A Painting A Day

I'm out of town, so I bought some water soluble oils for the trip. My expectations were low. I was so pleasantly surprised! The oils have a really good consistency, they apply really well, the pigment load seems good, and the cleanup is incredibly easy. They didn't dry out too fast. I think after I use up all my oils, I may have to make a permanent switch. I worry about the fumes from the mineral spirits that I use, and since there was very little if any noticeable difference between these and my regular oils, why not? ;)

I really liked this profile photo I found of Newman, and I wanted to try to show the sensuality of the kiss, so I put the actress in the painting. I don't know if that helps or detracts from it.

I really rushed this one, and finished quickly. Going to Chicago in the morning, so have to pack. Hopefully I will find some time to paint. I'm bringing some water soluble paints with me, and am hoping that I can try them out on the trip.

Maybe it's the holidays, maybe I've just painted too many Paul Newmans, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish this portrait. So I decided to leave it kind of abstract, and post it anyway. I am counting this as day 25. I am behind and have two more to do to catch up! Hopefully I will have some time to paint over the coming week. ;)

Merry Christmas! I didn't get a chance to post this yesterday. Too much going on! This is day 24! I only have a few more paintings to go in this project.

On this one, I tried to make his face as dark as I could because it was dark in the photo and backlight with a very light background. I think I tend to make the skin tone in my portraits too light. This one is not really good. I don't think I got his nose right or the angle of his face. Oh well! Considering it's Christmas, I think I will give myself some slack!

Also, this is funny. I'm running out of room - too many wet paintings laying around. So I have invented an oil painting paint dryer. Ha!

I found this great old photo of Newman where he was seriously getting his beard on. This growth is giving Grizzly Adams a run for his money. God I'm so old. No one today knows who Grizzly Adams was. They also don't really know who Newman was either! Ha!

I like painting the scruffy portraits of him so I thought I would give it a try. This is also the first time in my 23 days of painting him that he's showing teeth!

The countdown is on - 7 more to go! Will I make it? I think so!

Wow! 22 days! Only 8 more left to go in my painting Paul Newman project. I have absolutely loved doing this, and think it has helped my portrait painting tremendously.

Tonight I started on the painting really late, and had very little time. The angle of his face was really unusual. I don't think I got it right. I did like the composition though, because usually I just paint a great big face, and this time, I put more of the background and body in the painting. It's hard to get much in a 6x8 - ha! I'm looking forward to doing some larger work when I finish this project.

While I was painting this, I was thinking what perfect hair he had, and the profile of a Greek god. I picked a good subject to paint. ;)

So the countdown is on - only nine days left to go in my painting Paul Newman project!

I purposely tried to find another color picture of Newman for today. Actually the color photos of him are a bit hard to find. I didn't try to go into detail on the hand or shirt. There is just something about his face not right to me, and I can't place it. He doesn't look as old in the photo as he does in my painting, so whatever I did, it aged him. ;)

I've started getting requests to do portraits, so I'm thankful for that. It will be nice to do some commissions.

Had no internet connection for the longest time tonight, so am just getting to post this. This is day 20 of painting Paul Newman. Wow! I am officially two thirds of the way to my goal - which is painting Paul Newman for 30 days straight.

I like the colors on this, but am not so sure this really captures his expression. There is something not quite right with the lips - maybe the eyes too - heck maybe even the nose three. Ha!

I think doing this portrait series is absolutely the best thing I could have ever done for my painting. I'm having to work fast and loose. I can't afford to spend the time on detail, and I've been taking risks. Like in this one I started with a wash of just lemon yellow on the left side of his face and a toned down alizarin crimson on the right side. It gave me a great base to work with, and it kind of forced me to put more color in his face. :)

I really like the photo I was working from on this one. It really shows Newman's personality. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to capture his expression, but am pretty proud of this one - I think I did.

I was a bit lazy and didn't really polish or finish the painting, but I think I like it a little sloppy, not so perfect. ;)

I got a really nice compliment on my painting from a friend today. It really brightened my day! I have been a painting student for a while now and insecure about my painting. She said she thinks I have officially gone pro, so that was really nice to hear.

On this one, I was working from a younger picture of Newman. It always seems harder to me to paint him when he was younger. There wasn't as much character in his face - no signature forehead wrinkles ;).

18! I am more than half way finished with my goal!

 

I honestly can't believe I've done 17 portraits in a row of Paul Newman. Believe it or not, I'm getting a bit tired of painting him! My husband took one look at it and said, "When are you going to quit painting George Bush?" Ha! I don't know if that's a reflection on him, or a reflection on my painting skills. Hmmm.

My paint was sooo sticky. I don't think I cleaned my brushes well enough yesterday, and was too lazy to go get some thinner. You can tell the paint is thick and sticky if you look at it closely. But I kind of like the way it looks!

I see another movie star in this painting. I call this one Newman-Schwartzenegger. I was working from a photo from Cool Hand Luke. He doesn't look like Arnold in the photo, but he sure does in my painting. Ha!

I really didn't have a lot of time for painting today. My son had a wisdom tooth out, and I've been trying to make him feel better. :(

 

So right now I'm singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hall - layyyyy - lu - ya! I have about 15 minutes before the stroke of midnight, and I got a Paul Newman painting in today. Yay!

This didn't look anything like him for the longest time. I never did put my finger on it... a little change here and a little change there and then all the sudden it looked a bit more like him. Not going to exaggerate that it reallly looks like him. Okay enough slurring my vowels! ;)

So I meant to try to leave out the white in the face today, but just couldn't find a color photo of Newman that was speaking to me. Instead I did black and white. I think I put too much shadow on the right side of the forehead and on the neck actually, and there was something a little sinister about his look in this one. Paul Newman is taking over my kitchen! I think my husband is getting jealous! ;)

Thirteen days painting the same person, wow! I did not have a lot of time today to paint, so with this one I was rushed. I put some brighter colors in the face - greens and reds and purples, but I still don't think I am getting the skin dark enough. I tried not to use pure white in the face, but I still feel like I used too much white in the mixtures.

I'll try again tomorrow to make the face darker. ;)

I stayed up late to finish Friday's painting because I have a lot of work tomorrow. It's 1am so technically it's Friday. Haha

On this one, I tried to put more color into the face, and for the most part I did. It was a bit easier easier to get the highlights. I added a little yellow in the highlights too, but I think I'm still using too much white. I think maybe tomorrow I should try to use absolutely no pure white in the painting. That will be a challenge.

 I really like his eyes in this one. I am realizing the thing that made Newman so striking was the contrast of those dark eyebrows and the deep shadow of his eye sockets contrasted with the lightness of his eyes. I appear to have no method to constructing a portrait. I kind of paint all over the place. I am trying to put in all the darks first. I had to redo the mouth on this one because it was in the wrong place, so maybe if I block in the darks and then start with the eyes and work down to the nose and then the mouth, I can get the placement of the features right the first time. ;)

Wow! Made it to 11. I was really wondering if I would make it today. This picture is a little blurry, which probably makes it look better. Ha! There's something not quite right about this one that I can't pinpoint.

I'm really liking the challenge of this 30 day Newman quest. I know that I'm getting lots more painting done because of it, and I think that the practice is helping. I take a portrait class with Sue Foell in January, and I'm hoping that I'm not getting into bad habits now. For the most part I feel like I'm not putting enough color in the face. I can tell that I'm not, because it was difficult to put the highlights in this portrait. There was too much light already in it. Tomorrow I'll try to put more color in the face.

I like todays painting. I tend to like the scruffier pictures of him where he's not so perfect. I think this one came from Cool Hand Luke, which I've never seen by the way. Maybe after I'm finished painting him I'll watch some of his old movies.

It's funny - I was calling this one Newman Jesus because it is kind of the same composition as a lot of the Jesus portraits I've seen. Ha! It also reminds me a little of Charlton Heston - I think it's the cheekbones. So yesterday was Newman Bond, today Newman Jesus! I hope no one takes offense, it is kindly meant.

 Just a sidenote, yesterday I was looking at some art online, and I was thinking "Wow, this guys work is fabulous, and wow - how does he do such a complex painting in a day?" After reading more about him, I discovered that they weren't paintings at all - they were photoshopped digital art. They really looked like paintings to me. So I wanted to clarify that my work is just the old fashioned putting paint on canvas without the aid of any digital media. The only digital media I use is fireworks to crop the paintings. I don't even use filters on them, as you probably can tell. So that makes me wonder, am I a dinosaur? Am I relevant? I wonder.

So day 9 of 30 days of Painting Paul Newman. I see other people in my portraits all the time. In this one - I'm seeing Sean Connery as James Bond. Maybe it's just the pose, but I can't shake it. I do like this one better than yesterdays although it still seems unfinished.

I decided to start doing a painting a day 30 days ago today. Yay! I am getting serious about my painting. I've been taking classes, and feel the best way to improve is to paint a little every day. I try to set limits on how long I paint during the week, because I do have a job and a teenage son to take care of.

I thought it might be a good idea to reiterate why I'm painting this particular movie star, so here goes:

My favorite thing to paint is portraits, so one day I painted Paul Newman. It was really disappointing. He looked more like George Bush than Newman. So I tried again the next day, and *sigh* it still wasn't very good. I now have 9 portraits of Paul Newman, and I'm excited because I actually am proud of a couple of them. I feel like you can really see my progress through the work. I also feel like I'm starting to develop a little bit of my own style.

I have this desire to paint people who have made a difference. I call them my real life heroes. I painted the man in the red bandana from 9-11 a while back, Eudora Welty too, and now my hero Paul Newman. Don't get me wrong. I'm not fascinated with Paul Newman, the movie star. I'm fascinated with the family man who didn't didn't seem to take himself too seriously. He gave back millions through Newman's Own. I love it that he put up a reward to protect the first amendment. So yes, Newman is a hero to me. His life was meaningful.

I have made it my goal to paint Newman for 30 days. I thought it would be a good idea to donate the portraits to one of Newman's charities. They can hang them or auction them - whatever they like.

So in case you wanted to know, that's why I'm painting Paul Newman. ;)

You know, I really thought I was making a breakthrough in my portrait painting. It seems like all of my portraits were getting progressively better - that is until today. :( I stayed waay too tight on this one and couldn't loosen up. It was also difficult for me to paint the younger version of him (this is from a mugshot while he was in college). I didn't have much time to work on this, but honestly that's not an excuse. I have not spent a lot of time on the others either. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I think I will choose an older, scruffier ( if that's a word) picture of him so I can loosen up and be more free with it.

Day 7 of painting Paul Newman. I am starting to think I need my head examined. I read today that Paul Newman is considered by many to be the best looking man who ever lived. How on earth can you paint that?

I tried to be more abstract and looser with my brushwork on this one. I loved the light in this portrait. I actually think it looks like him today! Ha!

Yay! Six days of Paul Newman! I really like to paint him with a beard. I'm not thinking this looks very much like him, but I didn't have a lot of time to paint him. I really slapped the paint on this one tonight, as you can see. If you look closer, you might see something else - missing! Those large canvas pores that riddle the rest of my paintings.

Lots to talk about today! First, I got up late and was determined to paint on a better surface than the cheap .47 cardboard canvas boards I've been using. I paint on 6x8 mainly. Honestly I couldn't make myself spend $5 on a decent board, so I decided to go the handyman route. I went to Lowe's and got 3 2'x2' hardwood plywood pieces that were 1/8 of an inch thick. Then I got out the saw horses, made myself a table, clamped it down, measured and sawed and ended up with 18 6x8 boards, and another 18 of various sizes like 5x7s and such. Then I took over the kitchen and gessoed the heck out of those babies. That took the majority of my day. Even after gessoing them four times they were still too absorbent. I put a couple of coats of white acrylic on them and that did the trick.

Here's an interesting picture comparison of my old canvas and my new one followed by my kitchen disaster!

I spent $10 on the boards, so doing it myself saved a ton of money and I honestly think I ended up with better quality. I am soooo happy to have some better supports on which to paint.

So the other thing interesting today was my son invited some friends over (they are all in their teens) and they came in the kitchen where I usually display the last two or three paintings I've done and they asked me who that was in the paintings. I said Paul Newman, and they said, "Who's that?" Ha!

I tried to stay a little looser with the painting today - and I really liked the photo I was working from. It was taken in the 60's I think. This reminds me of the Newman who put up a reward to recognize those who protect the first amendment.

This photo doesn't have his signature eyes, so he may be hard to recognize. I see other people in his features all the time. In this painting, I'm seeing Clint Eastwood. Ha!

Most of the photos I find online of Paul Newman are black and white, so I thought it would be fun to do a black and white with his blue eyes. It kind of makes them stand out even more.

I have decided to do as many Newman paintings as I can in December and donate them to the Serious Fun Children's Network that he started. I am hoping they may be able to auction them off and raise a little money. It will be my good deed this Christmas. Lord knows I have enough to atone for!

I can't seem to get enough Newman. I guess when I get his portrait to the point where I think it's a good representation, I'll stop!

Trying to beat the clock on this one. It's 11 so I have less than an hour to post my painting today. I wasn't happy with yesterday's painting, so I did Newman again. This time an extreme closeup!

Well I was super busy today, so didn't start my painting until late. Then I chose a subject that was waaaay too complex for a painting in a day. I wonder if you can even tell who this is supposed to be?

There are several things I plan to fix on this - the jaw is a little off, the right eye is not quite right. There is a little more to this 6x8 inch canvas where I even tried to put in his hand. I will have to finish that later.

Today I accepted a challenge to do a painting every day in December, so here's numero uno.

Ah, the illusive brown egg shell! I tried the color recipe suggested to me by http://yeshuaschildart.wordpress.com/ and that was the correct base color. As I looked at the egg shell more, I used a pinkish mauve tone of that color in the mid range and more yellow in the light range. I think the egg shell has been eluding me because I think it has multiple colors in it. Perhaps that's because of the light from within? But overall I am much happier with the way this color turned out. ;)

It was surprisingly challenging to do this painting. The shape of the plate was particularly difficult and the color of the eggshells still eludes me. I wish some of these daily painters would post their color recipe for brown egg shells! If I get it right, I will post it.

Today is also a milestone in my painting a day journey, today marks the 20th day in a row that I've done a painting. Yay! I'm very proud of myself for sticking to it.

I love Sargent's work, and "A gust of wind" has always been my favorite. I've always thought that this one looked like an unfinished work, but tonight as I tried to paint some kind of semblance of it, I realized there was much more there than I ever imagined. The clouds to the right of her head outline her hat like a shadow. There is a much more detail in the colors of the dress. He makes each brushstroke count. How can he express so much, with such seemingly effortless strokes?

It was very foolish of me to attempt to copy a masterpiece in an hour of painting, but I did it anyway! ;) How else can I learn, unless I study the masters?

Wow! So crazy today - cooking, driving, eating, sharing. It was hard to find the time to fit a painting in. But I am on a roll - I think today is my 18th or 19th day in a row to do a painting (will have to look that up) so I can't break my streak.

I saw the light coming through this bottle and thought it was so lovely. I wondered how on earth I could capture the brightness of it. It took looking at it objectively for a while to realize it was a really really bright orange - or at least that is my best impression. I'm hoping tomorrow to have a little more time to spend on painting.

On a side note, I saw my neice today and gave her the portrait I did of her. Here is a picture of the final portrait framed. :) This was on a 24 x 18 canvas. She seemed really happy with it.

I love the whole concept of this scene - the way the light from the street silhouettes his face, the way his hat and hair obscure his face. I found this photo on someone's blog a long time ago, and always meant to paint it. This one spread off the brush like butta. Love it when that happens!

We are traveling tomorrow, so wanted to get an early start on today's painting - so this is my painting for Wednesday, the 26th.

Since I had some success with my abstract that I sent to I.O. Metro, and since I had to send it to them and won't get it back, I decided to do another abstract similar to the one I sent them. I used brighter colors and my inspiration for this one, like the last one was fire over water.

I find doing an abstract particularly hard to do. I'm so used to structure that it's very hard to get free. I am not really happy with this, but think that I need a lot more practice, and so will do a few abstracts over the next few days and see if I can get more comfortable with them. ;)

I would have liked to have had more time to spend on today's painting. Over the weekend, I had a little more time to work on my daily painting. The water and the tiny canvas were working against me today. I'm just happy I had time to get a painting done today, and I think that this was a good exercise.

So today I decided to surprise my sister-in-law with a painting. We were having her granddaughter's birthday party so I painted the birthday girl.

I do think this was a little ambitious to do in one day. I see about a hundred things I want to change, but I am going to try to keep it a little abstract - and not continue to change it.

My sister-in-law was really happy with it, and we had a lovely birthday party. In fact, this birthday girl wants to learn how to paint, so we got her some paints for her birthday! :)

I wouldn't be a good doggy momma if I didn't do a portrait of my other baby. This is Rex - my Irish Setter. It's not very good at all, and instead of blaming the obvious, I will blame not having enough time today. I had about 40 minutes to paint cause we have company.

I was skimming over blogs this morning, when one moved me enough to actually stop and read. It was the web site of Karen Robinson. idoartkarenrobinson.com She lost her son in a car crash 5 years ago, and lost her husband to cancer around the same time. She turned to art as her therapy. It's a moving story. She found something to help her cope. My own sister-in-law lost a son ten years ago this month, and I can't imagine what she's been through. I don't want to imagine it either.

That all brings me around to the "why" of my painting a day. I think the why for many artists is they are struggling to make a living as an artist and so need to create small works on a daily basis that they can sell reasonably. They try to create a following and get known in the art community. But for me I think unconsciously my art is my therapy. I don't know why I feel this need, but there is something inside me that needs to come out. That's the only way I can describe it.

Okay, so I couldn't bring myself to paint another fruit or vegetable. I had some poinsettias, but they didn't thrill me either. So I took some pictures of my dogs and settled on this one of Rufus. He's a mixed breed dog that we adopted after he and his siblings were abandoned in the park.

I wanted to stay loose on the painting and not do a lot of detail. I think I accomplished that. He's very hard to paint because his face is so dark. I didn't use black at all - instead mixed it with my cheap ultramarine (see previous post). I thought it turned out just okay. He's much much prettier in person!

How about that? Two posts in one day! Ha! The other painting didn't count because I did it several weeks ago. So I had to do a painting today! This one was fun. At one point while painting it I thought it wouldn't turn out well at all. I was having trouble mixing the brown of the kiwi fruit. I still didn't get the color just right, but did have to break out the burnt umber! I've been limiting my palette and mixing everything. I find it really good practice to mix my blacks and greens and browns and purples. I was so rushed, I just slapped everything on the little canvas and didn't spend any time at all on detail. I was thinking the whole time it could be kind of abstract. I think I should just call that laziness. I need better brushes! I will have to break down and buy some. Also I bought a store brand ultramarine and wasn't happy with it at all. I guess you get what you pay for. A huge tube of it was only $4.99! I wasn't getting the same color mixtures, so will have to invest in a good brand of ultramarine. Overall, I'm happy with this. I think my son will enjoy eating the kiwi too! ;)

Several weeks ago my husband told me about a contest at I.O. Metro (very cool furniture store chain). They were looking for local art, and the winners work would be reproduced on canvas and sold in their stores. I don't normally do abstracts, but my husband encouraged me, and so I did this one and entered it in the contest. Today I found out my piece was selected! My art will hang on the walls of the I.O. Metro stores and maybe on the walls of many homes! All I can say is WoW! I am so thankful, and so happy!

Yay! Got a painting done today. The picture is really dark - I couldn't take a good picture of it. I keep meaning to look up how to take better pictures. These are what I believe are mirasol peppers. They are HOT! Put some in gumbo yesterday. I used surprisingly few brush strokes on this and didn't try to do detail at all.  

So color class today! It was freezing in the old church where the class was held. Important things learned today were: On Compliments (what you use to get shadow) The compliment of any primary is the mixing of the other two primaries. That may require a little explanation. If you have red - and you want to get the shadow color and you don't know what the compliment of red is - just mix the other two primaries together (blue and yellow) and there you have it - the compliment of red is green. The compliment of a secondary color is the primary color left out. To explain that further - secondary colors are green, violet and orange. If you want the secondary of say orange, you know that you mixed red and yellow together to get that color, so the primary that is left out is blue. So the compliment of orange is blue. Puttitng it that way - breaking it down into very simplistic terms is extremely beneficial to me. Now I won't have to carry around my color wheel all the time! We didn't paint a painting in class today - instead we practiced mixing colors. So I did this rather quickly when I got home to have something for today. I'm not very impressed with it, but a little orange does warm up a cold day. Ha!

I was worried I might not have time to paint today. So glad I made it! Yesterdays pears came to an untimely demise. The canvas literally snapped in half! I tried to put it back together, but it just wasn't going to happen. So my lovely little painting is going to decorate a landfill somewhere. :( I am using really cheap canvas boards so I guess when I run out of these I might spend a little more than .47 per canvas. Ha! I could use some better brushes too. I guess now that I am getting serious about it, I should invest in good materials. So since my pears from yesterday are gone, I had to revisit the subject. I tried again, and this time I finally got around to putting something other than white under my glass sheet that I use for a palette. The color is an off white. I do think it helped me when mixing to have a different color under the glass. Tomorrow is color class! So excited! One thing that's funny is that every single one of these paintings I've done lately is on the same black countertop... and looking at the paintings not one of them has the same color background! I imagine it would be boring to have the same background on every painting, but I would much rather it be intentional!

I can't seem to take a good photo of my painting today. It's raining outside, so going outside to take the picture is out of the question. Everywhere I put it - or put the light on it - I get a glare. I will have to research how to take better pictures. The pear shapes were a challenge for me today. I never did get them right. On the bright side, I had an epiphany about my painting. In the past, I've used waaaay too much mineral spirits while painting. Doing that washes my paintings out. Today I think I dipped the brush in the thinner maybe two times and just a little dab when I did. It seems like ultramarine is always sticky and needs a little help to move on the brush. My thinner was clean at the end of the session. In the past it's always been muddy because I was cleaning my brush during painting. Now instead of doing that I am trying to use the light and the dark brush - and wipe them with a paper towel between colors. It's amazing how much it can help to change one seemingly unimportant thing while painting. I am proud of myself. It's now been 9 days straight of painting each day! But I'm running out of room! All these wet paintings are taking up a lot of space in the garage!

Todays topic was radishes! A lovely red cluster of them. The leaves are very abstract in this - honestly it's because I'm not sure how to paint them. Ha!

Not a lot of time today to work on this, but overall am happy with the colors. I think I was a little afraid to really put the highlight on the onion though, so I held back! Ha!