A Painting A Day

I had such good response from the last Keanu, that I decided to paint him again. I painted this from a photo I found on creative commons that had a right to modify license.
I painted this on a really big canvas (for me) - it's a 24" x 36" canvas. So to keep things semi in scale I started off by making a grid with charcoal on the canvas and then drew the outline of him on the grid with charcoal. Then I fixed that, and painted over it.
I think the grid helped me tremendously to keep things in scale - which is hard when you go larger. The only problem is my paint is not really covering the old grid lines! I've tried putting the paint on thick, but since I am painting a lighter color than the dark charcoal grid, it's still showing through. Oh well, I guess lesson learned - next time I will do the outline and erase the grid before starting to paint!
Also the angle of his face was difficult for me. He is cocking his eyebrow, with his face twisted and angled - a real challenge! I may go back and do a little more detail. I have not spent very much time on this so it could use more polishing. I am thinking I might enter this in a juried competition, but am running out of time!

Started on this last night, and didn't have enough time to finish - so I worked on it a little more tonight and finished. Posted it on instagram and was really happy because @keanureevesoficial reposted it to their 10,000 followers! Yay! Got some major exposure!

I have been so busy I haven't had time to paint - so very late tonight I started on this. It's funny, when I started I was quite certain it wouldn't turn out well at all. It looked really bad! Ha! But I went back to Sue's methods - block in the darks - block in the lights and before long it started to look like her. It's Joan Crawford by the way - in case you can't tell. I love my moviestars ~

This isn't a good picture. I took this late at night and couldn't get rid of the glare. Also there's a lot more red in this painting than is showing up in the photo. I will take another picture when I'm finished with it. I wasn't satisfied to just do an abstract today - I've been wanting to paint this one, so I got a good start on it. I really love the creepiness of these American Horror story paintings. They are fun to do!

It's icy and schools were closed today. So I had a little time this afternoon to start a painting. I didn't do a lot on the hands - but I'm really liking the abstractness of them. I have to say I find Jessica Lange fascinating to paint. She has such amazing features. Even now, at her age, she's still a very beautiful woman.

Did this last night. I used payne's grey for the background. I really like doing that. It makes the piece very dramatic. I used a lot of permanent green light. It just seemed the right base color to use for the light around the eyes, and for the medium highlights in the hair. If you really, really look at her hair it has a very greenish tint to me. I believe I've been finding this to be true of all the blondes I have painted.

This is on a 12 x 16 board. I am trying to get enough work together for my very first exhibit! So excited about that, but I wonder if I can part with a single piece. I don't know if I can. I want to "exhibit" but not necessarily "sell." I read somewhere that successful artists don't need to be collectors of their own work. That makes a lot of sense, but putting it into practice is hard.

So why have I titled this, "The New Religion?" I think for this show, my theme is going to be how we idolize movie and television stars. They are the new religion. I'm not condoning it, by any means, it's just a sad fact. Our new idols are the people we watch on TV.

Today I'm working on a piece of the character Tate in American Horror Story, and I've positioned him like a saint. Haha! I wonder how this will go over, since the exhibit is in a church?!

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!  

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.

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!

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!