More process I really shouldn’t show!
I’m not through with this painting yet, even if I left it this realistic. I slapped some yellows in those negative areas around the trees and got carried away……..now I either need to change that whole area to the right or get carried away with more grays again over the yellows. Maybe that would work…….who knows. ??? But if I have a lot of yellows in all that background, then I have to start unifying the foreground more for that relationship.
Oh yeah…wasn’t meaning that this was the view I painted, just that being surrounded by this (this picture is one from one of my studio windows)all the time is showing up in the shapes of the paintings. The shapes in the painting reminds me more of the bare crape myrtles off my front porch than the other trees around here………especially now that they have leafed out so much.
I do know that living over here in the midst of a lot more of what nature bestows on us WILL influence my work. However, I’m not planning to become a realistic painter. AND to many this isn’t realistic at all……..but to me it is way too much. So look now as it may be gone by next week. I heard cows mooing back and forth past the house last night as I went to sleep…………hope that doesn’t mean a cow is going to invade my paintings. If they do, I’ll just paint over them.
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more" Process" info
After Marilyn commented on my process on the painting start yesterday, I got to thinking that maybe I should expand on this a little. The painting may change entirely by the time I get through or it may be covered over with a new painting. At this point I don’t know for sure. Right now it is a landscape that springs from the country living and the foggy, cloudy weather lately. If too many days go by the mood could shift and my colors, intensities could change accordingly. Another reason for painting quickly but thinking about it a long time before you start or when you get at least 3/4 through…or more than that maybe.
Anyway…….back to process……..I generally tone a canvas so that I can have some unity going from the start. Sometimes it is entirely covered by the time I’m though but it does give me a place to start with color and value relationships. The lines in this painting are charcoal covered with thin dark paint to keep me from getting too far off what I think I want to do…when I do have anything in mind. The lines are also expendable. That said, sometimes I don’t use any lines at all. When I do it too much, however, I end up with the same favorite designs over and over. Sometimes you need to break from too much going with the flow.
My palette is generally laid out like a color wheel. I do substitute different pigments for these 12 “spots” at times but basically it is (bottom left) alizarin crimson, cad or napthol red medium (depends on amount of transparency I want), cad orange, cad yellow orange (made from the cad orange and cad yellow light), cad yellow light, yellow-green, Permanent green, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, a mixed violet blue, diox purple, and a mixed magenta ……..so I am back around to the Alizarin again. I like the Nova Color Alizarin or the Golden Historical alizarin since they are both dark like the original color in oil paint. BTW……..these are all acrylic heavy body paints. Sometimes I put other colors in these spots just depending on the painting and the degree of opacity or transparency I want. In the middle I like Titanium White, Titan Buff, and sometimes Neutral gray #5 & #7. They help me mix more quickly without having to always go through the mixing with the white first……..a warm light and a cool light. I also use another palette with big mixtures of whatever I need to lay out a painting or at the end to work on it’s overall effect. I use china bristle brushes almost exclusively unless I need another effect……….and work like oil painting. For the painting from the last post I wanted to use some extra colors………chromium oxide green, raw sienna and quinacridone gold……..The gold is also used for the toning for these guidelines for the painting.
Gotta go….a good friend (artist) and her husband are expected………….Tomorrow back to painting.
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Busy Saturday
A lotta work going on around here for a Saturday.
I guess I don’t know what day it is most of the time.When I feel the inclination, I work on art or around the place with things I put off from other days. A series of nice warm days has really felt great.
It’s been a busy Saturday………lots of laundry, dusting, picking up since the kids were here last night. I also got some studio time in. I prepped a large 48 x 60 canvas earlier in the week and got a good warm tone on it all over, laid out some lines and shapes that may or may not be in the finished piece. I planned on a cooler painting since I’ve been so influenced by all the fog lately. I never know by the time I get through if that inclination will follow through or not. Now it has several layers.
I’ve also been trying to get a desk/server type piece of furniture sanded off for a new coat of finish. It is NOT going well…..It will probably end up being painted instead. I do have all the plants that have wintered in the well house out and on the porches. Hope I didn’t do all this too soon.
Those horses just don’t want to come down out of the east pasture it seems. But they will have to for the cows to come back through their usual patterns of moving around.
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Back to the studio
Lyric……..diptych acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.. 12 x 72″
Patchwork, Umbria……… 40 x 30″ acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas
I’m taking this message from Alyson Stanfield to heart.
http://www.artbizblog.com/2009/03/podcast-return-to-your-art.html
Here are a couple of pieces I’ve been working on lately. Now I need to varnish and put hangers on them ready for a gallery.
Now back to the studio.
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Finally
Finally……………the ties to the old home of 41 years are cut. We closed today selling the home all our children grew up in. It’s a bit sad to think of sometime but we love the new place, too. And to us, it’s not so new, as new for just us. It belonged to the family for about 45 years before us and now we’re just the new overseers so to speak. Now kids and grandkids can come over to fish, ride horses, try to catch up with the beavers in the lake and even hunt deer and hogs Mentioning deer……I looked out the bedroom window mid morning and 5 were running across the east pasture headed who knows where.
It’s a relief to only have one place to care for………………now maybe things will settle down slowly for us here.
The picture is of one of my daughters and only granddaughter with one of the horses.
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Another day in the studio
Another day in the studio.
Progress is being made. I got back into the studio Thursday, took off for the show openings in Dallas Friday, met with TXWAXDallas on Sunday. So Monday was back to the studio day. I HAVE got to get back into the discipline I need for creating. It might just mean spending lots of time just piddling around… or any other thing I could do in the studio. …horrors, cleaning!
During the stress times moving and remodeling, I was working by preparing canvases. One or two times I even had a glimmer of an idea or two. On those days I put a ground and color tone on two long horizontal canvases, both 12 x 36″ long. I just started after that with making a mark. (You have to start somewhere…and this is it for me after the toning). One mark led to another and another with whatever mood the day had for me.
These canvases beckoned to me to tone them with a color no longer available from Golden paints…….Quinacradone Gold. I had a big jar and had hoarded it since there was no more. Hey….can’t hoard forever, why have it if not to use? If you’ve noticed, I have a lot of tree line and pasture land outside my windows, both in the house and the studio. They also beckoned to me and the marks made me think of them. This is a recurring theme for me before moving over here though so there is some comfort in making these marks that are symbolic to me I suppose.
Next was to decide on a palette of color emphasis. I had the gold tone but you can cover it all up or leave some revealed. So I just started mixing with a blue-green and gold emphasis. The only thing is…my intent goes out the window when I get to painting……..the painting will tell me if it wants to make a detour. I have to harness that impulse if I have a commission that needs certain colors, but without that constraint, I just go with it.
This is what I have for now with that diptych which will be measured at 12 x 72″ if left side by side horizontally like this.
A possible title came to mind………..Lyric . It was going to be a looking to spring time painting…but something happened along the way to the springtime greens.
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Cerulean Gallery opening
WOW….I had a wonderful week-end in Dallas. It’s been some time since I got out to visit with people at an art gallery reception. The crowd at the Cerulean Gallery was a lot of fun and they all enjoyed talking with the artists and asked lots of questions. Hopefully it will also be profitable for all of us before the show closes on March 30.
Just before I left for Dallas, I found out an artist friend, Ron Pokrasso, also had a show opening on Saturday night (mine was on Friday night) so my daughter Cyn and I went over to a visit and to see his wonderful work there at Craighead-Green.
I’ve had a lot of good feedback from the show so far. This always energizes me to return to the studio.
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Studio Time
Yaaay…studio time today, finally. Generally, when you have been preparing for a show, you hit somewhat of a lull later and have ‘white canvas‘ syndrome. This has happened to me, but more likely for me is that it frees me to just paint. The show hasn’t opened until tomorrow night, but I had a real disaster on the easel that had a ton of layers on it. I think I have finally resolved this work. Due to ‘acrylic paint death‘ syndrome…(hum..must think of all these syndromes), it might die on me later but I hope not much would have to be done.
Hope anyone around Dallas tomorrow night will drop in at Cerulean Gallery on Hillcrest and say hello.
Until then, I hope you’ve had a great day in the studio… or, wherever your heart lies!
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YUM YUM!
YUM!
I started out the day, lazing in the bed, thinking, ” I’m going to stay here as long as I want to. I’ve been running for days and need a break! ” Ooops…then remembered that this is my sweetie’s birthday…..and our anniversary on Thursday so I hopped up (you really believe that one :>/) and got in the kitchen, made coffee, and started his favorite homemade from scratch biscuits, scrambled eggs and bacon. This is a fairly new recipe and it has a touch of sugar in it. I have tried to stay away from all this bread and stuff for a lot of years ( I have no will-power it seems). But, now with the new kitchen after all the time without one I’m making all this Artisan bread that I like but he says is ‘okay’ and he loves the biscuits and homemade rolls that I make periodically. Today I’m also making him the “American White Bread” from the Artisan in Five Minutes a Day” book since I have a feeling he might like that kind better. We will see if it sits long enough for tonight…if not, tomorrow.
I also went to the grocery store to get rib eyes…none to be had since they were on sale and they ran out. So, he chose chicken fried steak over the Sirloin strip steak. Wouldn’t you know….fried anything.
No painting this week like I’d like but MY turn is coming next week after the show opens and I get back from 2 1/2 days away in Dallas leaving him here to fend for himself.
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Uncommon Composites
Just wanted to let anyone around the Dallas area know I will be a part of a four artist show at Cerulean Gallery opening Friday, February 20. The opening reception is 6-9pm but the show runs through March 30. Do come by and say hello if you are in the area.
For more information, Cerulean Gallery.
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Can you ever re-create?
I don’t know why I keep doing this…………my computer must be an antique. Anyway……….I made a post and it disappeared never to be seen again.
Trying to recreate the post…(you know this will not EVER be the same if you try to recreate something. )
BUT, Here it is:
I decided to take Junior for a walk today……..half way out from the back fence I realized I didn’t bring my trusty little Canon camera like I told myself I would next time. BUT………….I did bring my phone and it has a camera. Why did I bring my phone when we have next to nothing reception for ATT Wireless out here I don’t know but I figured it was a back up if feral hogs or a big water moccasin or even a bull got after me and I couldn’t run fast, for sure. Ha ha …I was going to call someone with crappy reception..huh!
Anyway. this whole post has changed after the first one was lost. I have a one track mind it seems…..and no memory.
Anyway, this little camera on my SE 580i has 2 mega pixels and goodness gracious………..a panorama mode. I never knew but I shot them anyway. Now to get them off. That was the story I think I wrote earlier and was going to re-create.
Took me half the day to figure out how to get those darn pix off and by then I’d downloaded new software that had synced with my phone. Anyway……..here is a shot of the walk down to the lake. I probably will never remember how to do this again. You can see that I need now to learn how to work with panorama pics and don’t know how an don’t have time to figure it out right now.
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Art has not taken a hike!
Art/painting has NOT taken a hike around here. I’ve not had much time for the blog but I do think of it now and then. Some friends and I in an online group were discussing not long ago……..”Do you neglect some of your creative activities when you are concentrating on others?”
Or ….in my case, all the work/time physical and mental with moving, setting up a new place to call home (maybe for the rest of my life) has taken time away from my actual painting time. It has, honestly………BUT, we are not made up as individuals from just the time we spend in front of the easel. We have to have something to contribute to the mix that sooner or later comes out in our work. I know that time has been brewing what may come out in my paintings over many years. I have painted some work that I think of as the Umbria paintings. That will continue and slowly be mixed in with the new rural countryside paintings.
But ………..today, I did something else I’ve been fooling around with…Bread Baking. This is a loaf of Olive Bread. I think I’ve been making too much bread from the Artisan Five Minute a Day cookbook and my jeans tell me this is true.
But there are paintings on the easel wall. I’ll show them as time and my judgment allows.
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