Painting #348 - another late night

I am sure getting tired of staying up so late, I really don't know if the blog painting is the problem or it's just me, I didn't get started on this painting until 9:30 p.m., which doesn't leave me much time to paint it. This one didn't really take long, except I painted it on claybord, and to get it smooth enough to suit me, I had to lay a bunch of water all over the pears to smooth it out, which took a long time to dry, I'm going to make this short, got to get to bed, tomorrow is a family day, my husband's brother and sister and their families are coming over for a Christmas gathering, we went away the day after Christmas so this was the first that we could schedule it for everyone, or rather, most of them, not sure if they will all be able to make it, we'll see, I have to get up rather early in the morning to get the bread made, and a salad or some mac and cheese, or something to go with the ham I have cooking. So, I like this little painting, and I hope you like it too.

Painting #347-1-2 & 3 - Very enthusiastic painting operation today

Well, you probably want to know why 3 paintings today, especially of the same thing. Well, I went shopping today, take a wild guess where, you don't know? I went to Michael's in Battle Creek, you know, that's a danger spot for me, I made the mistake of taking my daughter, I probably would have been ok with my Sister Mel (she went too), but my daughter went looking for art stuff, well, I already bought jewelry stuff, it was on sale, and I had been in the yarn department, a bad place for me to go, but I really meant to stay out of the art department, I already have way too much stuff at home, well, they had some clearance stuff, some little sets of oils, acrylics and watercolor, each one was only $1.99 (originally 9.99), and each set had little easels and 2" panels for painting, each one had 2 easels, the watercolor one had 3 2" panels for each of the 2 easels (very tiny), and 6 tubes of paint and a small brush, well, the brush isn't much, and that will probably go in my discard pile, but the other stuff I'll use in my small travel kit, any way, I thought I would see how those little panels painted up, so I got out the paint and I found this photo that I took almost 30 years ago, and decided to just do a little one to see how this little panel painted, then I thought, I'll see how this looks on the paper, and see the difference, well, then I decided to paint on the 4" x 4" Aquabord, I really got into it, I really got tired and it did take me a bit, after all that shopping and after dinner, to get myself going on the painting. I started these at 10:00 p.m. and finished them at 1:00, I know it's tomorrow, oh well, it was my today. I like all these little paintings and I hope you do too.

This is the 2" painting and the first one I painted.

This is the second one, the 4" x 4-3/4" one on paper.

And, last but not least, the 4" x 4" painting on Aquabord.

Painting #346 - Jan 5 - Back to the grind, 3 classes today, and I'm tired

I worked on a watercolor today in class, but it still has about 1/2 of it left to do, I just wasn't up to finishing it tonight, I've been eyeing some oil pastels that I've had for quite some time, so tonight, I decided to try working with them, I have never finished a painting with these, I've used them as a resist in some watercolors, but to do a whole painting with them, I just wasn't enthused about that. Well, I tried them, not sure about them, but have so many that I felt that I should try, I will investigate them a bit more, but this is what I have for today, I laid in the colors, then took a q-tip with turpentine on it and smoothed it out, then went back in with the sticks of color and laid in a bit more detail, I took a blending stump to get into the fine corners and up to the edges of the flower and leaves to make it smooth, it's not my usual, but not too bad, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #345 - Jan 4 - A busy day

I'm still knitting, but not as fiendishly, just a bit, but in addition to that, I drove my paintings in to the Three Rivers Carnegie Center for the Arts, they are having their annual art competition, and this is the first year that Hillsdale as been included, of course it was because I asked them to consider including Hillsdale, we really don't have much going on in this county, Art wise, for competitions, so this will be a good thing. I also took my friend, Susan's work over, no need to have us both drive, I left my house at about 1:00 p.m. and didn't get home until 4:00 p.m., I really didn't sleep well last night and was hoping to get a small nap in, but that didn't happen, I also didn't manage to paint my blog painting before I went to Blue Moon tonight. So, this small little painting was a project that we all did, we were painting in the style of Modigliani, this is very strange for me, and not as easy as it looks like. I used my friend Carol as a model, she really doesn't have this long of a neck or face, nor does her nose look that long, this is just a hoot, we all had fun, she did me, and Sue did Bev and Bev did Sue, so, we are thinking that as much fun as we all had doing this, that we might do something similar again, like maybe pick a different artist to emulate, since we didn't copy his actual work, it is ok, I think, we just tried to get a similar effect. I think this was fun, and I was trying to do another one for the blog, but, since I'm on the short side of sleep today, and I have classes tomorrow, I believe this is the painting that you get, I'm going to matt this up and give it to my friend Carol, and I think she will do that too, Bev already gave Sue hers, which by the way, was awesome, I really should have taken pictures of all of them, except Sue can't make up her mind, she's still working on hers, and so is Carol (working on her picture of me, which is really looking awesome too), maybe we can get a picture of all of them when they are all done. I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #344 - Jan 3 - Nice painting day, even if it was cold out.

The day started out slow, only one student again (the afternoon class was a bit larger with 3), but JoAnn and I paint well together, she, doing something experimental and I, doing my usual, the landscape (at least this time).

I had started this one (along with another one that I started wet in wet, of the same scene), several weeks ago, I only had the first layer on, well, you do need to finish some of those starts sometime. I thought even if I mess it up, I still had another one that I could work on. This little painting is painted on some print paper, it's not quite as heavy as hot press, but it worked out ok, it's a bit larger than I've been painting lately, probably why I drug my feet getting it finished.

I didn't like the sky, it was too dark, so I lightened it up, that helped, then I worked on the background trees, after that, I worked on the grasses, I really saw purple in there, so why not. After that I finished the water, as the water looked almost brown, with some orange and green thrown in, I decided to skim it with a bit of blue just to interrupt the static quality of it. Then I worked up the foreground trees, I really like this little painting, and I hope you do too.

Painting #343 - Jan 2 - It's tomorrow again

I did start this a bit earlier, but was interrupted by fixing supper, then I always get tired after I eat, and I have a hard time getting back to work, even though I was really making good progress, but it took me an hour to get back to it, then I had some drying issues, all of which I knitted in between, that could be the reason that this is so late, I do get wrapped up in the knitting. Anyway, I only have about 2-1/2 hours in this one, the last hour was the swan dish, that, of course, was the major detail, but, I think it turned out pretty good. This is painted on 300 lb paper, it's about 5" x 7", not large but an ok size. I wet each item and then laid the color in, wet-in-wet, of course, they were done one at a time, until I put the details on, I like this little painting, and I hope you do too.

Painting #342 - Jan 1 2012 - Happy New Year everyone

Happy New Year, I'm so happy to be here and painting, still. When I started this project, it seemed like a long way away, now it's so close, 23 days, woo hoo! I'm still debating how much I plan on doing after the 365 days are up, I want to paint, that's been my main objective, but I don't believe I will complete one every day, I may be able to complete one in a day, but it will be for a different reason, I have lots that I want to do, but that also includes things that are not painting, but art related, I also have stuff that has to be sorted and gotten rid of, so that is another thing that I need to do, I still have almost all of the stuff in this house, upstairs and down, that we stored from my Mother's, after she passed away, I really need to get that stuff out of here, I'd like to clean out the basement so I can set up my ceramic studio, I have 2 potters wheels that I've never been able to use, I need to get the stuff out of the way and electrical outlets put in, and lighting, I also have a bead torch, and I do make jewelry, my hand made bead collection is so low, I've been using stuff from the store, not as interesting, and my jewelry supply is getting really low at the Gallery, that is my main money maker at the gallery.

I decided to use this photo, it's one that my Mother took, in Pennsylvania, obviously of the Amish, the photo was taken from the car, and the figures are so small, I really couldn't get much detail out of it, so this is the best I could do, I would like some of those Amish pictures, but I'm not brave enough to boldly take pictures of them when I know they don't like it, so I don't, I have taken pictures of their fields after the wheat has been stacked, and, as you will recall, the buggy's going up the hill, otherwise, I don't have the nerve.

This is on 4" x 4" Aquabord, I decided that since I couldn't see the detail, it was best to go small, the sky was laid in, sky blue at the top and cobalt violet at the horizon, then I went in and muddled some white in for a cloudy effect, there were no clouds but with the sky being that large I had to do something, then, while it was still wet, I laid in the very far away light horizon, then the trees and finally the field and foreground, I put the roofs of the barns in, so I'd know where to lay in the white for the buildings, I let that dry before I worked up the barns and background trees, then the field, I did the horses and figures on the equipment last, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.