do the eyes twice. I painted over the first attempt. The picture really captured her eyes and I'm not sure that I captured it. Still, the intensity of her look / stare is there. I also painted over much of my original colors. At first, my colors were too blue-gray. While both of my gray cats have a warm, blue undertone to their fur, I tend to over do it. When I thought I was almost done, I mixed some grays which were more neutral. To my eyes, these grays are actually a tad ugly when they are on the palette or the brush. The color looks sickly to me, so I was hesitant to use it. On the black gesso, I liked how they looked so I toned down some of the blue gray tones. I must remember this for future reference!