Latest update on the Poppies

Here's the latest that I've said (a few times) that I would post.  It's fun working with just one colour!  (But it's also going to be fun when I get into the glazing of colour.)

It's the same size as the other poppies - 1/4 sheet, Arches CP 300 lb.

Tap, Tap, Tap

My son, Zach, is always saying he "can't draw very good".  Yesterday, I found this 'phone doodle on the desk.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but anyone who can doodle out this in a few minutes while waiting 'on hold' on the phone definitely CAN draw!  I think it's amazing!

And I'm not saying this because I'm biased, even though I might be a bit, I'm saying it because I've seen his other artwork as well as this one.

It looks even better in real life.

Local Color

I watched a really good movie last night on Netflix.  It's not often you get a well-done, realistic movie about artists, written by an actual artist.  I loved it, I loved the dialogue about art, I even learned things from Nicoli. 

Here's the "official" description taken from the Netflix site:  "A struggling 18-year-old art student meets a well-known painter many years his senior whose life has been consumed by alcoholism, and the two forge a friendship that helps both of them to overcome their pain and look toward their dreams. The young man really wants to learn to approach his painting like the master, and the old master wants just as much to be able to revisit the world through the rose-colored lenses of youth."

I watched it on my computer, here in my studio and worked at the poppy grisaille at the same time.  Talk about multi-tasking!  It's coming along though - almost looks like a black and white painting!  I'll post it later .....

I keep looking at the title of this post and want so badly to put the "u" in the word, Color!  I have a book by Jeanne Dobie called "Making Color Sing" and I actually took a black marker and put the "u" in the title on the cover.  ROTFLOL!  Spelling habits never die!

Pages!

I love that Blogger has the options of pages here in Blogger-Land!  I was getting pretty discouraged with my old website.  As a way of raising prices, different services which I had originally been receiving free now had an additional price tag on them.  New subscribers were still able to get those services free and their overall rate was so much cheaper.  You know those Ally commercials on tv?  I quoted them in my cancellation letter (i.e. they should be taking care of their existing customers while wooing new ones) but they didn't even respond to my comments, except to tell me how to remove my credit card number from the profile.  Guess they have too many customers.  Now, they have one less.  Egg management fees were getting too high and the "new-er" customers were getting all the ice cream. 

So, I have played around in here and made this my website.  Maybe until I do more research and find a new webhosting company or maybe for longer if I like this.  But at least it shows my "stuff".  You can see the page links just under my banner.

Now, back to the grisaille I'm working at on the poppies.  I'll post it later.

The pears are finished!

And if two posts aren't enough after such a drought, here's another!

The grisaille pears are finished.  I finished the front stem and the reflection area of the pears.  I like how it turned out and am really happy with it.  The last poppy painting is going to be in this style. 

It's also on a 1/4 sheet of Arches 300 lb cold pressed paper.  And it's all in traditional watercolour paint.  I love how it looks like an oil painting, though.  :-)  I'm also pretty proud of that black background!  It's several washes of WN blue black and was done without any masking around the pears at all. 

Four Poppy Paintings. Same drawing - different ways.

 The plan was to quickly draw out four paintings, all the same and do them four different ways.  All are on 1/4 sheet 300 lb arches cp.  The plan was put into effect to get me back into drawing fast 'cause I was starting to get so panicky over not painting for so long that I was thinking maybe I'd forgotten how to paint.

The first was to be a taped painting a la Sandy Maudlin, to look like her totally awesome batiques.  Didn't work.  I'm not even posting what I did on it here because it is so totally awful!  Taping isn't as easy as it sounds.

The second was drawn out in charcoal, then painted over with watercolour.  I like the extra shading you get.  The first one posted here (should be to the left if blogger lays it out properly) is it.  Nothing fancy - just fast paintings meant to get me back into it.

This one, the third, was started out in Nick Simmons' acrylic-watercolour style a while back and set aside unfinished.  It's the drawing I used as a base for the four of them.  I love how the background turned out and I love the colours in the flowers.  Very unrealistic but fun to paint.  The shading on the flowers was done in regular watercolour.  The nice thing about using acrylics underneath is that they never shift or lift later on when painting over them. 


The fourth one is going to be a grisaille.  Same poppies but a more traditional look.  It's coming .......

Spin and the re-vamped studio

It's been a while!  Again.  I'm hanging my head, totally disappointed in myself.  Now that I've "stepped" back in here, I've taken the hardest step.  I've been painting and it feels great.  I didn't post step by steps for these but instead will post the finished pieces. 

Nothing great, just having fun and getting back into it. 

But first, I have to explain that my kitten died.  By the time Scottie was about 2 1/2 months old, his health went downhill very fast.  The vet said he was born with a heart defect - that his body was growing bigger but his heart was staying the same size as a tiny kitten heart and it couldn't keep up.  He also said there was an extremely loud heart murmur and that such heart murmurs were rare in cats and even rarer in kittens.  Scottie was SUCH a sweetheart, always wanting to be cuddled.  I like to think that we made his last days easier and comfortable.  The tough part was that I lost two cats within three months, both to heart problems. 

Spin, on the other hand, is doing wonderful.  She's just been spayed (three weeks ago) and is now back to her crazy-playful self.  She is the most curious cat I've ever seen!  Here she is sitting on a shelf in my painting room / studio. 

One of the things that got me back in here was that I revamped my studio.  Put in lots of those plastic drawers for storage, got rid of a lot of unused things and plan on putting a LOT of paintings up all over the walls.   I took the shelving unit out of the closet and instead, put in a shelf and those drawers.  I like it much better.  BUT, I couldn't throw out that shelving unit so I put it to the back of my painting table which gives me lots more space there, too.  All in all, I have much more space to work and enjoy it a lot more.  Sometimes, I put one of Spin's beds up on the painting table and she loves sleeping there.  That's only if I'm working at a different table or the computer because I've found she cannot sit on the table with me as I paint.  That creates major problems!  More pics to follow ......