More Paintings!

Once I just about complete a painting I start a new one.  I never know how long it will take as I get stuck one a painting and it just takes time to get unstuck and move on.  If it isn't enjoyable then that is reflected in the painting.

This is the first night  I started it.  Below is the reference photo.

Above I added the second lion then added some color.  Below I used a glaze for the first time!  A glaze is just that, a thin coat of paint.  I wanted the purple in the background for the elephant.

Last night I started with the above and I worked on the lions and started adding purple to the elephant.  My teacher tells me the elephant looks like he is removed from the picture.  When I put the "dust" on the picture I think that will cure the problem.  There is still much to do but I KNOW what to do so it won't take as long.

ReFox

Running Fox has been finished for some time but I haven't posted him because I wasn't sure he was truly done.  I thought maybe I  might grab a brush and touch something up a bit that was bothering me.  Turns out what bothered me was his eye.  You know the one that isn't quite right.  I decided to leave it alone because it is like the picture.

Original Picture of Running Fox

The goal was to paint this picture and make it look like what it is.  I think I succeeded.  In the future I will not confine my creative inner self and will take liberties as I feel the need.  But for now I am happy to present to you my very first painting of an animal.

Running Fox

I can already see several rookie mistakes in him!  Moving forward I've learned to exaggerate the contours to make the painting come alive and give depth.  His face would not look so flat if I would add some lines on the side of his snout.  Wait!  I said I was finished!

Next up are portraits of my neighbors dogs and an elephant charging two lions.  I'm having fun!

What Is In A Name?

I am sure everyone is familiar with that quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  I was just thinking about when I started this blog a couple of years or so back.  I had become bored with my job and was craving a creative outlet.  Writing has always come easy to me so I thought I would share my writings with the world via Blogger.

Perhaps I should rename my blog "My Life as a Painter".  I hesitate to call myself an artist.  Well, yet anyway.  I'm a fledgeling.  I like that.

This summer when I painted it was an escape.  One afternoon I picked up a brush and made strokes that felt good.  I  made more strokes and more.  I inadvertently left the painting out in the yard next to the gravel driveway.  That night it rained.  The paint had bubbled up in places and collected gravel dust in the ridges left behind.  Mother Nature decided to help me out.

I have always loved abstracts.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Have a great day.  Create something.

My Inner Jackson Pollack

While I was painting my porch I stumbled upon some dollar samples of  pastel paints and I decided to go all Jackson Pollack on my black mailbox.  The mailbox had been kicked around the bottom of the steps so my postal carrier didn't have to skate up the icy steps in the winter.  He'd suffered some scrapes and the loss of a handle so I gave him a new look.

I, personally, wanted to put some crimson on the last layer but alas, my better half said nope.  It's done.

My inner Jackson Pollack, however, was not done.  I grabbed my latex house paints and went to town on a piece of plywood.  I dripped with a random stick I picked up.

There is something delicious about dripping layers of paint and watching the randomness blend.

I'm particularly fond of reds and greens.

And yellow!

One of my painting classmates doesn't use yellow and I'm constantly telling her to add yellow!

There is something I really like about action painting.  Next spring I'd like to get out in the back yard with a tall easel and attack a large piece of plywood with color!  It is exhilarating spontaneous creativity and it makes me joyous.  It is the kind of joy I remember experiencing as a child playing and not knowing what might happen next.

Fox

As the next challenge I decided topush myself even more and paint another "thing".  I wanted to take full advantage of having an artist as a teacher and learn as much as possible.  I liked this picture because the fox is running.  He looks happy.  The challenge, as always is to paint a "thing".  This also has shadows.  I thought it would be a real challenge and it was!  I proceeded with the value painting but this time I used green and orange.

The first thing I learned was green and orange trick the eyes.  My values were deceiving.  I kept painting and with help I finished the value painting then I made my next mistake.  Struggling with shadows I painted Gangrenous Fox.

As you can see I am doing fair with the value with the green areas.  The shadows on the fox are awful.  With some more help and advice  I painted on...

I made the nose bigger, added some teeth, did some work on the legs and got the shadows working!  I have been looking at Running Fox for nearly a week.  I want a block of time alone that is peaceful to paint uninterrupted.  It hasn't happened yet.

Painting is becoming a passion for me and I am happy when I paint.  It doesn't matter if I am good, or if anyone likes it, this is something I must do for me.  I don't understand how or why my life takes such turns as it has.  I don't understand why I end up where I do but somehow it is all interconnected and at the time I make a decision it always seems right.  24 years ago I left the arts.  I lost the muse.  Just as abruptly she returned.

I think it is no coincidence that the first painting the muse selected was a fox.  The fox is sly and cunning and can get around tricky situations where a direct confrontation would mean disaster with stronger larger animals. 

For example, I was once dog sitting for my brother and his dogs raced up and down a fence row on our walk.  Back and forth they went again and again desperately thrashing through the brush in the same area over and over again until their tongues hung down and they slowed to a lope.  I called and called and they refused to obey.  Suddenly I looked down the road and a grey fox trotted from the ditch onto the gravel road.  The fox turned and looked at me then trotted away. 

I haven't painted in a week.  I had too many other obligations.  I have looked at my fox.  I have dreamed about a fox.  It just seems right in a very new age way.

With a few more layers I hope to have Running Fox finished.  I will present him to you then.  The holidays are coming and I hope to have lots of painting time!