A Happy Start

I pulled out a new #10 bright brush and started this painting. It just felt good, plus I am feeling better. Last night was the first night in a week with a good, mostly uninterrupted night of sleep. Until last night, it seemed like I was waking up every 20 minutes or so coughing.

Anyway, these paint strokes just felt lush and happy to me.

It Is A Cat

On Monday morning, I finally started getting my brain back from the never-ending cold of 2017. I actually felt like picking up paper and a pencil and drawing cats. I played around with different things for 20 minutes or so. At one point, Hammett was sitting on the back of the recliner and suddenly I saw him in shapes. I did a rough sketch in pencil and filled in the lines much darker so you can see them. Ignore the horrible lines in marker that are bleeding through the other side of the paper.

It was interesting seeing him as a collection of shapes and in a very simple form.

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. 

Just Ignore The Green

I get rules in my head, so sometimes I set out to break them. That's how I ended up painting a green cat. This painting is from yesterday. I did it in one sitting and it came together fairly quickly. 

This started as another 4-value painting, although it morphed to five values even before I went even farther with it. Throughout this painting, I also tried to have more paint on my brush.

After I painting the original values and shapes, I decided to add a background.

From there, I added another dark color to define the cat, since the black parts looked odd with the background. I wish I would have taken two more progress pictures. The first several paint strokes of the extra dark body color did amazing things. Next, I finished all of the formerly black background with a dark green. It would have been good to take pictures of both of these steps. However, my energy level was terrible and I didn't feel like going upstairs two additional times to take pictures in natural light. I have been fighting and, mostly, losing the battle with a wicked cold this week.

The very last thing was suggesting the other eye. The finished result is below. It was fun pushing this to completion.

#166 Marvin In Green - 8" x 10" in paper, regular palette

Here is a painting from the same source picture from back in August 2016. Even with the hideous green, this painting reads so much better.  It's all about the values and the shapes (which is the mantra that I need to keep repeating to myself).

Also in all of these value paintings, it's been amazing to me how little you need to represent an eye. This is especially true of the suggested eye that I added at the last minute. It's just one stroke with a tiny, tiny highlight and it adds so much!

Quick And Simple

I started this on Monday and finished it on Thursday. Each morning, I only had a few minutes to work on it. Plus, I have been fighting a monster cold, so my energy level has been less than zero.

I liked the idea of leaving a lot of the space unpainted. Most of the time, I feel compelled to fill every bit of surface with paint.

#165 Chandler In 4 Values - 5" x 7" on paper

In Other News.......

I am home sick today. I don't stay home sick very often, but I have a cold and it sapped all of my energy. If I take it easy today, I hope to bounce back sooner.

I don't just sit very well. Last night, I finished knitting the thumbs for a new pair of gloves and washed them. They dried on the radiator last night. While there are two of them, it was easier to take a picture of one of them and I am all about going with the easy route today.

I have needed a new pair of gloves for a long time and, fortunately, I got them done just in time for colder weather. I have short, stubby fingers, so handmade gloves fit me so much better!

A Trio Of....

I'm a tad obsessed with 4-value paintings of cats. Since it's good to switch things up (even though I am doing the same exercise on the same subject matter, so the irony is not lost on me), I decided to switch a 5" x 7" format and play with background colors. My thought was that if I liked any of these, I could put them into Art 4 Shelter next year.

Here is my work since my last post. Painting in the morning for a few minutes and fitting in additional time when I can has kept me painting each and every day. I've gotten over feeling like I need a big chunk of time to paint. As a result, I paint more and finish more, even though life is very busy!

#162 - Ella In 4-Values - 5" x 7" paper - alternative blue

I am just going to call this one a warm up. My darkest paint color (my second darkest value) should be lighter. Especially when viewed from a distance, the two darkest values merge together. Also, I had trouble using a #8 sized brush. Things just did not gel with this one.

I took several in-progress photos of the next one.

While I really enjoyed the beginning stages of this one, I'm only okay with the finished result on this one.

#163 - Chandler In 4-Values - 5" x 7"on paper, - alternative blue

I was still using the #8 size bright brush on this one. For this one and the last one, I felt as though I regressed away from just doing the shapes and ignoring the details. Plus, it was more difficult to work smaller.

I finished this this morning and like it the best.

#164 - Marvin In 4-Values - 5" x 7" on paper - std palette

I used a #6 brush and that helped. I tried to be less fussy. The picture had the dramatic lighting that has been working well. Working in this way has been a valuable experience and I feel like I am learning tons. It will be interesting to see what creeps into my color paintings when I switch back to those. Although, I'm not quite ready to go back to that. Next, I want to try a few of these paintings using a different color than gray.