Well, this is the new year, and I have started a new blog, if I haven't told you yet, the new address is just vivianschilling.blogspot.com, it is supposed to be a new start of getting to painting everyday, well, I'm not doing as well as I did in 2011, well in 2012 I got sick and since then I'm getting as it again, but it is much slower. I can't seem to get driven like I was when I said I'd do one a day, I'm afraid that if I say that again, my husband will have a fit. He's of the opinion that is what caused me to get sick, and I'm sure it isn't but he's convinced. So, I'm doing this and as soon as I get this show at Pierce Cedar Creek set up, I'll be able to do much better, right now I'm trying to get everything together for this show. My dear friend Susan kind of got me into it, and I'm glad she did but I'm having a hard time making myself get to it, but the deadline is here, so for the time being, I'm at least painting 3 days of the week, and I've got lots to do gathering, making lists, making cards, and then hanging, wish me luck. And, check out the new blog, I'm not going to be posting on this one anymore, but I'm still painting, check out the new blog to see what I'm doing now.

Just to let you know - been sick

Well, this is a long story, just to up date you on the what for, I had a bout of Congestive heart failure, been in and out of the hospital with several major procedures that were not fun, it's 3 weeks in and out of Borgess and Coldwater hospitals for the last month, and now I'm on Home health care, so I'm stuck at home, I'm pretty shaky, but feel good, so hopefully they will figure out what caused this, and I'll be back, I haven't painted for 5 or so weeks, but I'm going to go out and sketch something right now. Hang in there with me, I do have a painting that I've been working on and hopefully I'll be able to finish that one and get it posted.

Paintout today

What a nice day, it was a scheduled paintout at the Cary Farm in Hastings with the PAAWM group, a bit of a long drive, and the forcast was not good, thank goodness that the weather didn't know that, what a nice day. The Cary's were so generous, they provided us with apples, oranges, doughnuts, muffins, coffee, water, then they brought out a sheet cake, and when it was finished, they provided us with pizza. Wow! They were ever present and wandered around, so friendly, it was a wonderful site and it was a great day.

My friend Carol and I wandered around for quite a while and then decided to get to painting, I took lots of photos so I'll hopefully be able to paint more than this one painting. I usually paint with watercolors, but today I decided to paint with pastels, my surface was a new one for me, I ordered some suade paper, what a lovely surface, it hardly makes any dust, I really like it.

Anyway, I was painting the same scene as Richard Jordan (he's the one that organized the PAAWM group), and he's a very good oil painter, I hope I wasn't encroaching on his space by painting the same location he was, anyway, I worked on this for about 3 hours and I probably could change a few things, but I won't get the opportunity since I donated the painting to the Cary's, they liked my painting, and they were so kind to let us wander all over their property, so I decided to donate this one piece for their generosity. I hope they enjoy it, I really enjoyed the day and I enjoyed painting this picture.

Black River Gorge - Finished April 12, 2012

Here it is, I told you yesterday that I was going to post this one, I've been so excited about this surface, I'm loving it. When I got this board (Strathmore High Plate Illustration Board), I cut it in half and took it to my watercolor class on Tuesday, that was only slightly over 2 weeks ago, wow, two paintings painted on this surface, they are about 15" x 20", just about what a 1/4 sheet of watercolor paper would be. This surface is smooth, but it has a slight tooth, it however, is not slick, but slightly absorbent, a truely lovely surface to paint on. I'm going to finish another one that I started at about the same time (I think I started it on Thursday), that same week as that first waterfall painting I finished.

I have a start photo, which you will see is rather oblique, not much to say what it will be, then as I painted, it really grabbed me, now, you understand, I did all both of the first two, the start and the second stage, all the same day. I didn't have time to finish it then, or I would have, it really grabbed me. I didn't feel that I made much more progress for the 3rd and 4th stages, so I didn't photograph it, well, I probably should have, oh well, live and learn, so I actually worked on this 4 times, once on Tuesday, then on Thursday, and again on Tuesday this week, I had to work the Gallery yesterday afternoon and I had about another hour in this, but didn't quite have it finished, today was putting the water to rights, this painting makes me very happy, I think it's the composition and the bits of detail, I love painting falls and this one really gives me a lot to love, I'm hoping you love it too, I'm going to be exhibiting it in my show at the Carnegie Center for the Arts in Three Rivers, MI, August, September & October this year, hope to see you there, I'll be letting you know when the reception is and possibly you can manage to find time to go.

This is the final, now I'll put the 1st and second stages in.

Golden Stream finished - finally

I've worked on this off and on, it's been 2 months, and I really meant to have this, done within the week, well, I got sick, plus the fact that I had to work on that poster, I really got behind. Then, I got waylaid, I found a new surface to work on and I'm pretty excited about it. I have another painting that is almost finished, but I wanted to get this one done, I worked on both today, it was gallery day, and I think I must have worked on this painting about 2-3/4 of my 3-3/4 hour day. I was so excited to get this one done and then I worked on the next one, and was so excited to get so close to finishing it, I forgot to eat dinner, then my students started to arrive, well, I ate my salad when I got home, about half an hour ago.

This painting, as you will recall, is on Ampersand Aquabord, I discovered this surface when I was doing the daily blog painting, and really liked working on it. I wasn't sure when I would work on one this large, but I must have invested in the 22" x 30" bord during one of the orders I placed for bords, I do have several of the 6" square bords left, so I will be painting a few more of those at some point.

This painting has been about 3/4 done for a long time, I only had to finish the lower left corner, well, I think the problem was that those branches in the middle were holding me back, I finally got them done today, then I worked on the rocks on the left and the water right at the corner, this one is finally done and I'm so glad, now I don't have to feel guilty for painting on something else, I am planning on finishing the next one tomorrow, and I'll be posing that one then, hope you'll be watching for it.

New painting - Shimmering Falls finished 3/29/12

Well, even though I have been negligent posting, I have been painting, not as much as I should, since I'm really behind now, but I think I'm changing my approach, now, instead of putting my paintings out as I'm working on it, I've decided to post all levels of each painting when it's all finished, that way, when I link it to Facebook, those who view my work will see the finished piece and then can go to this blog to see the steps, I believe this will be a better approach for me. I still haven't finished the very first painting that I started, so much stuff came up that interrupted my train of thought, and now I'm at a stand still, I see it, it's sitting on the easel and staring at me, but I got diverted when I had the poster to work on, then I was sick, and I found a 16" x 20" Aquabord, and got excited about painting on that surface (that's the next finished painting, I only have a little bit more to do on that one.

Today's painting is is watercolor and gouache, the surface is High Plate Illustration board. I started this one yesterday about 1:30 in the afternoon (I worked the gallery), before I started painting, I took blue painters masking tape and taped all around the edges, the reason for this is to keep the water from separating the sheets of paper making up this surface. I did a rough sketch, then started with the sky, I wanted it to be fairly light so I had quite a bit of water with the blue, then I mixed some brown in the blue to make the light gray for the clouds, and to attempt to make the clouds show up a bit more, I put a bit of opaque white on the tope edge. I then started with the rocks at the left and moved across to the trees at the top, this surface is really absorbent, so it really didn't take long for the paint to sink in enough to keep it from moving together. then the rocks across the middle, I mixed blue, brown, yellow ochre and blue, painting and changing colors as I moved, toward the bottom of the rocks, I added some purple in to cool them down, as I worked the rocks, I kept changing the colors and adding some opaques to add texture, once I got the rocks laid in, I laid a wash of cerulean blue with some prussian blue added for a bit darker blue under the rocks, the first was was very simple.

Then, I started at the top and refined the tree area, I put some blue at the top edge of the trees to indicate farther away, and switched back and forth from green to yellow ochre and back to green, and some blues, I scratched into the tree color to indicate pine trees and some other tree trunks, I really worked up the rocks, adding some burnt sienna and some permanent magenta with the browns and blues and yellow ochre, when that was done, I worked on the foreground rock ledge where the water is cascading, I really laid in the darks, skipping spaces for the water to flow down. It's difficult to explain the layers, I really think you'd have to watch me to see how I work, I really work all over the rocks and the water at this last stage, I felt that the direction of the rocks and the movement of the water were the important part of this composition, I really enjoyed how the paint worked, and how I could really jump into the details fairly fast, of course, you realize that I am not a wimpy painter, I like strong contrast and I really love making the water move, this very last stage is when I jump into the opaques, I started with white, and added some blue in some areas and some green shade in some areas and that's the way it goes, I really like this painting, I think this piece is about the size of a 1/4 sheet, maybe slightly larger, I really enjoyed painting this, I'm unsure exactly where this is. but. I'm thinking it's one of the falls that is on the Black River in the U.P., I really enjoyed this painting and I hope you do too.

The above is the finished, below follow the first through the 4th stages, I just wanted you to see the finish first.

Poster is finished

This is the poster I did for Nympy Errant, a Tibbits show this summer, I got kind of wrapped up with that, and didn't get to finish the painting yet, then I got sick with such a terrible cold and am just now feeling like doing anything.    I did finish  another one, one you didn't get to see the start of since I was trying to finish the other one first, but since this one is finished, you now get a look.  I will be posting the finish on the other one soon.   So, I've started another painting on Aquabord, this one is much smaller than the other one, but still larger than the small ones I did for my blog last year, I hope you will keep looking, I really feel bad about not posting for so long, so I'm back, and will be doing a much better job of  keeping up with this now, I am a bit behind and will try to catch up, it might be a bit tricky since there is so much going on this spring and summer, but I will try.  Thanks for keeping an eye on this blog.