Zinnias Two

Still wrestling with camera, but hopeful, I can see that the camera will do what I want it to do, just a matter of learning how to set it up. This is not it yet....

Fat Radishes

First, these are the fattest radishes I have ever seen. Practically the size of eggs. And they have lots of pink in them, however, I am using for the first time an SLR camera and the color and contrast is strangely off and I don't have a clue how to fix it. Off to the manual.

Ok now the first one is the old camera. Worlds apart, neither correct. AAAUGH!

Zinnias

Peonies gone, so I cut the first zinnias from my little garden. They are all a little stunted but still brave.

Peonies and Paper Bag

Playing.

Peonies with Three Blacks

I'm pretty relaxed about this because I'm in the pilgrim mode. This is what I have decided about the flower part: it should be figured out before you load up your brush with paint, and then established quickly with the fewest possible strokes. Not that I did that, but I can see the necessity of it, so maybe next time... One of the most fun parts in this painting was setting up the dark background and foreground and then distinguishing the temperature of the blacks. I looked at Stanley Bielen and Celia Reisen for instruction.

Peony Study

I sprang for some peonies. They are my most favorite flower, raggedly beautiful and the fragrance has not been bred out of them. However, I have never painted them before because they are so full of shredded petals and I don't know what to do with all that. This is the second try, but I figure if I stick at it, I will get it eventually. I am looking at everybody else's peonies on line for help, and also I have a little book of Manet's Last Flowers, which has them. Manet's peonies are so minimal they are like puffs of steam, but essentially a peony. I think some types might be easier to paint than others.... some have larger petals and some have lots of shred. I tried to take the easy way out but only the shredded ones were in my grocery store.

Geranium Cutting for Lucien Freud

Today was a quiet day after the melee of the pet painting group, I have to collect my wits.

Humane Society Animals

We had another pet painting class this afternoon at the Humane Society of Williamson County in Leander, Texas. I'm so proud of them! They jumped right in without hesitation and made these charming paintings.

Little Zinnia

Fleurs from my garden. We have no rain, so they are all scraggly.

Still Life with Envelope

I was playing with the tying to the edge idea again. Also, I wanted to make the back part of the painting tip forward by using white in the background -- to flatten the picture plane, flatness and depth together. It's much more clean edged than I intended, what was I thinking....

The turquoise painting was the first one, and that bright strip at the bottom was one diagonal too many. In the top painting, I used a gray purple in that space and the composition has enough of a vertical now so that it works better. I wonder what I learned here.

Still Life a la Howard Hodgkin

Howard Hodgkin is so much more brutal than this little still life, but this is his direction. His paint does not describe anything either. Oh but the life of his paintings! And we are both completely committed to the polka dot.

Bird and Light Socket

A quickie painting. My first one, which was an attempt at Hodgkin inspired abstract realism, went the way of all flesh.

Purifying Mask on Blue

OK, now I'm sick of the whole thing, but before I left this subject I wanted to use the wrought iron work that was in the background of one of the photos. I wanted to tie something into the painting that came out to the edge. I'd really like to tie something completely arbitrary from the figure to the edge, but I thought I should start with something real to get used to this idea.

Purifying Mask On Green

First, thank you everyone for such funny and kind comments on the last painting. I had this brainstorm that if I whited up my face it might be easier to see the planes of values, which it was, except I couldn't or didn't get the mask stuff on evenly enough to keep my skin from showing through in some places, which made for warm ruddy areas next to cool whites -aaaugh! In this one (I was out on the back porch trying to keep the neighbors from seeing me in whiteface and my underwear) there was an interesting slice of bright light that made it around the porch post and hit the side of the face, so there was an opportunity to find the brightest white possible. A good exercise in whites.

Purifying Mask

And it does, too.

Striped Still life

Well, I was selected for the jury as I expected and we had the whole thing finished by lunch, which left the afternoon, so I had some time to play. I have a new book on Howard Hodgkin, fabulous British abstract painter, and he concerns himself with the question of placement which is interesting to me and also the biggest most delicious element of all, color. So I moved some forms around in the manner of H.H. and went at it. Exhilarating actually, not to be so confined to realism, and to keep the forms very basic, looking for the tension in the mix.

Red and Green

A little study. Tomorrow - jury duty.

Macy Poolside

This is another one of the lucky medical rehab dogs, my favorite of all nine of them.

Nasturtium and Eggplant

Hooray, good to be posting again. I have been working on a larger painting, lots of scraping down and re-doing, but I think I'm out of the woods today. So I painted this for fun and to reward myself for sticking at things. This actually is my one and only nasturtium blossom from a big pot I planted from seed. I have lots of leaves and I love the round shapes of them. These are Empress of India and are supposed to be deep red, but this orange is good enough.

Grapefruit and White Napkin

Big brush, harsh light, simple forms in this one, the object was to find a way to knit the forms together into a painting. I like the word knit for this process, Catherine Kehoe used it in a lecture she gave recently at Mass Art. I wish I had been there to hear it! It is posted on her website catherinekehoe.com.

Anxious Girl

I shot this little girl at a playground. She looked so anxious and had all the signs of depraved living -- circles under her eyes, pale grayed skin, and she was back lit, causing her face to be in shade. Her skin was luminous though, even without color in it. I don't know how to do that!

There is an astonishing amount of gray in flesh and sometimes it can look pearl-ish, which is what I will be trying for as soon as I figure out how.

Little Camille

Little Camille is a rescue animal for a family in Dallas. They find animals who have terrible health problems and give them first class medical care, operations, everything to fix them up, and then the animals live the most blissful life imaginable. It makes a girl feel better about the world. Camille's back legs are paralyzed, I think this has been from birth, but of course since she doesn't know anything else, she manages to do everything and be very cheerful about it.

Value Studied

The top painting was the last painting in the Jennifer Balkan class, and I used all my new skills and mojo in it. It was a 45 minute pose using 4 values (I don't think I even used the lightest for a highlight) and also adding local color (red on hands, cheeks, etc) during the last few minutes. Although this is no Olympia, I felt good about it as I did it, because I am understanding the major concept here which is: identify and consolidate like values into one significant value and lay it in in a mass, connecting adjacent masses where possible. You do it for three value categories, then there is the highlight. The result is that the painting reads clearly. I think if you want to have powerful painting, this must be mastered. It is only one of the things that must be mastered, but if you don't get this one, I think it's all over. This is going to take some practice though.

Today I found a mourning dove in the street and brought it in to paint. They are so beautiful and soft with all the grays and roses and yellows. I wish I could have another go at her but I didn't think to refrigerate and now it's too late. I didn't get the correct values for the top of the breast, it isn't light enough and the form doesn't turn. So many colors - it needed simplification and I got caught up in the variety of them. This is an example of not identifying the values correctly because of color temptation!

Jennifer talked about another tool to use when you are working from a photograph. She uses a gray scale photo in addition, which makes the grouping of values clearer. I think gray scale means the same thing as a black and white, which can be done in photo programs. I have a Mac and the iphoto program will do it. So I will try this in my next animal portrait which is coming up soon. So many good things in that class!

Nasturtium Leaves and Peach

Bwa - ha -ha! I am getting it! I know I have done a little Peggi Kroll Roberts painting here, and I am proud to say it. The second painting is the value study, then I tried out the color on top of the already stated values before I assigned them to the colored painting, this is from her value to color exercise. I like the strength and life of the painting and hope in time to absorb this into my own method, whatever that might be. It has been very helpful to be simultaneously working in Jennifer Balkan's class on the same issues: values of the figure. (I will post my graduation painting tomorrow.) The class was very small, only 4 of us, so we got lots of loving attention and weren't allowed to slack off for a moment. I learned so much and it was really fun. Also the other people were hilarious, you know who you are... Thanks to Jennifer for a great and challenging class.

Geranium in Bulb Vase

I am still doing value studies, also trying to use ultra saturated color. Last class with Jennifer Balkan tonight, I'm certain I will be smarter and a better painter tomorrow.

Geranium and Meds Bottle

Another value study. I have new geraniums and I chose them because they are almost black and I figured they would be an unusual dark in a painting. They are prolific bloomers and so far I have not killed them. I'm also setting up the still life in such a way that there are linked forms and shadows...PKR again.

Geraniums and Oranges

A value study a la Peggi Kroll Roberts. More practice.

Humane Society Class

Saturday I taught a Paint Your Pet class at the Williamson County Humane Society, a no kill privately funded shelter that has adoption services and spays and neuters at a very reduced cost. (They welcome volunteers! 512-260-3602. ext. 107) It was a great place with fun easy going people and animals everywhere. I was amazed at how well the participants did - none of them artists, only one professed doodler with an artistic gene pool - see if you can figure which one.... I was very glad to see the bird show up as a pet -- was hoping for something non-dog or cat. They all got an A++.

The Nose

Last night in Jennifer Balkan's class we did more value studies with a model and I was much better, to my delight. Initially I was having trouble getting the figure down on an 8x6" panel, now I am pretty much getting everything to the knees. Lucky for me I have been watching the DVD on figure proportions by Peggi Kroll Roberts and she gives lots of tips for getting it down quickly, so those tricks plus practice helped. We also discussed the importance of editing visual info and how difficult it is. Sometimes it's just helpful knowing it's a problem for everybody. I mean -- how do you know what should go? It's like a whole other philosophical problem right in the middle of all the skills that have to be coordinated to make the painting, it just stops me in my tracks and destroys my momentum. Another important element to me is the vigorous use of paint, the laying down of paint in a direct, decisive manner without second guessing or fussing. I tried to keep this in mind in today's post of...my nose.

Jean, Small

Another head study, this time on a small board, 8 inches square. I have a terrifically hard time doing anything that is not life size, it is a terrible brain glitch. But with more drawing, which is the cure for perceptual problems (art only), I am getting better at it. This again was with minimal light -- the only way I can get a good light from the side so that some part of form is in shadow is to turn off the overheads and then I am plunged into darkness. This is why I look like I am twenty in this painting. Whatever....I like working from life so much more than using the photograph, maybe everybody feels this way. Things are so much clearer. Another class tonight with Jennifer Balkan, so looking forward to it.