A Painting A Day

 

I so want to be an expressionist, but I can't let go of my preconceived notions long enough to try. I started off wanting to do something different with this one - I started by changing the colors in their hair. I made Ian's hair have red tints and blue tints in Emily's. I wasn't really pleased with the result so went back and tried to correct it as much as possible. You can still see the tints.

I had to get additional shots of Ian from the side because the positioning of the bodies in the original picture was awkward looking. I also had a lot of trouble capturing the likeness of Emily. I felt like Dylan was pretty good, Ian was ok (I exaggerated the size of his glasses), but just couldn't really get Emily right. Maybe it was the challenge of her mouth open? Dylans arm and hand are slightly oversized - I may still change that. The hands were a challenge - and the folds of the fabric. In the original photo Ian is wearing a plaid shirt. I wasn't up for the tediousness of painting plaid, so changed it.

Painting really is a journey. I read something interesting today about why people paint self portraits. The author said to painting yourself is a journey in self discovery, and only by painting yourself can you know yourself. I liked that. Maybe some day I will do one.

The painting still looks unfinished to me, and all my paintings seem to be so pastel.  I am working with oils - I think I am just afraid to use dark color. I did get a little more adventurous and use a darker colors on Dylans shirt and in Emilys hair. I couldn't find any fixative, so my rough pencil drawing bled through while I was painting.  I started using a piece of glass as a mixing board - need to cut a white foam board to go underneath it. On colors, I have a flesh tone but hardly used it - it was too orange. I didn't premix the colors, and instead mixed them on the canvas while painting. The colors were simple - white, red, blue, and brown ochre on the faces. I think in the future I should mix on the glass board instead of on the canvas. I probably should have used more yellow in the skin tones. The skin tones are so different on each person. Altogether I probably spent about 15 hours on this painting. I haven't done anything like this - ever. I used to do pencil portraits in high school, and dabbled a little in painting - but was so afraid of color. I think I still am - I'm just too damn old to care!

I started to sketch this with charcoal, and then decided it would be better to paint it.

I took some artists license and left out the dock with the big red roof next door, but other than that this one was fun. The fall trees always remind me of Ma'am Maw and how much she loved the fall color.

This is my new dog, Rufus. I sketched this quickly last night. Not my best work, but I'm rusty and so had to shake the cobwebs out from between my fingers.

I have always loved this photo, so I thought it would make a great painting. It was taken our first summer at the lake house.  Daddy had passed away in August of 2005 (I think that's right), and then we bought the lakehouse in December. Daddy had built two little boats like this.  We got one and I think John got the other.  He even made the oars! So we take it out on the water and it floats!  I snapped this picture of Ian from the dock.

A few technical details. I did this in oil on a 14x16 stretched canvas. Also I had primed this with a really warm orange, so the orange shows through in a lot of places. I was very pleased with the effect, and I think I'll prime some more the same color.  I love working with oil. It's just so nice to mix the colors right on the canvas.  I did that with everything. And again, I did not stay true to the actual colors in the picture. I made it a bit more colorful.

I worked with pretty large brushes for most of it... mostly a number 4 filbert and a number 4 round. It was very hard to do the detail in the face. I tried to switch to smaller brushes, but couldn't really control them on the canvas.  I read up on how to do fine control online and it looks like I need to get a mahl stick. It's just a stick with a padded end that you place on the canvas to steady your hand. I'll have to try that!

I'm not really sure if this is finished. I think that's the thing that's the hardest for me... determined when to stop.  I do think I need to fix his shirt (it looks like there's a lump of something in the front), and I need to fix the colors on his left arm, the oar on the right is not even painted,  I need to put more detail in the wood of the boat and I need to work on the shadows under the boat a bit. So maybe I'll work on it a little more tomorrow. If not, maybe it is finished! LOL

Things have been really hectic lately, and I was about to explode from stress yesterday... so I picked up a canvas and just whipped this up. I painted in a frenzy! Not even thinking about what I was doing.  This is the result. I had an old violin in the closet that I pulled out.  I wasn't interested in the details, I was more interested in creating the illusion of woodgrain, and I wanted to make deep haunting shadows.

The funny thing is, I was proud to get something accomplished so I showed it to my husband and he said, "That will be really nice when you finish it." Duh! I thought it WAS finished! LOL