Latest Evolution

It feels so close to being done that I can taste it! Camille likes to see the evolution of paintings, so this one's for her. It was decided that I should lose the definition and color in the lowest quadrant because it was vying for attention when I'd intended to play down that area. It took 2 glasses of champagne for me to totally lose the red tone and make it a lovely shade of gray, but I did it! I am proud of myself for not clinging to something that was only yummy in my mind.

I'm Thrilled!

I am thrilled with what I got done on this painting today because of what it was before that. I only posted the beginnings of it, so y'all only saw a bit of how far from my original vision I had gotten. Too many details got included when I should have just been blocking in. I know that I always tell my teacher that I put the details in so I know where they're supposed to be, but I got way too attached to them and then unhappy because of it. When I first saw the photo which inspired this painting, it was the light and the contrast that attracted me to the subject, not the actual people in the photo. So, I've been letting it sit in the diningroom, on an easel, waiting for me to finally work up the nerve to paint out that which was making me unhappy. First, I painted out the lady in red. I thought that was enough, but the whole feel of the painting was wrong. Today, I did a purple wash over the entire painting, followed by a greenish gray and some bluish grays. I worked over every part of the painting, getting rid of the guy on the left and really losing a lot of detail. Which was a good thing. And now it has the feel that I was going for when I began thinking about this painting back in September. God loves me.

I started this last night at Noel Robbins' studio. It's a mishmash of photos from two different tropical storm events, Fay and Ike. The canvas is 30x40, which is a lot of area to cover with oil paint. I started with painting in the drawing, but have been doing all the blocking in with a palette knife. I just find it an easier tool to use when covering large areas. The figure on the left has to be reworked...he's like a mini man. Not a problem; I'm still blocking in.

"Walker"

http://differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com/

Another challenge from Karin Jurick's Different Strokes From Different Folks. I enjoyed it so much that I couldn't just make it an exercise, so it's a full fledged painting 16x20 oil on canvas and up on my gallery site at www.ekaweeka.com/568

"Roostertail"

I finished this last night at studio time. It's 18x24 done in oil on canvas with a palette knife. The tools are getting easier to use with each painting. Notice I didn't say easy.

This is my handsome hubby, by the way. Still the athletic stud at 52. It was a lot of fun to be able to document his prowess on a slalom ski.

What to paint next? People keep sending me photos which I'm sure they're hoping will be an inspiration for a painting. I sure appreciate their generosity. Plus, they take some damned good pictures! I am blessed.

Done, done, done, done, DOOOONNNNNEEEE!!!

Signed it and painted the sides a nice burnt sienna. Now, I just have to wait a couple of days for it to dry some more and I can put a retouch varnish on it. Then, wire it, wrap it up and drive it to my brother's new house in Grand Prairie and we're set. Big sigh.

New Work and Work In Progress

I know that most people only post their finished work, but if I did that, you'd only hear from me about once a month. So, here is one finished work and two in progress:

Outdoor Photography

I took this photo just a little while ago, when the sun was behind the houses across the street. I find it interesting how many more blues show up in the daylight than when I took the other picture last night in my studio with a flash.

My New Rug

I went upstairs to look at my painting and decided to photograph it while I was at it. So, now you can see my new rug! Not only is it pretty and cushy, but it doesn't bunch up and I haven't tripped over it at all! What a nice improvement from the floor mats that skidded all over the place. They're still under the rug, but the weight of the 5x8' rug keeps them in place. It was a bear to haul from the house, up the stairs and roll into place; my back reminded me of that yesterday.

Lots of palette knife work today. I doubt very many cactus leaves escaped paint today. It's becoming more cohesive in its form and style and hopefully nearing completion.

I was standing on a swivel stool to take this photo. I like to challenge my balance, I guess, because earlier this week I stood on a kitchen stool to hang a painting.

Agave Changes With More To Come

This is what I got done on the weekend, but I have since worked on it two more days this week and find every time that I'm bringing it closer to what I want. It has photographed very light on the right because of the lights in my studio. I'm going to invest in another standing light and bulbs to even out the lighting. The changes I made were to increase the values on some of the agave leaves and make the wall darker with a more orange tone to it. And the pavement on the right now has a more golden hue. And, as always when I'm working with a palette knife, all areas of the canvas got a little attention. I'll try to photograph it tomorrow so you don't have to guess. I'm feeling closer to the end each day.

Almost Done

I just realized that I haven't updated Pierre in quite a while. It's oil on linen and the light bouncing off of the canvas and paint is driving me crazy. I need to search out a good photo editing tool to help with that.

Anyway. About Pierre et Ballon de Football...it is nearly done. When my painting instructor says that, I get a little heart flutter. But, when he says things like, "Have you considered contacting some galleries?", I get something more like heart palpitations. So, I'm thinking that "no" should be the answer for now. In fact, I've promised myself that I'll wait until after the first of the year so I can just concentrate on gallery paintings and getting faster and better at what I do. I just have this little feeling that some of the control that I feel now with selecting my subject matter and how I'm going to go about portraying it may get compromised by showing and selling. And if that doesn't change, it's very possible that the pace will! And I love going at my own pace, choosing to paint on whatever painting suits my mood that day, no deadlines or commitments. Just a little old hippy painter.

One thing I might want to change back on this painting is the highlight that was on his sock. Noel had me take it out because it didn't fit with the light, but I've analyzed it and realized that I needed to move the soccer ball a bit, so that the highlight makes sense. And I think the highlight is something worth fighting for. It gives definition to the area around his feet that I find important. I could be wrong, but it feels like the right plan.

I'll miss this little guy. Sami is going to give me his mother's email address and I'm going to send her a *good* photograph of this painting. It's my desire to give it to his family in thanks for having Sami there this summer, but I'd prefer to feel her out about it first. I find that sometimes people can be very weird about the gift of a painting. And this one, she'd be obligated to frame herself because I think shipping this to France, alone, will be pretty costly and bulky without a frame. I hope the offer is well met.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I painted for 5 hours yesterday and feel like I got the light key spot-on, but wonder why this piece doesn't sing to me. Is the palette of reds and greens too limited? Maybe the weight of the composition is too heavy on the right? Is it too Photo Realistic?

All I can say is "GRRRRR!"

"Angelic Pumpkins"

I had the best time with this painting. Doing a white study is always a good idea. It really trains your eye to see all the tints, tones and shades. To the point that I was actually continuing to do it for the rest of the evening, painting things with my eyes. I love that!

"Angelic Pumpkins" oil on board 12x12

Moving Right Along...

So. Moving right along, we have another session with the bigass Agave, putting more information into the picture and adjusting the background. For some reason, I decided to put some squiggles of pink in the trees and that grew into flowers, but I haven't worked on it for 5 days, so it's been begging me to deal with some outstanding issues. Don't worry; they'll look great soon, haha! If I didn't leave a flaw in the painting, I might not be motivated to work on it. The flaw keeps drawing me in and irritating me like a loose eyelash in your eye.

Here's my latest version of Happy Bigass Agave. And tomorrow, I hope to post a photo of "Ghostly Pumpkins", a 12x12 oil on board that I painted for a cool painting concept blog, called Different Strokes From Different Folks. http://differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com/

I've been meaning to do one of the inspirations for weeks, but always get busy with my two paintings here at home. But, David O. put in his AFG enews that Connie and Camille do Different Strokes, so I couldn't make a liar out of him, right?

It's a lot of fun to know that I can't take a couple of weeks on the painting, that it has to get done within a week of the photo being posted. With ACL this past weekend, I was sure there'd be no time to work on it. And I'm supposed to be packing for camping! And our revered Ms. G passed away today. I thought of her the whole time I was painting today. Those thoughts and the numerous phone calls and texts were barely a distraction. I guess I don't need absolute peace to paint anymore. I create my own peace.

Maybe I Should Have Left Well Enough Alone?

After some consideration, I decided that to leave the background and foreground in their abstract state denied the painting the cohesiveness that I'm used to bringing to my work. The lack of cohesion gave it the look of what I term "wall art", which is my decorator term for those things that you'll hang on the wall to decorate but can't be considered Fine Art. Another term, "Sofa Painting" is one you're perhaps more familiar with.

So, to keep this in line with my body of work, I decided that the agave should be planted in its garden and this is the beginnings of that.

More to come

Something Else Fun I'm Working On

I'm calling this "Tequila Sunrise", cuz it's an Agave cactus and you know agave has two wonderful uses: huge ornamental landscaping and really good tequila making. Imagine drinking tequila while gazing at an Agave...would that be as bad as eating a hamburger in front of a cow?

By the way, this painting is 48x48", which qualifies as Bigass.

And....We're Off!

It's time, ladies and gents, to move on to another great adventure. Please welcome my newest start, "Pierre et Ballon de Football", begun Tuesday night with a drawing and underpainting of Transparent Red Oxide, which is a very burnt umberlike red, and block-in continued yesterday with cooler colors, lightest lights and darkest darks. More blocking-in to come, but I'm so thrilled with this start that I wanted to share right away. Here's hoping I don't have another 3 month long painting on my hands!

"Canyon Waterfall: Nature's Font" '08 oil on canvas 36x36

I have had a great time using a palette knife on this painting. I feel quite comfortable with it now, except the part where I'm figuring out how many cents' worth of paint are getting gobbled up every time I have to squeeze out more. Old Holland isn't what you use when you're painting thickly. I went into studio time last night with one question: how can I really define what I see as the light shining warmly down into this canyon so that it makes sense for the boy to want to slide down that waterfall into the cold water below. The photo I was working from was taken in February and I can feel that it is the pale Spring light, yet my brother told me it was probably in the 80's that day (much like what we get here in Austin in February). Noel and I discussed how the cooler sections of light on the water were a reflection of the sky, the warmer sections were reflecting the light on the rocks. I needed to make all of the canyon walls darker the way the iris would shut down when it is hit with too much light. And lastly, put some reflected light (bounce light) in the canyon walls that has elements of the color of the rock it's bouncing off of. I managed all that in 2 1/2 hours and he said, "Sign it! You're done!" And now he's eager to see what I will come up with for my next project and how I'll use the palette knife. Not sure the palette knife will get much use in the next one, but I could be wrong...I often am.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

I was reading a book the other day, "Living The Creative Life", by Thomas Kincaide. In one part, he describes how a friend was deeply worried and one thing or another kept piling up on top of the stresses she already had. Finally, she said, "Lord, what should I do?" And the worry went away.

Sami often comes to us with "What should I do?", but I don't often think to ask that of myself, of God. I just muddle along, sure that things will turn out right eventually.

But, I had some worries in the past week which were starting to affect how I acted with my family, how my art was working. I know when I push too hard at Life, Life pushes back, so I decided to try this lady's method and ask my higher power, "What should I do?"

I feel better now. My painting isn't sucking. My thoughts about selling my work are rearranging themselves to the point that if you want to buy something of mine, I'm willing to have you donate to my paint supply/framing fund. I don't want to deal with quarterly tax payments, getting a tax ID, itemizing when I have way more expenses than I suspect I will have sales, so I won't technically be selling right now. But, I will let them go to new homes.

And anything done in '07 can go for free if you're a good friend or relative. That way I have visiting priveleges. I just won't do what my grandmother used to do, take it home again to work on it!

My biggest goal, besides improving on my abilities, is to have a body of work that I feel is good enough to approach a gallery with. That means a whole lot more painting! I only have 2-3 that I would think could be considered. And that's probably flattering myself too much. Once I feel finished with this piece, I'll do an evaluation of the pieces I'm considering. It may be that, as usual, I only can consider the one I'm working on, since my work matures with each painting I do.

Like Buttah

I've been working with a palette knife for a week and thoroughly enjoying the experience. Yes, it does take a bit of bravery to work thickly over something that was already on its way to being wonderful, but you have to take an attitude sometimes that will allow you to take chances. It's hard to grow as an artist if your goal is to "not suck". I have a friend, who was once my fine art drawing teacher, who says that is the lesson she's learned from me. Just go after it and know that the outcome is going to be good because you will have learned something.

This painting is all about learning. I'm learning about perspective, light, cohesion, edges, blocking-in, design and intent. And how to handle palette knives.

Then there's the problem solving that is part of the learning process. I'm not entirely certain, but it seems that one of my problems may be the actual paint that I'm using.

When I decided to start painting in oils, I started looking through the selection on Jerry's Artarama website. The Lucas 1862 brand had a lovely write-up and sounded like just the thing. Plus, the price was manageable since they were on sale. But, of course, I didn't realize that they're on sale more than any other brand. I also didn't realize that the beeswax that purportedly gives it its buttery texture is what they call "filler" and this messes with the refractability of the pigment in the paint. They often put filler in student grade paints so they'll go further. And while I *am* a student, I don't adhere to that idea of using a poorer grade of paints for students. I think it's actually quite a drawback.

Not having used oil paints since I was 13 years old, I didn't know any better. I did notice that they weren't behaving as well as I'd like them to. They'd dry darker than anticipated. But, the weirdest thing is that some paint would dry with a sheen, but other parts would be totally matte! A lady customer at Jerry's pointed that out to me last week and it pretty much went over my head until I brought my painting to class Tuesday night and we both noticed just how off it was.

My only hope now is that I can put some retouch varnish on it to even out the sheen and hold it together, because the other problem with beeswax in paint is that it might crack! Imagine! All the fat texture I've been "buttering" my painting with, cracking off. I'm all for learning lessons in painting, but this one hurt a great deal.

I have to finish off this painting with the Lucas 1862 paints and then not use them anymore unless I paint on a solid surface, like Ampersand board, that won't give at all and the paint won't be liable to crack. But, my next painting is going to be done in my new paint: Old Holland. No more experiments in paint for me. I'm going with tried and true. The ultimate upgrade. A paint so saturated with pigment that you don't have to use a ton of it to get the results you want. A paint that comes in 40 ml. tubes instead of the standard 37 ml., so while it is an extremely expensive brand (the Cadmiums' price gave me heart palpitations!), it's like buying the premium brand as opposed to the discount brand. You know when you do that with paper towel or dishwashing detergent, the premium uses less and does the job better than the discount brand.

I may not yet be a painter worthy of the premium brand paints, but I will be someday. And just so you know that I haven't gone crazy, I only bought 6 tubes: Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna.

Dick Blick's has the best price I've seen, but you pay shipping, so I bought mine at Jerry's and used my Plein Air Austin discount card (20% biatches!!!), so it came in under $100, gah!

Anyone wanting to give me gifts for the next year can do it with paints. I have a feeling that if I do sell any paintings this year, it's all going to get turned into paints.