Painting #157 - so tired again, hopefully I'll get rested this week-end

I really need to rest, and have some free time for just me, I'm beginning to feel the pressure, although, I've been feeling that for a while, I sure hope I can hang there with these blogs, I am really tired, but I do want to paint, there is a conundrum here, paint, don't paint, what gives with that? I want to paint, I really got excited today about these little baby owls, this picture is a painting of the photo that my student, Edith allowed me to use, it was given to her, and I hope I'm not offending someone by painting this, but, it was such a draw. I need some of these things to keep me interested in painting, I guess I must be getting tired of the landscapes, I still haven't finished the portrait, and now, I'm not sure I like it, I may have to start it over, I'm not fond of the way the paint is laying on the board, we'll see if I can salvage it.

This is about the most monochromatic painting I've done, except for a blue, black and white painting I did once, I know, there wouldn't be much color in this, but, being a colorist, I'm hoping this carries. I enjoyed painting this one, and I got right into it, then I got home and just couldn't get up to work on it, I almost had myself convinced that it would be ok to let it go until tomorrow, but then, tomorrow is going to be busy and I'm trying to figure out how to get tomorrow's painting done, the grandchildren are here for the week-end, and that usually means that my time will not be mine (at least not totally). Don't get me wrong, I love to see them and we always have a good time, so, don't listen to me, I just need a little R & R which would put me back on schedule, I know, you are saying "You just got back from a week-end vacation", well, there was no rest there, we were on the go constantly, don't worry, I'll get it together, somehow. I just want to say, I love this little painting and I hope you do to.

Painting #156 - another busy day

It was Blue Moon night, and the girls decided we were to go out sketching, I managed to get one watercolor, not so good (maybe it needs more work, we'll see), and after that, we had a wonderful bowl of soup at Sue's, we decided to go back out and sketch a bit more, so, I got another 3 sketches, this time in pen and ink, I really enjoy sketching with a pen, it's been an amazing discovery that happened a couple years ago, I really never realized how wonderful a pen could be, I always felt that a pencil and an eraser were a must (I really used a lot of eraser), now however, it's really not necessary, and I would like to say that I feel that it is because of the Blue Moon group, I may have never discovered that, and it is my opinion that anytime you associate yourself with other artists and work together regularly, you will grow and learn so much more, I really appreciate the girls (Bev, Sue and Carol), that have included me in their group, what a wonderful experience it has been for all of us. We have all grown, and I have entered competitions that I wouldn't have, and sent away for a residency, that I wouldn't have, wow, just teaching classes that I wouldn't have, so it's great, I hope if you are working at art, that you have an opportunity to be in a group such as this, it is wonderful, ok, enough of that.

I worked on this painting today, also a portrait, but that has a lot more work yet, so hopefully I can get it done by this week end, but, I want to explain this one, for now. This was a sketch done on site, and I decided it needed more work, so I got it out and worked on it. I really re-did almost everything that was painted before, so I feel that it is a good subject for this blog. I did the original a few years ago at a workshop, this was a workshop with Lisa Guthrie, a California Artist, and she was helping us to improve our painting on site, so this wasn't a painting of what she painted, this was a place that we went, and everyone sketched, or painted something different. This happens to be the Poor House in Hillsdale (or rather, the backside of the poor house), and, re-painting it, took me back to that spot, so it was a fun time. I didn't have any sky, in the original version, and the trees were so gray looking, so I got out the opaques again, and worked them up, the grass the same, and even the building, I guess the only thing I didn't re-paint was the white fence on the far right side, I like this painting now, and I hope you do too.

Painting #155 - it's 3 for today

Well, I got carried away, I went over to the studio and brought back my liquid watercolors, my acrylic inks and some acrylics, well, I decided to play with the acrylic inks (my first time - they have been sitting staring at me for almost 3 months), about time that I used them.

I started out wet in wet, the first one is the blue fish one, then while that was drying, I tried another one with out totally wetting the paper, then I just really got into it, I just worked back and forth, first I did the one that has yellow, then I worked on the blue one (the reason I had to wait was I had soaked the paper under the faucet and it's 300 lb. paper), I was taking the photo's for this blog, and I decided to finish the one that I worked on in class, I actually had another one started too, but this one seemed to go with the abstractness of this group of paintings, the cat painting is one that was the other half of the painting I did for yesterday, if you can believe it, this one had a shape that looked like a cat to me, so that's what it became, in class, I only had the opaques to work with, so after I saw how the inks worked, I decided to add a bit more of the gold (the opaques sort of covered most of the original coppery paint up), so, today you get three, that should make up for being behind last week, I enjoyed doing these paintings, I'm sure hoping you enjoy them too.

Painting #154 - June 27 - a very special day

Today is my Daughter's birthday, I had lunch with her and bought her some flowers and had a very nice day, didn't get to painting very soon though, not her fault, always my fault, I always wait until the last minute, well, it almost backfired, well, maybe it did, you decide.

I took a non-objective painting start and turned it this way and that way, until I could figure out what it wanted to be. When I go to my friend's house in Indiana, we usually paint some experimental something or rather, and then they just pile up and I never do anything with them, well, I decided to work something up with one that I did somewhere, not sure where or when, but this one had copper spray paint in with the watercolor so I'm guessing that I did it at Lynn's. I don't usually paint with spray paint but this one had some nice colors, and I thought I could do something with it, but, at the same time the science channel had some space stuff come on and I'm very interested in watching that, so I decided to get the watercolor pencils out and work on this while I was watching TV, not usually my best painting plan, but it was the only way I could do both.

I saw a large tree root system and decided it had some rocks, and I worked on that while the shows were on, then I took it over to the table and painted on it with some of my opaques, and this is what I came up with, I think this one works and I am hoping you like it.

Paintig #153 - June 26th - just a small one today

I didn't get to paint until late, and even then other things kept me from really getting into it, I started one on 140# watercolor paper, but, I just couldn't get into that one, had some supper, and decided to just go with a 4" clayboard surface, this usually goes quite quickly, and I did get this done in about 2 hours, I just wasn't up to much today, we had my husband's family reunion this afternoon, and that was really enough for me today, but, I do have this blog to consider, as you will remember, my main reason for doing this is to make myself paint every day, and it really is working, as you all know, some days are better than others, so I chose a simple composition, I have postponed the Sturgis class for the month of July (one of the girls has to have surgery), and they are supposed to be working on a painting with these Spiderwort flowers (I didn't know what they were, I just liked the color, of course, it is really difficult to get that color, it doesn't really work well with the opaque paints, but that is what I had in my palette), I will have to attempt this again with the transparent colors.

I first painted the blue/purple flowers and then went in and painted the leaves, I decided to fill in the whole backbround with the green, then as the painting progressed, I decided to go with the darks at the bottom and let the top stay a bit brighter, I like the way this one feels and so I'm happy with this little painting, and I hope you like it too.

Painting #152 - June 25 - still life from life

I spied these ditch lilies (more commonly known as day lilies), grouped up around the outside of the bathroom window, and they inspired me to paint them, so I went out with the scissors and cut a few stems and decided I needed leaves also, I took them in and put them in a medium size vase, and then took a bunch of pictures, probably a good thing that I did, since the flowers wilted before I got this one done, so I started it out from life but ended it with a photo.

I chose a blue background because of the orange, I just felt I needed a little punch, and it worked, this one just about jumps off the canvas, yes, I did it again, I painted on one of those watercolor canvases, it's 12" x 12", I know, I told you I was going to start painting the small ones, but this just cried out for that 12" canvas, I really thought that it wouldn't take that long, I usually paint flowers much faster than I paint landscapes, I deliberately decided to just let these be slightly abstract, and I know from your view, they look pretty photographic but they really aren't. I didn't blend much (of course that had a lot to do with the surface, it is coated with gesso and doesn't lend itself to much blending, you can do it, but it's a dry brush type of blend). I started with the flowers and leaves, then decided to put the background in as an afterthought, I kind of like these canvases since they are gallery wrapped, that means that you can paint on the sides and after it's sprayed to seal the paint on, and you don't have to frame it, I carried the design right around the edges, so if you see buds going off, and leaves going off, and flowers going off, and the vase going off, it moves around the edge, I really like it. I did ramp up the color a bit, the flowers had a tendency to be all the same value so I added some red to set them back, well, it looked so good that the other flowers said "I want red too", well, not literally, it just seemed the thing to do, I worked on this off and on all day today and I'm now about to close this down and get to bed, so, I really love this painting, and sure hope you do too.

Painting #151 - June 24 - out in left field with this one

This is an experimental painting, I got some liquid watercolors and was testing them out, well, I really didn't have much in mind and let my students direct me a bit, it was so pale, I decided to ramp up the colors a bit and now I think it is ok, I know it's not my usual, well, sometimes you have to step out of the safe zone and get right in with something that's a bit more challenging, and I do believe that abstraction is challenging, I don't feel that it's my strong point, but it was an interesting diversion, as I said, I didn't have a plan when this was conceived, it just progressed, once I made some strokes, I got the feeling that it was a city and then I thought, well, it needs some freeway's, then it needs some billboards, wow, I got right into this, now I have factory's and then as a final I put a few trees (you do have some trees, well, at least in the small city I'm accustomed to), so it became a city, well, what city is complete without department stores, and if you have department stores, you have people, can you see them, well, I'm making this short, I've got a headache, and I'm very tired, got to catch some z's, I like this painting, and I sure hope you do too.