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 ......

I've been working on the pears, hopefully tonight, it'll be finished and I'll post it.  Then I'm going to paint two paintings of a Canadian flag, cut them into strips and weave them together.  I'm hoping that when it's done, it'll look as good as Suzy's do here. 

AND, we've got two cats now!  Baby kittens that we brought home a week ago.  They've been to the Vet's for checkups, shots and Advantage and he says they're about ten weeks old (eleven now). 

Mine is the gray male and since I loved Scotland so much when I was there last April, I call mine Scotland - Scottie for short.  The black female is Zach's and he calls her Spinner.  Scottie is stood in a little bed I made for them out of a plastic bowl with rounded lips and an old worn-out pair of heavy fleece sleep pants.  They love it!  There's a padded pillow underneath so it's nice and soft.  I was planning on making it out of a basket but when I was in the Loonie store, I saw this and thought how much smoother it was than a basket.  I'm still going to do the basket one, I think, as well as this.  They both fit in right now, but not for long.

Grisaille Pears update .....

Here's the latest on the pears!  I still have to scumble darks into the reflection area as well as work at the highlights on the pears and in the reflections, and more in the direct shadows.  Also, the lower stem.  But ..... it's coming along!  I think when it's done, I'm going to crop a bit off the bottom.

I almost hate to finish it because then I have to start another and I just don't know what to start next.  Though, I *did* take some good shots of Ornamental Cabbages on Saturday.  Or perhaps, jellyfish ......

I'm liking these pears ......

This morning, I got up early, cooked *another* turkey - but this time, not to eat as a turkey dinner.  This time, the entire turkey went into 7 large turkey pot pies!  With homemade crust.  That was tiring!  I kept coming into my painting room to paint and rest from it.  ;-)

I hope you're painting and enjoying life ...

ps - I don't think I mentioned previously that this is on a 1/4 sheet of Arches 300 lb CP.  Watercolour, of course.  :-)

Grisaille Pears update and Happy Thanksgiving Canada

If you're a Canadian, like me, Happy Thanksgiving!

I started this grisaille painting about two years ago.  (Two years!  I really AM a slow painter, aren't I?)  Here's the last posting I did on it. 

To get back into some painting, I decided to work on it.  So, here's a few shots of what I did tonight on it as well as a few of the older shots.  Mostly, I added more colour to the pears, then put in the background.  The black background was tricky and had to be done fast.  It's three coats of WN Blue Black, a gorgeous black that has been discontinued I think.  The fourth pic shows the background still very wet.  After the three coats, I painted on a coat of just clear water to even out some darker areas.  Worked well.  Then, as shown in the fifth pic, I added some colour to the bottom section of the background.  More to follow..... 

 

It's been a very sad week for me.  On Tuesday, our cat, Moose, suffered from a blood clot (from underlying heart disease the vet said).  Poor Moosie was in such incredible pain and almost instantly paralysed in his two back legs.  We rushed him to the Animal Hospital and the very nice veterinarian there gave us the incredibly distressing news that there was no other choice than to euthanize him.   Moosie was twelve. 

I've often called him a cranky old cat but I guess he just had a very strong personality.  I sure miss him.  He would shadow me all around the house and I'd always be talking to him.  He'd sleep with me every night.  He'd meet us all at the door.  As soon as I sat down on the couch, he'd be there - patiently waiting with his head tilted to one side - until I'd 'settled in', so that he could hop up onto my lap / stomach and 'settle in' himself.  If I didn't immediately start stroking the top of his head and the sides of his face, he'd just wiggle his head under my hand until I did.  Moosie had his own way of getting exactly what he wanted.  He ruled the house for twelve years. 

If there is one positive, it would be that thankfully, it happened before I went to work.  I would hate to think of him suffering alone all day long until I got home from work.

It's hard learning to live without him.