A Little Study...

Worked on a study - a close up of the face in order to troubleshoot some issues. The bad news is that I had a hard time achieving the "looser" painting style of the original.  I blame my little palette - in respect to the size of the study - since I would quickly run out of my color mixture.  I was unable to load up the brush and lay in a layer of color.  Instead, I was trying to make the color stretch and that resulted in thin, smooth and blended colors and it was frustrating to have to keeping stopping to mix colors.  So, note to self, when I go to work on the larger canvas, I'll have to make sure I have small containers of colors mixed (just like I did with the mural).

The good news is that with all of this painting and repainting, mixing and remixing, I figured out a skin tone mixture that I like a lot.  I had always used a lot of ultramarine blue in the shadows, but for this I went heavier with more burnt umber (inspired by a documentary about Manet that I watched recently - don't know if that's what he used, but I noticed his warmer, neutral shadows).

The last thing I have to say has to do with studies and redoing a drawing or painting.  I always tell my art students not to immediately write off a redo as bad or worse than the first. It will always look "different" in some way, and beginning artists often get frustrated because it does look different.  Usually, when I walk away from it for a while, I come back to find that it's not as bad as I thought, and there are some things that I might like better after all.  Or, I can learn something from the redo - as I did here.

A Bit Rusty in the Figure Painting Department...

I've worked on the study over this extended weekend, and it's been a bit of a challenge.  Painting the figure has always been a challenge for me simply because I haven't done a lot of it.  What I have done has been more along the lines of illustration and hard-edge drawing.  But, I did manage to make progress and actually get some results that kind of work.

I painted out the face MANY times before I finally achieved the
"soft" look that I was going for - less is more...

This is just a study, and I may do another one just of the face to get a better grasp of it.  In the end, it will be a larger painting (as I think I mentioned before).

On Deck...

I've tucked away the porcelain creamer, little orange flowers and cascading drapery, replacing the objects with photo references for a project I'm really excited about doing.  The inspiration was a photograph of my oldest daughter taken about a year ago at El Capitan State Beach.  However, I'm changing the location from a rocky beach to a rocky riverbed with some trees in the background.

I'm looking forward to playing with some colors that have not been on the palette for other projects - mainly Phthalo blue and green.  I'm also excited about exploring colors and patterns of stones in water - I've always been drawn to that in nature.  But, most of all, I'm delighted to be working with a specific concept - trying to capture the moment of quiet contemplation or listening in prayer.

I have flashes of what I think the end product might look like, but I've learned not to get hung up in those fleeting visions.  They give me a direction, but the journey will likely take me down any number of possible paths.  But, this is merely a study for the sake of exploration.  Ultimately, I see this as a fairly large painting - large for my space, anyway, requiring more than a little tabletop.  By the time I'm ready to move on to canvas, the weather should be comfortable enough to work in the garage again.

So Much For Being "Done"...

A rare day-off for Lincoln's Birthday, the big kids all gone to friends' houses, and a little sunshine on the front patio means that my littlest can have fun playing out front while mom updates things on the laptop.

Spring flowers have already arrived.

Anyway, didn't I say I might just tweak the painting a little?  Well, that wasn't exactly true.  When it came down to it, I think I tweaked it a lot.  Of course, it may not look different but, with a little close observation, one might notice differences.  Frankly, I became frustrated with the 2 flowers on the right - they became rather muddled by overworking with to many colors - I even completely painted out the bottom one and started over.

I think it's done - but I'm still not happy with the leaf - I'll just tweak it a little...

Light was an interesting challenge as I had a changing light source (a south-facing window) to my left which caused moving shadows and a secondary interior light overhead/right which created shadows of its own.  I realized that I was giving conflicting information with cast shadows of the flower petals on both sides of the vase/creamer, but I liked the shapes and decided to keep them.  And that's what was truly liberating about this project compared with the first one which was much more dependent on observation.  For this one, I gave myself permission to use more artistic license and mostly responded to what was happening on the paper.  Besides liking the shapes of some of the shadows, I also liked the orange from the flowers reflected on the porcelain surface - it wasn't nearly as pronounced in real life, but I liked it in the painting.

I still have dreams of one do doing a "quick" little still life that captures its essence with a minimum of strokes... (sigh)

A Different Perspective...

On this lovely afternoon, I was able to spend time painting.  I realized that the little still life I just painted was OK, but...something about it isn't sitting well with me.  I'm happy to be more comfortable working with acrylic paint, but it's still falling flat.  That contrast that I like to emphasize just wasn't there once the colors dried.  Also, I wanted to try something a little looser now that I'd solved the question of colors and mixing.  So, I decided to try it again from a slightly different angle.

First paint (left) and today's painting (right)

I definitely like the 2nd one better - it has a greater level of contrast and it is slightly looser (although I think total reckless abandon just isn't how I was created to paint).  There's still a little tweaking that I'll do, but it shouldn't change too drastically from this.  One thing that I thought about while painting was how much easier color mixing has become.  In the early days of painting, color mixing was a little confusing - sort of hit or miss.  But now, I have a better sense of whether I should add a blue, a brown, or a black for a shadow; whether I should add a white, a yellow, an ochre, or some other color for a highlight.  I'm actually quite happy with my painting now - I want to have one foot in the natural world and one foot in the expressive without swinging too far one way or another...at least for now.

This doesn't exactly accurately represent the saturation of some of the colors, but it's close...

I've been watching some art programs on the Ovation channel lately and I had to pause one episode of Art in Progress to write down a quote.  The show focused on the artist Donald Sultan - I was not particularly familiar with his work and I liked it to some degree, although it was a bit to conceptual for my tastes (a topic for another time).  But, he said something that really struck a chord in me as I so often "overthink" things.

"One of the mainstays of making art is that you don't think of new ideas - you discover them.  So, that's why you have to work all the time.  If you go out and just lie around and start thinking and waiting, you know nothing is ever gonna happen.  And, the longer you wait, the more you realize that when you come back to it, you're right back where you were.  You're not any further along even though you thought and thought and thought - you didn't really go anywhere."  Donald Sultan

I appreciated this thought since I often like to spend time - too much time - thinking about what I want to do.  And, sometimes it's paralyzing.

The Longest Quick Little Painting Ever...

I'm sure I mentioned somewhere something about doing quick and loose little paintings to play around with the medium and have a little fun.  I have a small space in the corner of my room which has been great for drawing, but lacks the space and storage for painting projects.  Normally, it wouldn't take to much time to set up a quick little still life, scoop some paint onto my Sta-Wet palette, and get down to business.  But, throw in household duties, homeschooling duties, helping Grandma run some errands, dentist appointments, soccer games...well, a 1-day activity turned into several days.

Day 1 - I managed to put together the still life before I had to run off somewhere. And, a day or so later, I quickly sketched the shapes onto my pre-primed paper (I had primed several pieces of paper weeks ago, so at least I didn't have to do that).

A couple days later, I had to come up with a solution to paint storage - I have no place in my room for the pint and quart size Nova Color containers.  So, I grabbed some small Gladware (or whatever brand) containers and transferred the colors I'd be working with.  I have a plant stand to set the palette on next to the table.  I was able to soak the palette paper and get it set up before having to call it quits.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, I actually got to paint.  I had envisioned a quick painting that would have beautiful color and contrast in relatively few strokes - HA!  My reality is that I layer and layer, push and pull, building values...maybe now that I've practiced the shapes and colors, I could put something together that's looser without losing the color and contrast that I like.  Perhaps I'll do that next.

Anyway, I think this is my first non-illustration project since I don't know when.  I'm excited about more exploration - I just hope it doesn't take so many days to do one little painting...but, it probably will!