Thursday, March 26, 2009

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.

Monday, March 23, 2009

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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Saturday, March 21, 2009

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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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

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.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

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.