A Painting A Day

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.

  We had a new model at live painting class tonight. She has very beautiful features and lovely skin tones. I don't think I have the right side of her face dark enough. I think I'm still a little scared of going all out and actually painting what I see. Hopefully I will gain the courage to do it next time!

  I've never done a baby painting before, but this one reminded me so much of one of my baby sisters (when they were babies of course - now they're old women!) that I just had to give it a shot. This is just a small study - a 6" x 8". I did a lot of things different on this. I put some different colors in my palette like a pre mixed violet, permanent rose, and raw umber. The other thing I did was actually mix the colors before I started painting. That saved a ton of time - whipped this out in just under an hour, and I thought it made the skin tones turn out better because I wasn't mixing them on the fly.

I was on a painting frenzy yesterday! Two paintings in one day! Love it! So first let me preface this by saying, this is not a moviestar! Haha! When I was painting it I was trying to reveal the emotion in her eyes.

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 never painted a horse before, so this subject was a bit outside my comfort range. I usually paint faces and figures, so it's good to do something else. I guess I could argue that every subject is foreign because you have never painted that particular face or place before anyway.

I found the reference photo for this on flickr with a creative commons license. I loved the yellow light that backlit the horses.

This is quite a large piece - it's a 16x20 on canvas. I had toned the canvas a pinkish color and purposely let a little of it show through in the clouds and the distant mountains.

I soooo wish I had time to paint every day. It's like falling in love - I fall in love with every subject and then in my own way - bring my idea of them to life.

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.

My friend's son modeled for our Live Paint group last night, and he had recently died his pretty blonde hair purple! So the hair color was really that color! Haha. This makes the third time I've painted him - more recently he is the boy in my Brother and Sister post. On his features, looking at it now, I feel like I may have exaggerated a bit - his nose a little too long, his lips a little too full, the neck a little too long as well. I may go back and work on it a little more over the weekend. Happy Thursday!

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?!

It's late at night and there's a terrible glare from my camera, but I went back to this portrait tonight and did a little more detail. The painting had dried a little so I was able to work with it.

I am still not quite happy with it. I am missing something - and can't figure out what it is? Maybe sleep?

I couldn't find a photo to work from at class this week, so Sue (my teacher) gave me a clipping of a painting by Casey Baugh. Great artist! Wow, so glad she told me about him.

My paint was way too oily so I had a difficult time getting the paint to do what I wanted it to do.

I'm planning on going back and working a little more on it after it dries somewhat. ;)

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!