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

New Realization

Frequently, I think I am sloppy with my paint strokes. I drew out and started a painting last night and tried to finish it this morning. My paint strokes for the flower and leaves were sloppy. Since I liked some things about the moth, I painted over the rest with gesso, added gridlines and redrew the scene.

I practiced making more deliberate and careful brush strokes on a small, practice space.

This afternoon, I painted the flower and leaves again, plus worked on the moth a bit more. For the flower petals, I used a size 4 brush. In the past when I have tried to use a small brush, I haven’t been able to get enough paint on/in it. Hurrah!  Getting better at mixing paint, thanks for Kat’s videos fixed that problem.

I timed it. It took 35 minutes (10 + 10 + 10 + 5). It took a lot of time since the flower was fussy and needed more than one layer. I like this second attempt much better.

#326 - Backyard Pollination - 5" x 7" - paper

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. 

Evolution Of A Timed Painting

This was a fun experience to document. Recently, Dorian was on the green chair and the light was good. I've mentioned before that she is difficult to photograph, since she looks down and away from the camera. I took some pictures anyway. Overall, I didn't care for this one.

My first thought was to delete it. Instead, I cropped it.

It's not too bad cropped, which makes me think that I've been deleting too many pictures without seeing if they look better when cropped.  Tonight, I decided to time my painting and to do so in 10 minute increments. The time I spent drawing was not timed. Here it is after 10 minutes.

Here it is after 20 total minutes of painting.

Here it is after 30 total minutes of painting.

I did a few, quick adjustments, but didn't time them. It was only a minute or two. This painting is the closest to the image of Dorian that I carry around in my head. I think it's because of the eyes.  

#323 - Dorian - 6" x 6" - paper

Two Paintings

On Saturday, I went to Kat's studio for several hours. She had invited people to come by and paint for Art 4 Shelter. This is a fabulous event and I enjoy donating art to it every year. While it was a small group which showed up, it was a very enjoyable group of people! I finished one painting.

#321 - Cabin Hummingbird #2 - 5" x 7" - paper

The next day, I decided to time myself for an 8" x 10" painting. I really need to get back to doing homework for the online class. I'm working on week 3 and week 3 actually took place 3 weeks ago. It's not surprising that I'm behind, but I would like to find my focus. The goal was to just make decisions and paint, so I tried to work at a pretty fast clip.

#322 - Timed Cat Painting - 8" x 10" - paper

I gave myself unlimited drawing time. Actual painting time was 37 minutes. This one does not thrill me, but I am posting it anyway. I passed on posting two other paintings and I've always intended this blog to show it all without filtering out much.

Finding Time Here And There

Doing short spurts of drawing, while I am feeding the cats, means that I have been drawing a little every day. I am still exploring faces using pictures from Sktchy. The goal is to stay away from detail and just explore the shape of faces trying to use simple lines. I’m still using the back of fairly thin paper that I’ve already used on the other side. One morning this week, I set a timer for 15 minutes and had a lovely time just experimenting.

I’ve been trying to think about the different planes in a face, how necks attach to the head and things like that. Lips are a complete mystery to me and they are hard to suggest with the thick lead I am using. Still, I would rather proceed in this manner for awhile and see what I can learn.

One thought that shows up in my mind from time to time is to think about the 2-D images I am using as if they were 3-D. That was something that Suzann Beck mentioned in her class at Wet Paint. She also said to think about 3-D shapes you are using as if they were 2-D. It does cause me to look at things and consider them in a different way.

Here are a few of my drawings. They are quick and simple. I am not going for accuracy.

On the painting front, I’ve been finding bits of time here and there to paint. Here is a revisit of a landscape. It’s still not there. While values need to be more distinct, the shape of the land turned out better.

#319 - Landscape - 6" x 6" - paper

Getting Back To Normal

I seem to be bouncing between two states - hyper-busy (i.e. feeling more like a human doing rather than a human being) or completely lazy and/or unmotivated. It's a bit disorienting. Although, I think it's part of getting back to things being more normal. My honey is recovering quite well and I have the first draft of our taxes done, so I guess it's time for some additional normalcy.

From an art perspective, I am painting on more days than not. I've been working from this picture I took in Connecticut last summer. The tree is magnificent. I cropped it down for a 5" x 7" and an 8" x 10". 

I got lost in the 5" x 7" and abandon it. I tried again with an 8" x 10". While I went further, I didn't finish this one either. I started on the tree with the trunk and the darkest values in the leaves. I got overwhelmed, since I don't know how to represent what I am seeing, plus I also had trouble mixing my greens. It was worth it to try and I'll loop back to this picture when my skills are stronger. The person turned out okay. There are actually two people in the picture, but I edited out the second person who was mostly hidden.  

#318 - Comforting Tree - 8" x 10" - paper - unfinished

On the drawing front, I've been procrastinating for a long time. I will start in a direction and abandon it, until I start in another direction. Today, I did something that I've been meaning to do and which I really should do. I want to work on capturing the big pieces or chunks in a drawing, as part of training my eye better and learning to address the big picture before straying into the details. It's territory which actually scares me a bit, but in a good way.

Today, each time I fed the cats, I went onto Sktchy and tried to draw a rough outline and big shapes of some of the faces I've bookmarked. You can see lines showing through from drawings on the other side of the paper, but you get the idea. I'm using a lead holder which holds a soft 5.6mm piece of soft graphite, so I can't get into the details. Here are two of today's drawings.

 It was fun and gave me a different way to think about faces.  The cats get fed 4 times per day, so this gave me several small chunks of time to draw. Each time, my brain was tired by the time the cats were done eating. All and all this worked out well.