A Painting A Day

So much has been going on that I'm having to put painting on the back burner for now. But I did get to go to a live model session last Friday - this was the result. I absolutely loved the lighting and the working from her profile - it made it seem very dramatic to me.

I am thinking I won't have much time to paint until the Christmas Holidays, so I'm looking forward to that!

It's been so long since I posted! Crazy busy lately! I have been productive and have been painting, just not posting... haha!

 I put a few hanging systems around the house. One in my office so I could get my paintings off the ground, and another in the kitchen. We have a very modern kitchen and so I painted a couple of abstracts that seemed to suit the room. ;)

This one was my fav of the two. Here's the other:
 

I plan to put a clear coat of epoxy resin on them. It will be an experiment since I've never done it before. I've ordered the stuff but it won't be here until the 18th so will have to wait a while.

Happy painting!

It's extremely liberating to just paint what I want to paint! I was out of town for three weeks, and now I need to get some things painted for The Fountain Gallery.

I've had this picture saved for a while now - and painted it today. I have a terrible summer cold and so didn't feel like doing much - so painting was relaxing.

My son didn't know who this was! I must have done a terrible job getting his likeness! In case you also don't know, it's supposed to be Jack White. I went a little crazy with his hair - the colors were just talking to me. Maybe I inhaled a bit too much paint thinner but I am really loving his hair! Haha

I was able to find some time today to paint the mountain here at Pedregal at Cabo San Lucas. It has these wonderful big sandstone rocks and all sorts of little caves and holes in them. They were a challenge!!!  

Painting from life at Nysha Studio in Bartlett this morning.

We had a great model! Beautiful girl. And it was a great group of artists - Sue Foell, Holly Wolfe, Terry Kenney, Jenny Miller, Tim Minshew, and Nysha.

 I really enjoyed this pose. I think the back is so beautiful. The skin tones were so varied with her tan lines and the lighting - making for an interesting study! So that's why I'm calling it "Bikini Line!" Haha It's a 12"x16" Oil on Board.

One of the hardest things for me (besides choosing a subject to paint) is to know when it's finished. I started to correct my mistakes - but after a few little brushstrokes decided that I like it just the way it is.

If I were to do more I feel like I would overwork it - and perhaps ruin it. So here's my final portrait of Mark Landis.

By the way, they posted the portrait on the Art & Craft Facebook page. You can see it here:
https://www.facebook.com/artandcraftfilm?fref=nf

I watched the best documentary I've seen in a while the other night.

It's called "Art & Craft" and it explores the forgeries of Laurel, Mississippi native Mark Landis.

Landis' crime was (in my opinion) fairly harmless because he didn't profit from any of his forgeries - he was being a philanthropist.

The thing is... the guy is really a great artist.

Anyway, I did this really - really quickly tonight. Just basically throwing the paint on the canvas. I plan to refine it more - I see about a hundred things I need to change. But I wanted to post a before, so I can gauge the "after"!

By the way, I'm planning to send this to him.

I feel like I've been on a painting marathon! Haha! The deadline to enter the MGAL National Show is today and of course I leave everything to the very last minute!

I started this yesterday. It's pretty large - on a 24x36 canvas and although I would have liked more time to work on it, I'm pretty happy with it. Cross your fingers that it gets in the show!

I had such a good time this morning painting with Plein Air Memphis. We got together at the Wolf River and spend about 2 and half hours painting. Afterwards we met up and got a group photo. Such great artists - they are an inspiration to me!

So this is my effort from today. For the most part I was happy with the values. So much green! So many variations of green! I used a limited palette simply because I was too lazy (or maybe too hot) to get some more. So I was proud of myself for achieving these colors with just ultramarine, viridian, cad yellow light, cad red light, black, and white.

This is my third time going on a paint out, and I can tell I'm getting a bit better. Trees are so incredibly hard to paint!

 Always love painting from life group on Wednesday nights! This was our model. She is getting married in two weeks so I don't know how she fit this in!

 I had a difficult time painting her but I was really proud of the pillow! Haha!

Yesterday I celebrated my ten year anniversary with this guy. So in celebration, I did a quick painting from this picture on our honeymoon.

I don't think I've attempted many self portraits, so it was a bit difficult to paint myself!

I don't do enough pencil sketches these days. I usually just jump right into painting without doing any drawing. I did this quickly today, and enjoyed working with a different medium so much! It's a study for a larger painting I plan to do.

I was needing some serious redemption after my latest "attempts" at painting, so tonight I thought I would try to paint something nice at our life painting group. My friend's daughter was the model, so I guess I just stacked up too much pressure to perform on myself!

 The group was packed so I ended up in the corner, so didn't have a good angle. I think I captured her likeness somewhat, but I also think I was a bit tired of painting after painting the two roses earlier. So I'm hoping she will model for the group again, because I would like another shot at painting that beautiful red hair!

Our live painting group has nudes occasionally. This was my painting from last night. Especially where I live, people don't seem to have very much of an open mind about nudes - they think they are obscene. It seems like every art exhibit I've applied to be in, I'm told "no nudes."

I think the human body is a work of art, and is beautiful - no matter the shape, or age, or size. I also have observed that every true art gallery has nude statues and paintings. But here in Memphis, even the gallery owners admit they have to consign the nudes to a back room. So it appears that people in the Renaissance were much more open minded than we are today! It's a shame, and I guess I will continue to be a "rebel."

So happy to be juried into the Memphis Germantown Art League's 2015 Spring Exhibit!! This is my very first juried exhibit! These paintings will be on display at the Germantown Center for the Performing Arts through May 27th. There is a reception next Saturday, May 9th from 4pm - 6pm

Did this last night in painting from life class. Again, I didn't measure. I don't know why I refuse to do that. I was also too lazy to refresh my paints so they were kind of sticky. I ended up making the head a little larger than life size, so was unhappy with that. But I was happy with achieving a semi semblance of curly hair - and thought I got the likeness pretty close. ;)

  A good friend of mine was the model for our painting from life group last night. Again, I did not measure well enough. I did not get her nose in the right position! On the flip side, I thought I got her eyes right and was semi-happy with the skin tones.

Ann Enoch (who hosts our life painting group in her studio) gave me the absolute coolest thing tonight! A red acetate frame! She was sitting next to me, and I commented on how nice and glassy she made the models eyes and Anne looked at my painting and she immediately recognized the problem - my highlights weren't bright enough! She gave me the red acetate frame to look through to help judge my values. I was blown away by how much it helped. Before using it, my painting looked so flat - there was no life in it. Using the acetate I saw that I wasn't making my highlights light enough!
Love this group! I learn so much from them!
As for the painting - I really liked it while I was there but I think subconsciously I knew I needed to work on her mouth more. In particular the right side that is in shadow is too bright red - I should have toned it down with some green or made it more purple. Also her mouth was not as crooked as I made it in the painting. To be honest with myself, I was thinking that the crook in her mouth gave her character - when in actuality her mouth was much straighter. I need to quit adding things that aren't there and stick to painting what really IS there. But on the other hand ... hmmm... there IS no other hand!

I experimented with this, and really liked how it turned out. I have been reading Kintsler's "Painting Portraits" and his backgrounds are turpentine washes or vignettes - so I had to restrain myself but I tried to stay abstract on everything but the face. Even on the hands, I just used a few brush strokes to suggest them - rather than paint every detail (like I usually do).

I tried to make the focal point the face, but I think that making the doll lighter than the rest of the painting shifted the focus somewhat from the face. I am still pondering that.

 This was a rather large work for me - a 24" x 30". I started on it yesterday, and finished it today. I was working from a very tiny photo. I ran out and got a frame for it because the artist group I am in will be exhibiting at Folks Folly - a really nice restaurant here in Memphis starting tomorrow, so I wanted to put this in the exhibit. :)

Did this today - and was really happy with how it turned out. I was working from a black and white photo so made up the colors. Also in the photo her dress had a pattern and it I started to do it, but it was just too busy and competed with the scarf, so I tried to make the dress suede. This is a pretty large work (for me) - it's 18" x 24" on canvas.