Painting #298 - Nov 18 - what a day, busy, but not done yet

House cleaning is a chore that takes me all day, when I do it, and today was the organization day, tomorrow is the clean day, so, I guess you would say that I'm half done, hopefully I'll get the cleaning part done before my cousin gets here tomorrow, I'm as bad with the housecleaning as I am with getting at the painting, I wait until the last minute to get it done, I really love the house to be clean, like I really love to paint, but I'm a procrastinator, I just can't make myself get at it until I have just enough time to get it done, why is that? Well, things are put away, I have the bathroom to clean and the dusting and the sweeping to do yet, then the mopping, I think I'll be in good shape, I'll let you know tomorrow.

Today, I decided to finish a painting that I started a long time ago, this is an ink resist, if you look back to the ink resist that I posted several months ago, you will see when I started it. All that was done was the ink part, the painting was done today, I was just going to see how it would look with color on it, but it just became my painting for today, I couldn't put the brush down, well, in between moving stuff and putting things away, so it's now finished. I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #297 - Nov 17 - It was class day and they are always busy

I had to finish this during my evening class, but got it done, I've been working on a small abstract, and I did paint on that a bit today, but it's not done yet, still needs lots of work so you don't get to see that one. This is a painting of a photo that my student, and friend, Pat gave me to use, it's in North Carolina. This must be in the flat part of the state, I don't see many rocks, like in the Northern part where the mountains are, but I'm not sure. I had this about 1/2 done when I left Marshall, so I had about an hour and a half to complete it, of course we don't get much painting done when everyone first gets to class (because we talk a lot), but I felt good that I got it done before we left the studio.

This is painted on Aquabord with the opaques, again. I painted the sky first then put in the green for the trees, I didn't get the tree trunks in until almost finished with the green part, I worked top down with this one, the water was next and I warmed up the water at the back edge so it showed a bit more reflection than in the photo, then the foreground on the left, I spattered a couple of different colors, using a couple of different sizes of brushes, one for larger and one for small, then I worked on the totems, I decided to ramp up the foreground with some orange mixed in with a bit of brown for shadows because there was orange on the totems, I was using brown, but it looked dull and flat, so I ramped that up with some permanent violet in the shadows and on one side of the rocks, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #296 - Nov 16 - another busy day

Being so busy, it sure seems to be the way it is lately, I really tried to get this painting done before I had to go shopping with the neighbor, she really wanted to go to Sam's club for some things she couldn't get the last time we went, and I did need to go to Gordon's Foods, so we went shopping, I did start working on this before I went, only I didn't get it totally done, it's not as late though, as I have been, so this is relatively early, it's only 10:30, so I might actually get to bed by Midnight tonight, which would be good since I have to do 3 classes tomorrow, I am usually so tired that I want to zoom home so I can take a 30 min. nap, I would like to not be tired, but since I started this blog operation, I've had a tendency to push the limit with getting these paintings done, I am painting, and that's always good, but I do have a bunch of things that I want to get after, among them is more acrylics and some pastels and also, some oils, and that doesn't mean I want to give up on the watercolor, I just want to do so many things that I know I'll never get them all done, especially if I don't paint everyday, I'm working on my next blog operation, since I am getting close to having this year done, my energy levels aren't as good as they used to be, there was a time when I could produce 3 portraits a week, and still get some paintings done (of course the paintings that weren't portraits I painted at work, I worked in a factory, and on breaks and lunch, when I should have been eating, I painted, of course, I was much skinnier then too), but, that was several years ago though, and I have slowed down, and I'm not equal to that any longer. I feel good about painting everyday, since I got involved with my husband and then married, I haven't painted as much as I should, one of the reasons is that I lost the good factory job (they went bankrupt), and I had to look for another one, and of course, it wasn't first shift like the first one was, this was 3rd shift and I really couldn't get anything done, I couldn't get to my art functions and I really had a hard time working on my art, so my job now, a watercolor and china painting instructor, is so wonderful, it doesn't pay as much but I'm much happier.

My painting for today is the still life that was started several days ago, I wanted to get my painting done early, and since this was already laid out, and the first layer was already applied, I decided to finish it. I do enjoy those still life paintings, the tricky part is the glass bowl, and I do love a challenge, the background was light, and I decided to darken it for drama, and I eliminated a wine glass and one large yellow pear, so, I really like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #295 - Nov 15 - It was a good paint day

It sure was a busy day, it started out like usual, watercolor class in the morning and china painting class in the afternoon, but then I had an Arts Alive meeting at 5:15 and that meeting ran over by about an hour and a half, which interrupted our dinner hour plans (the Blue Moon girls decided to do dinner out, and then to go on to Susan's for our Blue Moon Meeting, when the Arts Alive meeting ran over so much, there wasn't enough time to get to Sue's for our other meeting, so we canceled it, and home I came. Well, I'm glad that I had my blog painting finished during class, then I didn't have to race home and try to finish one, that was so much better. My life has been getting too complicated lately, when I stay up so late trying to get these paintings done (because I'm a poor judge of how much time it will take me to complete a painting, especially when I haven't started it yet, because I procrastinate), and I don't get enough sleep, I just don't function well. It's much so better to have it completed early, I must remember that.

I really got into this painting today, I had started this one last Thursday, it was just a basic under painting all over, but, it was a cold under painting, and, it really chilled me, I mean that I just couldn't get into it, I really wanted to paint another fall scene like the one yesterday, but my friend and student Sue, convinced me that it was too much like the painting I just finished, and she was right. So, I had another one started that I was considering, I started that one sometime last week (it was a still life like the ones I did with the fruit), but that one didn't trip my trigger, so, it was this one, I scoped it out, and decided that if I warmed it up a bit, I might be able to salvage it, so that's what I did.

The first thing I did was mix up a warmer green and lay that in on top of the colder green that I had originally laid in, then I smoothed out the sky one more time, then I laid a mix of turquoise with some green added to warm that up, and smoothed it over the turquoise water, so, that really got me started, and from there you can pretty much figure out what I did, I warmed the rocks up, they were a cold grey/purple, so, when I worked on them I added some yellow ochre and some brown with some white added to come up with a warm beige, it didn't take long after than, I just kept working the trees in the background, and then, the middle ground, until it suited me, then on to the bridge, and waterfalls, once they worked the right way, I moved to the foreground trees, and, ta da! It's a painting, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #294 - Nov 14 - An interesting day

I've been collecting acrylic paints for quite some time, so, today I decided to attempt to work with them in a watercolor and gouache way. I have been painting with the gouache this past year (I still will be painting those and the transparent colors too), but my friend Susan has been very intrigued with these for a long while, so I'm trying them, I wanted to work with them over the weekend but that didn't work out, so, today seemed like a good day to try, over the weekend I did get the palette set up, so it was ready and waiting, I decided to work with these on watercolor paper, in keeping with my watercolor passion, plus the fact that most watercolor art competitions will allow acrylics as long as they are painted on paper. I had always thought that acrylics were really a replacement for oils, but I don't think so anymore, I did have a bit of trouble getting it to flow off the liner brush, even adding water didn't work really well, but maybe that is because of the 300 lb paper I was working on, this painting is a bit larger than my usual and it did take me a couple hours longer, but that's not all bad, I did enjoy working with them in this watermedia way.

I started this out wet in wet, I drew the basic shapes of the trees and the water and then wet the top half and worked on that, then wet the river area and painted that and then the foreground left side, I let that dry, then I started with the background trees and went in with thicker paint and just built it up, to about 1/2 the finished value. The water was a fairly flat area and I didn't get too carried away with changing the value except on the lower right side, I did go in and put the warm reflection areas in at this time too. then I filled in the left side, I really brought up the left side first, not my usual way, but that's how it worked, that was almost done before I jumped into the background, and put a bit more information there, then I switched to the water and finished that, it was darker to light in this instance, that's pretty much how I do the gouache too. I like this little painting and will probably do more, so I'm hoping that you like it too.

Painting #293 - Nov 13 - Got another late start, it is Sunday, after all.

Well, I never manage to get these paintings done early, I'm thinking it's because I'm really a night\ owl, I can stay up late, and I have a hard time getting up early in the morning, I really think it takes all kinds to make this world go around, so it's ok. This painting is of a flower, again, and it's small, so I could get it done in time, I do need to get some sleep, I have a busy day tomorrow, and I'm thinking it's going to be a busy week, my cousin from Milwaukee is coming next week-end and I have to clean house, but I'm not going to be home much, so one day, I will have to really get after the cleaning, I have a tendency to let the housework go, not the greatest housekeeper, never have been and probably never will be, I get by, when it jumps out at me, I clean it.

I really would have liked to get over to the studio today, but that didn't work out, so I made do with the dining room table, I bought a special daylight to set up so I get the correct lighting, I have a couple of those at the studio too. My house has lots of windows, but, for some reason (I think it's because I'm getting old and things look darker), I don't see as well as I used to, so the light does help.

These flowers are very unusual, I made up this composition from a photo, the photo only had the one bunch of flowers but I felt that the pink needed to move around the painting a bit, I really stylized these, I've been leaning toward some abstraction, at least a bit, I'm not sure that I can go totally abstract, but I'd like to do some more, I know, I've done some, but I don't feel comfortable with that yet, I'm feeling that I need to work toward something here and I'm not sure what, but the abstraction is intriguing, I've been buying several books on that subject and some do actually give you a way to start, by abstracting the reality that I'm used to, so this may be another step in my painting evolution, let's hope so, I don't want to do the exact same stuff all the time, and I don't want to copy someone else, but using someone else's ideas and pushing it my way does appeal to me, we'll see, but for today, I'm just getting a little abstract, not much, but something. I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #292 - Nov 12 - got a late start but happy with the results

The day started out pretty good, I got over to the studio about 12:20 or so, and, because it was a mess, I moved stuff around and organized the main room (my class room), put stuff away, moved the frames and framing stuff into the back room so it wasn't taking up so much space, then I decided to do some color swatches of my pastels, I just ordered some new ones (I've had lots of pastels, I used to just paint pastels and only painted the watercolor when I went to workshops), but my main pastels were Rembrandt, I've drooled over the schminke pastels, but couldn't afford them, and the Senellier pastels, so I ordered some half stick sets and decided that I just had to do the color swatches, so I did all of them every one I had, when I was done with that, I started a painting, of course it was then time to cook supper, so I didn't get to work on it again tonight, so, I got the one out that I had half done (that's what I thought, except that I re-did the whole thing), so it took me a bit longer than I intended, but it's done and now I don't have to look at the blobs anymore.

I've been looking at this painting for 3 weeks, I started it at the paint out with PAAWM at Rawson's King Mill in Leonidas. This was the first one I started, but the cows weren't cooperative, so I gave up on it and painted across the lake, I really wasn't happy with much of it, I have re-painted the whole thing, I changed the sky, it was too busy, I re-vamped the house, I re-did the pasture, I re-did the cows, and I re-did the pond and trees. I really got in to doing the pasture, when I started to negatively paint the light instead of painting the dark shadow, before I did that I really changed the sky and house, I added a field in the far distance then put in the trees at the house level, after I got the pasture like I wanted, I worked on the cows, they were just blobs before, now they look like cows, then I worked the pond, the water was so still that it looked stilted, so, I rippled it a bit and made the reflections wave a bit, then to cover up the reflection of the tree in the foreground I added some close up weeds, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.