A Painting A Day

Went to Ann's studio for painting from life last night - this was the result. I do have permission from the model to use the painting. You can't recognize her anyway because the face is so abstract. I really need to work on hands and feet. I think it will do me good to do some individual studies on hands and feet. I might do that some at these painting from life sessions. I have to say it's wonderful to get together with a group of artists each week. I learn so much from them.

So last night when I got home I decided to clean the sludge out of my mineral spirits, and I had (what I think) was a wonderful idea. I was pulling all this gray gunk out of the bottom of the glass, and thought - instead of finding a way to dispose of this, why don't I use it to tone my canvases? It was a lovely color of gray. So I just used a cotton cloth and rubbed the gray on my canvases. I had enough sludge to tone about 14 canvases. I think they turned out really well, and it's a wonderful way to recycle. I can't think of any reason NOT to do this. Here's how they look:

I have to say that I'm finding oil painting to be very eco-friendly. I hardly ever use mineral spirits while painting (thanks to getting good brands of paint) so I only use the spirits to clean up my brushes after I work, and now I've found a way to dispose of the used mineral spirits, so I end up with no waste whatsoever.

Oh, and just a note about the cotton cloth I use to wipe on the boards. I am storing those in a tin can outside, and let the mineral spirits evaporate out of them. I have read that I can burn them and that way there is no ill effect on the environment. I use paper towels when I am only wiping paint, because the paint only has oil in it and is fine to throw away, but when I am using mineral spirits, I use cotton rags.

And one more little tidbit because I am trying to be such a thrifty artist. I was actually looking for brushes on ebay, and came across the deal of the century. I just bought 25 40ml tubes of Rembrandt paint for $25 from someone who had just listed it for buy it now. My lucky day!

 

This is my boy! This morning I was looking for a photo to paint in portrait class, and came across this photo of him (taken last year). It's one of the few photos I have without his glasses on. I'm so proud of him, and I was so happy that I was able to do this portrait. I felt like it turned out really well.

Well I have temporarily stopped doing a painting a day. My work is suffering, so I have to catch up. I am still doing my portrait class, and going to live painting with a model on Wednesdays. Hopefully when I catch up, I can find a way to start back doing a painting a day.

This is a commission and it's not finished. I have a little more detail to do and will post again when it's complete.

This is on a 12"x16" hardboard. I have finally found the right combination for making my supports! I went to Lowe's on Friday and bought three 4'x8' hardboard panels that were 1/8 inch thick. Lowe's will do cuts for .25 each, so I had them cut these into 12"x16" panels. The hardboards cost $8.38 a piece so I ended up spending around $30. Of course some of the cuts weren't exact, so I ended up with 60 exact 12x16's and then 12 that were 12x15 1/2. I will use the wrong sized panels for my live model class.

Then I bought a small roller and some sandpaper blocks. So on Saturday I got more than half of the boards ready to go. I did do a little research on the roller - and to get the best finish I bought really good rollers with a 1/4 nap. I couldn't find micro fiber ones so got mohair and they are working fine. They leave a little bit of a pattern on the canvas, but it's barely noticeable. The sanding is the key to a smooth finish - I might invest in a small handheld sander in the future. On the sandpaper, I started with a 100 grit, then used a 220 and finished with a 320 grit. I found that I like four coats of gesso the best, but three would probably work.

Even with the extra expense of the rollers and sandpaper and counting the cost of the gesso, I still spent less than $1 a board on these, not counting my time. If I bought 60 12x16's with the average cost being around $7 it would have cost $420. So that's a considerable savings, and I am really, really happy with the boards. I used one of them for this painting, and was really happy with how the paint adhered. In the past I had made the mistake of buying wood panels - the wood just soaks up the gesso and paint too much, and makes the surface very dry and porous. The hardboard makes all the difference!

     

I think I am finished with this one. It's not perfect, but I'm tired of working on it, so I will call it finished anyway! ;) Here's a detail of her face: I am really proud of this one. And I broke a rule on this one too - I used Payne's Gray for the background so I didn't mix my own black. It just seemed like the background needed to be really, really a solid color of black, so I went with my gut on it. Last night one of the artists in the group told me I couldn't paint this because I was infringing copyright. That had never even occurred to me, since I am painting this for my own personal enjoyment. So I did a little research online today, and am scratching my head cause I still can't figure it out. There appears to have been some lawsuits and it appears the images are in the public domain. But then there is an article about some group obtaining the rights to the Marilyn Monroe brand. Does that include photos? I don't know. I did however find a web site (The morgue) that has copyright free images of Marilyn Monroe. So I will be working from those from now on to be safe. If anyone has a more definitive answer on this, please enlighten me! Today I was reflecting on my artwork. I went back and looked at my posts. I made an attempt, a blind one, at starting back painting in 2010. I did a few paintings and then abandoned the whole effort, mainly I think because I was so disappointed with my work. I made a really weak effort to paint in 2012, only doing a couple of paintings. Then this past summer, the art bug woke me back up and I started painting more. At first I attempted portraits that were waaaay out of my skill level. I kept going because I was in the art group with Marilyn Wannamaker, so was painting once a week with the group. But it wasn't until I took Sue Foell's still life class that my painting started to mature. Learning how to create shadows was huge for me. That was a turning point in my painting. Before that, I don't know what I was doing for shadow - I think I was mixing black with the colors. Following Sue's class I started getting serious about my painting and started doing a painting a day starting in November. Two months of tiny portraits has really paid off. I am starting to see improvement in my work. It's still not where I want it to be, and I don't think I've reached my potential. But I think I'm on the right track. Now that I'm taking Sue's portrait class, I am anticipating some real growth in my portraits. Plus doing the live painting of models I think will really help me grow. So I think it's good to go back and look at where I've been, and assess my progress. I don't really think that painting is so much a talent, as it is a skill. I think that anyone can learn to draw and paint if they put their mind to it, educate themselves, and then practice, practice, practice. But you have to have a passion for it, and really want to do it. Future goals: for now, the portrait class is my main focus, learning from Sue. It's great that I can take her class and glean a great deal of what she's learned over her many years of painting. After her class, I plan to revisit basic drawing. I have made my way through some of Betty Edwards book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition, but I need to get all the way through it. It is an amazing book. Also Ann Enoch inspired me last night to do a self portrait. I am afraid to do one, but know that it will be important to help me grow. And then Tim Minshew, one of the artists I met last night, told me about a week long portrait class with Mary Minifie that's coming up at Hutchison. It's pricy - $675 for a week, but it looks like an amazing workshop with a great artist. So lots of goals! Oh and one more side note - the check came from I.O. Metro for my abstract, so I now have officially made a little money from my art!  

I got in touch with artist Anne Enoch today about the painting from life group, and went to my first session tonight. We had a 13 year old boy (son of another artist) modeling for the group. It was great! Got to meet a lot of artists, including artist Glenda Brown whose work I've admired for quite some time now. It was very different painting from life. For one thing, I couldn't see very well! Haha! I wanted to walk up closer to him to see if I could actually see his eyes, but couldn't make my way through the easels, so next week I plan to get there earlier and stake out a spot closer to the model.

It was also a little intense because we had so little time to complete the painting, so I slapped the paint on the canvas as fast as I could. I used a 12x16 panel.

It may not seem like much progress, but I was really happy with what I accomplished today. I worked on her shoulders and chest, her hand, a rough outline of the chair, started working on the gauzy skirt on the left side of the painting and I tightened up the background around the bottom of the dress. I am thinking I might finish it tomorrow.

I do have to say that I had absolutely no idea how to do the gauze on the skirt. So I really looked at the photo and decided it was purple, which makes sense since that is the shadow color (at least in Sue's class) for white. I painted it in and it looked okay on the canvas, but in the photo I took of the painting, it looks even better - it actually looks like gauze! Oh, the joy in the little things in life! Ha!

I also have to say if I attempt to do another full figure painting like this, I'm going to go larger. This one is on a 12x16 canvas, and it's just too small. Her face is postage stamp size, and that made it really difficult to work on her face.

I had my first portrait painting class with Sue Foell today and it went well. I am thinking that I may have gotten into a few bad habits - but hopefully I can correct those. One thing we did in class that surprised me was we blocked in all the hair with a base color - viridian and transparent oxide red. I've never done that before. Also we blocked in the shadow on the face, and the color was much darker than I expected - a mixture of cad red light and permanent green light. I guess I'm always saying my faces are too white, so it will be good for me to darken things up a bit.

Also met some great artists today in this class. It seems like almost every one of them is a professional artist. I found out about a figurative painting from life group that I plan to join. I'm sure painting from life will be a real challenge - one I'm looking forward to! The class actually meets tomorrow night, so if I can get in touch with them to go, I will be posting that tomorrow instead of finishing Marilyn. :(

 

Started on this tonight. This one will definitely take a few days to finish. Yes, I must have lost my mind! This is way too ambitious of me, and I have a portrait class starting tomorrow. It's also too small. I'm working on a 12x16 and her face is only an inch and a half. That makes it really difficult to put detail in. I don't know how people paint miniatures.

Here's a detail of her face so far. I'm not happy with it yet. I will try to finish the face, the torso and the hand tomorrow.

On a funny side note, my painting yesterday was on a pastel board, which made the surface way too slick and difficult to grab the paint. I learned my leasson, so today am painting on an ampersand board with a canvas finish. ;) Happy painting!

I was thinking that I would need to work on this a lot, but I liked it so much the way it is that I decided not to overwork it. I just spent a short amount of time - and didn't touch her face. I put in the earrings and the dress, and did a little to the hair. I put a little green in her hair. The color was looking blue to me, but the green was talking to me, so I went with it. So here is Marilyn finished! After I took a photo of it, I realized I forgot to include her iconic mole! I will add have to add that!

Tonight is the end of winter break, so it's back to work for me tomorrow. Also I start a six week portrait class on Tuesday, so I'm excited about that, and will blog about what I learn. Tomorrow, if I find the right picture, I plan to do another larger painting. The work seems much more substantial when it's larger. So I may not post a finished painting every day, but will post what I have accomplished each day. ;)

I have decided to paint this one a little larger. Normally I paint on a 6"x8" canvas, so the works are pretty small. That's why I'm able to do one a day. This one is four times my normal size - I'm doing this on a 12"x16" panel. I'm glad I'm doing a larger work. It's good practice, and it's fun to do something different. So this one will be spread over at least a couple of days. I will post the progress each day until it's finished.

So we are home now, and I have my regular paints, and have an easel. All those lovely things you take for granted! So day 2 of this month is another Marilyn Monroe painting. I think I finally put enough color in a face (they have been too white and washed out lately). I didn't do a very good job on her hair or her eyes, but thought the lips turned out well. Overall I'm happy with it.

In between painting Paul Newman last month, I also painted some family portraits. They were a surprise, so couldn't publish them until now. Love the picture of them posing with their portraits!

So I don't know if it's a good idea or not to post the painting next to the photo I was working from - but this is a portrait commission I did the day before yesterday, and I thought it turned out really well. However, when I post it here next to the photograph I see a dozen things I would change! I think what matters is that I was trying to capture the essence, and not the exact details. I also only had four colors to work with! The primaries and white! All things considered, I am happy with it.

It's been really hard to paint the past few days because we are out of town visiting family, and today I needed to decide who I was going to paint in January. I decided to paint Marilyn Monroe. I guess I just painted the most beautiful man who ever lived in December, so why not paint the most beautiful woman next?

I'm still using the water soluble oils, and I only brought red, blue, yellow and white with me so I have a limited palette. That's good for me though. Happy New Year! I'm hoping to take my painting to the next level this year!