Egret In Marsh

My last post was so long, I'm making this one short.

#238 - Egret In Swamp - 8" x 8" - paper

It was tough trying to address the water and the shadows in the water, given that there were bits of brush / reeds in the water. I don't think I was successful, but it was fun to try.

A Look Back

Painting #236 filled up the last page of my favorite spiral notebooks for painting. When I first started, I quickly found Bee Paper Super Deluxe Sketch Books and early on I purchased 2 in the 6" x 6" size and 2 in the 9" x 9" size. Since then, I've added 2 of the 9" x 12" size. I work in all of the books at the same time. With multiple books, it's easier to prep a lot of sheets with gesso at one time, I can prep 2 pages per book, or 3 if I am really careful, without making a total mess of it all.

Fairly early, I decided that the smaller size book did not work for 6" x 6" paintings. With the spiral binding, the paper can shift a bit, so it doesn't work to paint edge to edge. I still have blank sheets in these smaller books, which are currently used to practice color mixing, painting whiskers and so on.

Since I work in multiple books at the same time and also paint on hardboard, each book lasts a long time. In fact, I finally finished one of the 9" x 9" books and I thought it would be fun to look back and see what I did and what I learned. I worked in this book from January 2016 to June 2018.

Here is the first page. Hurrah! It's a negative space tree.

Painted in 01/16

I worked on timed paintings.

Painted in 03/16

Painted in 05/18

I painted a lot of apples.

Painted in 05/16

I got frustrated and didn't always finishing a painting, even when I should have (referring to finishing the painting).

Painted in 2016_07

I played around with mixing color.

Painted in 04/17

Painted in 02/18

I had my first epiphany that the direction of paint strokes matters. These were painted one day apart. 

Painted in 10/16

Painted in 10/16

I completed a number of cat paintings.

Painted in 08/17

Painted in 09/17

I tried to tackle some tough homework assignments. The assignment involved sinks. I tried to make it "easier" by adding a cat. 

Painted in 10/17

I had a major epiphany regarding values and shapes.

Painted in 11/17

Even though I am a color fanatic, I learned that I like painting white things.

Painted in 12/17

This post covers about 25% of the pages in this book. Last, but not least, here is the last page of the book which I posted on Monday.

Painted in 06/18

Barn And Other Structures

In 2012, I went to a hoe down organized by friends who have an organic farm in Hutchinson MN.  This literally was a party to celebrate the end of the growing season (i.e. put the hoe down).  It was a potluck and included a barn dance. Most of the participants were from CSA-type farms in the area. I took several pictures of the farm buildings and now I wish I would have taken many, many more!

#237 - Barn & Other Structures

I started this one yesterday and completed it today. When I was working on the buildings, I kept thinking that this was going to be a terrible, terrible painting. After a short break and looking at it from a few steps back, I surprised myself that the buildings read pretty well. Certainly not perfect, but not terrible!  Things look vastly different over the end of a paint brush versus a few steps back.

How is life otherwise? Pretty good. Today is my anniversary and it started out with the arrival of a new flamingo. That's the good part of pretty good.

We still have no idea which friend(s) started the tradition or who is keeping up the annual tradition. All I know is that a new flamingo shows up every year on our anniversary. This year, the new one showed up some time between 10 pm and 7 am.

The not-as-good part is that I managed to cut my left thumb while making lunch this morning. It's not bad enough for stitches, but it was more than a surface cut. It still hurts. Later in the morning, I took a  break from working from home to go water the garden plot. While I was there I harvested some lettuce and managed to cut my right thumb. I'm really not sure how I managed to do in both thumbs on the same day, all I know is that having both of them bandaged is is annoying! I'm not superstitious so I don't think this has anything to do with it being my 13th wedding anniversary. However I've decided no more knives for me today.

Third Try Of A Simple Landscape

Here is take 3.

#236 - Simple Landscape Take 3 - 8" x 8" - paper

While I'm not sure my execution of this scene is improving, I am noticing more each time I look at my source photo. There is a large section of dark in the bottom part of all of the trees and greenery.  This time, I saw more than I did the last two times.

I Don't Care What Color The Water Actually Is

When I started this one I said to myself "I don't care what color the water actually is", so I just tried to stay true to the values. I had to repaint the grassy area, since it was too dark originally. Now that I'm  done and looking at the picture, the sky turned out too dark. Darn! While I was painting I noticed how light the sky was and thought I had my paint light enough.

#235 - Bridge In Minnehaha Park - 8" x 8" - paper

Overall, I am feeling less intimated about approaching a landscape painting (a/k/a - those things in life with many, many elements to figure out), at least in the comfort of my home. It's easier to say to myself, I think I'm going to try this part in this way and see what happens and that is a good place to be.

Lately, I've also been thinking about super vivid mode. My camera has a setting called super vivid and it helps create beautiful pictures. Sometimes, it feels to me like it's cheating a bit, by enhancing reality. This slightly puritanical outlook carries over into my painting. If the colors are on the muddy side in my source material, I tend to stay too faithful to that and that doesn't make a very interesting painting. It's also a weird quirk, since I love saturated colors. With this one, I turned up the super vivid setting in my head, although I went more muddy with the bridge and the upper trees and sky since they were very muted in my picture.

Broken Streak

I had a long streak going. While painting, I have been cleaning my paint brush using the can with water rather than my water glass. An almost 2 1/2 year streak was broken today.

Take Two

Take one occurred during painting class and I never posted a picture of it. I also never finished it. Take one was the pinnacle of frustration when I had no basis and no understanding of how to break landscapes up into cohesive pieces or shapes. The first step has been learning how to see differently. Slowly, I am learning this or at least experimenting with it. It's an interesting process going from not being able to see or process something at all to taking baby steps towards taking in visual information differently.

I am so glad that I took another session of painting classes with Kat. I learned so much. As a result, take 2 went better. Plus, I enjoyed painting this scene this time.

#234 - Scene From A Car Window In Quebec - 8" x 8"- paper