Chicken Leg on Paper Towel

This is a raw chicken leg, but the lights... they sort of cook it as you go. This makes for much more interesting colors in the flesh, but also promotes thoughts of becoming a vegetarian.

Pink Cyclamen/Orange

This is a plant brought back from the dead. I have been trying to get to it to paint before it got any more complicated. Those pink heads bunch up into an unrecognizable mass really quickly, then there are all those patterned leaves to deal with. They are strange and beautiful, though.

Mugshot 37: Halloween

Happy Holidays!

Dog in a Boat

This dog really was in a boat. It can be a conceptual piece as well as realistic.

I am finishing up Christmas paintings this week and can't post everything without ruining surprises, so I feel like a blog slacker with so few postings. My nose is pointy from the grindstone though.

Zinnias on Turquoise

Here is my study, arduous, and a little painting, fun, mostly.

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.

More Screwdrivers

I wanted to do this subject again and paint more vigorously and less cautiously, which I did do, but it doesn't show here - could it be the camera and not my whining? I'm trying to find a way to keep the whole surface going without stopping to correct. To correct with the next application of the paint on the form or surface next to the mistake. To make friends with mistake making and have a lot of ways to re-state that are not cramped or fearful.

Radishes on Plaid Napkin

These radishes are on another thift store napkin, a large plaid. I have been in love with plaid for years, although wearing it makes a girl feel like a baby tractor. Painting it is a different story. I think Alice Neel does it about the best it can be done, sorry Lucien, because the plaid just comes alive and is so impertinent! I have a piece of pink and orange plaid in the studio that I haven't been able to paint well ever, and I am thinking this napkin will let me learn by degrees. This one is a very simple plaid, so that is helpful. Also, I used a different family of greens: pthalo blue, cad yellow light, cad red, white and sometimes a mixed black (ultra. blue and burnt umber). Sometimes those pthalo greens are so harsh and artificial looking, but it might have to do with the other dominant colors in the painting as well as other stuff I don't know yet.

Daffodils

I overworked this one, but here it is nevertheless. I liked working with the yellows. So many luminous shades of it were there, some just a touch to the green or red side and some just blaring and honking yellows straight from the tube. Also I had some success with the grey in the upper half --- I mixed many of them and used an alarming amount of paint -aaugh!- but I got it finally. ( You have to take your triumphs where you can.)

Cyclamen on White

I have been looking at whites and searching for the best background for these cyclamen. Bright color, soft, no color, dark, what will make them float off....

Thanks everybody for the hilarious eclair Haiku, I had SUCH a good laugh!

Kitchen Trash

I am preparing for my first painting with the Texas Moleskine Authority (not the correct name, I have forgotten it) which is a sketchbook that travels among the members, each painter having a theme for her/his book, and each painter painting in each sketchbook. My theme is detritus, so I am exploring my own garbage. And I guess, no putting selected paintable objects in the trash. However, other's people's trash.....

Primrose

This is a wretched photo, but I can't get it any better.

Pansies and Napkin

The top painting is oil on board and the lower painting is just a quick one on a canvas sheet.

I ordered the Ultimate Canvas Sampler Pad from Dick Blick I think, but they are put out by Creative Mark, so they must be carried everywhere. This one is the linen sample, and it is very different from any other surface. You have to really be determined to get a sharp edge, the weave of the material takes the paint differently. There is glare on this, but you can see the texture. I have seen people use this stuff (on Utube videos) by masking taping it to a board. My friend who showed me this had used double sided carpet tape on a panel and just stuck the sheet to it. There are four sorts of canvas in the pack, very good for experimenting. I am amazed every time how much difference materials can make. And of course, you want everything going for you that you can get.