Part II - painting #1 - week 2 - almost there

I didn't have much opportunity to paint on this particular painting until today, I worked the Gallery today and managed to get about 3-1/2 hours of solid painting time. I really feel that the trees are done, I like the way they turned out. I wasn't sure how I was going to approach the pine trees, I really didn't want to paint all those needles, and my silly brain still wants to put all that information in, I don't know why, I just can't infer it, I must put those needles in, but I found a mini fan brush that really worked for me, I used the gouache again, I think I'm stuck on that, can't seem to make myself go back to the transparent watercolors completely, I did use them on this, but those opaques really call my name. Any way, I finished the trees, then I worked on the middle ground water a bit, and the rocks, I do need to work on the right hand corner more, and I do need to finish the drift wood that is piled up on the rocks,I think I can finish this one soon, I'm going to try to finish it on Friday, that is if they don't press me to work on that poster for Tibbits, I really thought that I'd hear from them my now, but, no, they haven't made an attempt to contact me yet, hopefully I'll find out something soon, well, I'm signing off, I hope you can see the difference on this, I think it's getting much better.

busy week

I don't have a picture for you, I still haven't been able to finish this painting I started, I haven't really been able to paint on it, I got a new student in class last Tuesday and I wasn't able to paint on a regular painting. I've been trying to get the knitting to a point, I did manage to get the scarfs done, now the socks, Wed Chris from the Tibbits called me and talked me into working up a design for a poster, I had to mull that around for a week before I could come up with something that I liked, now just waiting to see if they like one of the 6 that I designed, then I'll have to paint that, I'm going to try to finish the painting, if not tonight when I get home, then tomorrow at the Gallery, I am scheduled to work all day tomorrow, so I might be able to get it done before class. Sorry that I don't have anything to show, but keep looking, I will be finishing this soon and then on to the next. Hope you have a great day.

Painting #1 - Jan 31 - A lot more to do yet

As you can see, there is a lot more to do, I really worked hard on the trees yesterday, I'm not sure if they are done yet or not, it will depend on how they look when the water progresses, I was so enamored with the water the other day, that the trees got left behind, so that was my intention when I got to the painting yesterday. The water does pull me though, I have class today, so I probably won't work on this one there, it's so large, I may work on it when I get home though. The trees were a challenge to me, I don't want them to get too detailed, but the problem is that I've worked so small this last year, that my brain hasn't totally made the disconnection with the detail, obviously, if I try to put too much detail in, it will fall flat. Besides, the intent here is to eliminate the detail, well, not totally, but to try to loosen up, I am trying, stay tuned for more upgrades, and, hopefully, the painting should be done this coming week-end, that is if all goes well. Thanks for watching.

A new plan - here is the new plan for this coming years blog

I hope you all didn't give up on me, it took me a while to figure out my new direction, I probably will not blog daily, maybe I will and maybe I won't, you will just have to check since I don't know yet weather you really need to see everything I'm working on, I will show you when I complete one, and when I start a new or major painting (like yesterday's painting). I went to my friends house (she used to be my china painting instructor many years ago, but since then we've become best friends).

I started a 22" x 30" painting, the surface is Aquabord (I don't plan on working on this surface always), I had purchased one a while ago, it was wrapped in the plastic but I had some water damage in my studio a while ago and I didn't notice that it had gotten wet, well, the water had stained the bottom edge of the board, so I decided, since that surface is fairly expensive for that size, that I would see if I could repair it. Scrubbing it didn't work, so I gessoed it, it took several layers but it finally got so I couldn't see it, I realized that the place that the gesso was was smooth and the Aquabord is textured like watercolor paper, so I tried a couple of different things to acquire the texture necessary to get close to the texture on the board, finally I had a piece of paper towel and after I painted the gesso on, I laid the paper towel down and it really worked, you can't see the difference now that it's painted, it works for me, with the gesso on it, it should be sealed and good to go, I will monitor this to make sure that it doesn't re-appear and I will keep you apprised.

Now, this was painted all in one day I have about 7 or more hours working on this one, and I will not always have that many hours to work on one painting everyday, what I'm proposing is that I show you the progress I'm making and hopefully I will complete at least 30 paintings this year, I will say that my intent is half sheet or larger paintings, but not to just limit myself, I will tell you that I may work smaller, it will depend on lots of things, first of all, if I start a painting in a class, I may have to work smaller because of space, on the Thursday class we are a bit more limited than the Tuesday class, I don't intend to blog this daily, I think I mentioned that, but I will be on here 2 or 3 times a week to up date my progress, today's painting has a lot more photo's since I worked hard on it all day, most days, I will have 2 or 3 hours at most so it won't be necessary to show so many different views, also, when I'm working in class, I will be working on finishing paintings that are already started (from last year and before, I'm fond of starting paintings, and sometimes I have to look at them for a while before I figure out what needs to be done, probably one of the reasons that a painting a day was a bit difficult for me), but I do want to paint all the days, even the ones that I'm not teaching, I will say that I probably won't be painting on Sundays, since that is my day to spend with the family.

This first photo is the last photo I took, I will then show you the progress from start to last, I just know that if I post this on facebook, that the first photo is the one that shows up and I didn't think that would look very impressive, so here goes.

The following photo's are the first followed by the next progression, now remember, the first one is the last one for now, I'm still working on this one.

As you can see, this painting isn't done, but that's my plan, you will see the progress until it's completed, if I finish one in my class, I will post that separately, thanks for viewing my blog last year and hopefully, you will follow this part.

Painting #365 - Last, but not least

This is the final painting for this blog obligation, I said I'd do it and I did, I made it! Whew! Wasn't sure that I would, or could. I started getting at the paintings late, most nights, and I dragged my feet, at that, but, I did do what I said I'd do. I really don't know how those daily painters do it, how do you paint one a day on a continuous basis, I think if I had done this when I was in my 30's I might have been better equipped to deal with it, now, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy doing this, I especially like chatting, I really feel that part helps you know the real me, I do have my struggles, one being that in order for me to get anything done, I have to give myself deadlines, and pressure myself into doing it, once I get started, I really don't have trouble, it's the starting that's hard, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one that struggles with that, I am hoping that this experience has helped me be aware of how short our lives are (especially since it doesn't seem possible that this year is over already), and that if I'm going to make this art my career, I must work at it like a job, I do work at it like a job 3 days of the week, but those on those days that I don't teach, I can find all kinds of reasons not to get to the studio. In order for me to do this blog painting, I had to bring a small studio over here (at the house), and set it up at my dining room table, if I'd had to go to the studio, I would have felt that I was neglecting my husband, and even as it was, I did do that a bit, he is very happy that this blog is over, little does he know that I intend to keep blogging, about my paintings, and I'm hoping that I can figure out what I really want to do, I know if I don't tell you what I'm going to do, I'll probably not do it, because I know me, well, enough of that.

This painting was started last Tuesday, remember, I said that I got it started and was excited about it, well, I tried to paint on it some yesterday, but didn't have enough time, or energy to work at it more than a bit. Today, however, I meant to complete it and I worked at it very diligently at class, and then I have about 2 hours in it after dinner. I tried not to make it too detailed, but detailed enough, sometimes tricky for me. I left the figure of the fisherman until last, and I really enjoyed painting him, this photo was taken on a short vacation that my husband and I took a few years ago, now don't ask me where it is, for sure, it's probably in the U.P., possibly along the black river, there is a State Park and there are about 5 different falls that are on a couple of mile hike, I'm not sure that I would be able to do it anymore, but it was great getting these photo's when we did. I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

I will get back to you in the next week to decide what the next blog will be, I want to continue painting, but I want to work on some that are much larger, I'm really counting on getting some larger new stuff done for my up coming shows, toodles for now. Vivian

Painting #364 - A quiet day, not much happening

Everyone needs those days once in a while, I should have really jumped in and painted a bit more, I did paint, but not as much as I should have, tomorrow is the last blog, I hope you can keep me in mind, I plan on doing something, just not totally sure what yet, I'm hoping that I'll be able to figure out what it is I want to do. I've tossed around a couple of different ideas, I have lots to do, I'm scheduled to have a show of some of these blogs at the Carnegie Center for the Arts in Three Rivers, that's scheduled for August, Sept. and Oct., I have lots to do to get ready for that, among those things is a lot of matting and framing along with some painting, since I don't want the show to be just the small paintings that I've been painting, I'm tossing around figuring out the best ones and possibly having one of those books made up, wow, wouldn't that be neat, so, I'm still thinking and I will be painting, so maybe I'll keep you apprised of how those things are coming along, I also thought about a weekly painting, but then I'm still thinking about that one, since some paintings, especially the large ones, take longer than a week, and I don't want to get myself in the same situation where I'm pressured to produce a painting, that should be a natural thing, my intention was to get a new habit to paint everyday, I would like to see if that has happened, and go from there for now.

This painting is another of the 4" x 6" postcard size, on 300 lb. watercolor paper. I started it out with a wet-in-wet technique with acrylic, then I let that dry and got out the gouache and watercolors, did I mention that my palette is kind of a mixture of both, some of the paints are American Journey paints (Cheap Joe's), and they say transparent, but quite a few of those have white in them, and that makes them opaque.

In my original composition, I had left the birch tree, that crosses the river there in the foreground, out, well, I thought that spot looked so un interesting, that I put it in, so I got the gesso out and wiped out the watercolor paint, then laid in the gesso, when that was dry, I got out the palette knife and tried the palette knife technique again, I was quite happy with the result. The remainder of this painting was to just fill in the leaves of the trees hanging down and put the branches in, then fine tune the rocks and the water and, TA DA! Its a painting, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #363 - Jan 22 - Going to be busy today, so I got this done early

The Opening reception for the Carnegie Center for The Arts in Three Rivers is today, so I jumped right on that painting that I was trying to get done yesterday to finish it. I am sure that the afternoon is going to be very busy, since we have not done any major shopping lately in addition to the show, and I'm certain that we will be dinning out too, so just in case that I get to exhausted from all that activity (I'm getting so I don't have the same stamina anymore, I used to be able to go and go and go, but something happens when you turn 55, I do believe that's the magic number when things really go downhill, and since I passed that almost 11 years ago, you guessed it, I'm much less able to do that, gaining weight will have something to do with that too, or maybe it's the other way around, the weight is from doing less, I really think it's both).

this little painting, again, is on 300 lb. watercolor paper (it's 4" x 6" again, I have to use up those pieces I cut for the postcards), I've been experimenting with ways to start things, so I used the acrylics to lay in the beginning washes, when that was dry, I switched to the gouache, I feel much more comfortable with the gouache, maybe it has to do with the acrylics drying so fast, I have enjoyed the acrylics, but the gouache is much easier to manipulate. At any rate, I then started to build up the background trees, since the sky is sort of a pinkish color, I used magenta added to the green, well, that was too dark, so I just thinned it down and added more magenta, that worked, then I moved to the water, and worked that up, the foreground weeds were put in last, and finally I added a skim of white to add the effect of the water, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.