Friday, January 16, 2009

Farm-Ranch Studio pictures updated


I remembered the other day that I never have updated my website studio page since my move out here. SO, with that said, I took very quick pictures and didn't take time to spiffy things up for them. It is hard sometimes to take pictures with the back lighting coming in but here they are finally up on my website studio link. I couldn't get them up last night as the internet slowed waaay down. This morning things were working....yaaay!

I suppose I might have looked for a more appropriate picture for today's blog, but this is the one I found for now...a shot of the creek back in greener times. On two hundred acres you can find a lot of inspiration.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Semi - Good Day

I actually had internet upstairs with ALLTEL Wireless today.....I luxuriously left it going for 5-6 hours straight on my laptop. I sat around browsing blogs, reading old email I've missed, and ate my lunch. All the time I was looking at paintings begun and at the "disaster" from a few days ago. So about 4 pm I just lit into the disaster and now it might be just as much a disaster as before, but a much more colorful one than before.

Sorry - no picture as I didn't have the light for it. It may be just another layer in a long line of layers anyway when I go up to the studio next time to see if it looks better or worse.

I ordered a dozen books for friends today. Nita Leland's newest book on "Confident Color" is a wonderful book...plug, plug. My work is in it and on the cover. After the past couple of days of painting, I'm feeling like a fraud being in an art book. Maybe if I pretend enough, it will come true. I used to do that when I was a kid. Maybe I'm easily influenced but it worked for me..........sometimes still does.

All in all ...a good day since I could just take my time and absorb and paint and think. AND, the sun was shining.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Studio time



Up in the studio today, I put off making a decision about the painting from yesterday. Yeah I know....no courage. I haven't gotten to that point yet where I don't care where that painting is going.

SO, I got out a couple of new canvases in a new size 12 x 36" and put some light weight texture paste on them. I love this stuff I buy from Nova Colors. It's an inexpensive, but quality product as are all their paints.

It also occurred to me that I've posted pictures of my studio as I've been moving in. However, I never have updated and changed out pictures on my website. Guess I'll have to put that on the "to do" list that grows daily.

Hum...maybe I'll add some glazing to the darks in this painting and add more paint to the lights I want to keep before abandoning it to the garbage heap. Not really, I'm too frugal for that. As long as I can, I just repaint old canvases as long as the surface under can take the medium on top.

Okay, Cheryl....back to work. Where has all my past discipline gone I wonder?

PS.....also, I LOVE my new knife rack in the farm kitchen. So handy here.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Where Am I Going?


Humm...not sure where this is going...or maybe it's already gone.

The sun is shining and not a lot of wind...........so up to the studio for most of the day today. I needed to varnish the painting I posted the other day. AND, get some paint on that other one that has been staring at me forever on the painting wall.

The painting I'm referring to is one that was originally going to be part of a diptych. Well, good intentions aside, sometimes things just don't work out as we hope. This one never did make it out of the studio so rather than trying to keep fixing on it, I just painted over the whole thing with paints I needed to clear off the palette. This made for a VERY dark under-painting with all the reds, browns and purples. Where to go - where to go?? I don't, so I just decided to load up a brush and start making marks and shapes. They had to be lighter so out came the yellow. Before I knew it I had this on the wall. I have no idea where it came from other than I've been staring out the windows of the house and studio a lot and it IS winter. It needs some life as it's so somber. It may see the light of day again, or maybe not. I won't know until I either paint over it again or like magic something will come to me to breathe more life into it.

I had to quit for the day to mull this one over more.......and besides my Ipod went 'low batt'.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Promised Painting Images



The sun finally came out and barely in the nick of time for outdoor photo shooting. Here's the one I finished yesterday and the encaustic I finished earlier but had to re-mount and re-shoot the photo of.

The encaustic still looks a little subdued...but hey, maybe it just is 'subdued'....the other is a lesson in keeping the glow in intense color painting. Same subject matter, different feel.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Finished

Yaaaay..........I think I have this painting finished. At least I decided it was worth signing. I can't take a picture as there is absolutely miserable dark, cold, rainy weather outside and my studio lighting is not good for actual color rendition.

The one I'm referring to is the earlier 'start' I posted.........Umbrella Pine,Late Day, Umbria. This painting is 48 x 24" and is acrylic on canvas.

This painting brings back the memories of all the times my friend, Carolyn, and I passed this lone pine in all our traipsing around Umbria and Tuscany this May. So many times we were coming through this area at a late time of day so this particular low key/value suits it, I think. Not that these are the true colors of Umbria...maybe I should call all these paintings, Texas meets Umbria ...or Umbria through the eyes of a Texas artist. Whatever, I choose to use arbitrary colors most of the time in my paintings. This one has more representation than most.

Another painting I did with this pine is an encaustic I posted earlier. The picture was horrible and I also did a little more work on it. However, I don't have that picture down here in the house and I'm not going back out and up to the studio in the rain to get that camera. It also turned up to have a problem with the heavy wax starting to cause the canvas to sag away from the panel. I didn't glue it down and only stretched and stapled it. I am remedying that situation (I hope) by carefully removing the painting from the panel and now I have used PVA glue to glue the back of the canvas to the panel and weighted it down until tomorrow. I see no cracks yet but will fuse them out if needed. I got some recommendations on this problem from the forum at RFPaints.com . They are a great bunch there to help all of us with technical problems address those problems.

I'll try to post the photos tomorrow if I can just get a good shot of the latest one.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Tempting fate



I knew it would happen........if you stay out of the studio too long, you forget how to paint or handle the brush. I tell you, it ain't pretty.

This picture is of a painting I began some time ago and left to finish while working on the farm kitchen. Time was taken up by so much remodeling...along with lots of other events (Christmas, New Year and visits from those wonderful kids and grandkids). Now, IT's come to visit, that weird time of knowing more in your head than your hand with brush can perform. Hopefully, I won't be punished by being out of the loop too long. Maybe I can finish this as planned, or maybe it will morph into a disaster, or the best I've ever done. I never know until it's all over.

Oh yeah...the other picture is of our trusty captured helper peering out from under the house as my husband is continuing his work on the gutted bathroom now that the kitchen is in working order.