Wednesday, November 30, 2016

New Experience

Yesterday's painting of Hammett was a good one and made me happy!  There really is no better feeling than being happy with something that you've created. Usually when this happens, the next several paintings just don't quite work out. I am not sure why, but it's also true with juggling, another hobby of mine. If a passing pattern with other jugglers goes really well, the next 2-3 times it seems to go poorly.

Overall last night, the painting process last night went very well. I did it in one sitting. I took several breaks and also spread my time around different parts of the painting, rather than zeroing in on one part, moving onto the next part, and so on. Here is the drawing.


My only goof-up with the painting was on the left side of Dorian's face. The final shape is too round. For some reason if I make an error like this it's always on the left side. Otherwise, I'm thrilled, especially when this one follows a painting that I really, really liked.





Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Hammett!!

I did another painting, yesterday.  Finally, I was able to concentrate and do. There are a lot of layers of paint in this one, which always seems to happen with orange colors. I may try to do some practice oranges and browns, like I did with gray when Kat assigned it as homework. That helped with the color mixing quite a lot!


I am especially happy with the eyes and the slightly quizzical look. One of Hammett's specialties is to look at you like this.

Hurrah! I painted this one on a board, so I can put a hanger on it and put it on the wall!!

Monday, November 28, 2016

Two Paintings

I carved out time to do a painting yesterday and today.  Here they are.  It's funny, but I feel a little bit rusty and it hasn't really been that long since I last painted!



Sunday, November 27, 2016

Bottles

Here are some bottles. I enjoyed trying the different shapes.


Saturday, November 26, 2016

What's Important?

What's important? This is the question that I should ask myself whenever I sit down to draw or paint, but especially when I draw or sketch. When I pick up a pen or pencil, I crave accuracy and details because of who I am and how I am. In the moment, I get caught up in the process and it's all good. When I'm done and I look at the finished item, the lack of accuracy is both glaring and disheartening, at times.

It's easy to prop myself back up, when I think back to the beginning of the year and how scary it was to even try and put a line on a piece of paper. I also get that my inner critic is getting a little louder, since my expectations are higher. At the beginning of the year, I was thrilled if what I created even vaguely resembled the actual object. Lastly, I get that we are all our own worst critics.

For the rest of the 30 days of sketching when I post a picture, that's it. Here's what I did. I am going to cut the verbal critique.

As a point of comparison, here's where I was early in the year. I could not see where the lines should go or how to draw them in the correct direction. In this example, I was trying to copy someone from a video.

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I sure don't have the answers, but my questions keep getting better when I look at things. Figuring out how to represent 3-D reality in two dimensions is hard. My kitchen sink presented some challenges today. 


Getting back to the original point, I want to think about what's important. What do you need to capture the bare essence of a kitchen sink, a tissue box, a cat? That doesn't mean sketching quickly. It means thinking more about each line and whether adding it is essential.

Friday, November 25, 2016

Thanksgiving Number 2

Yesterday, I celebrated Thanksgiving with friends. Today, I co-coordinated the gathering of my hubby's family in my mother-in-law's apartment. Before the first family members arrived, I had a small amount of time completely alone in her apartment so I grabbed an object and tried to sketch it. The picture is not at the same angle as the drawing.


I didn't have time to finish my sketch.


After everyone left and I finished cleaning up, I had about 15 minutes to wait. I did a few more quick sketches, including the following.  The proportions and scale of my drawings always seem to be off. Although, it does keep getting better........slowly.  





Thursday, November 24, 2016

Esther, Again

Happy Thanksgiving to all. It's been awhile since I've tried painting Esther. I want to get good enough to give a painting of her to my friends. They loved this cat. One of these days...... 



My latest attempt was last night. It's getting better, but still not there. I've been having difficulty with eyes.



Here are three earlier attempts back in May to June. I enjoy comparing my latest attempts to earlier ones.