WEEKLY INSPIRATIONS - VII

                     

 60a)  Alice Neel, Eddie Zuckermandel, 1948, Oil on canvas, 87 x 38.4 cm

60b)  Gertrude Abercrombie, Self Portrait, 1953, oil on canvas, 24 x 34 in.

60c)  Will Barnet (May 25, 1911 - November 13, 2012)

61a)  Edward Burra, Windermere, 1973

61b)  Jan Altink, Landschap in Groningen met sloot

 

61c)  Vaszary János, Lake Balaton with Wreathing Clouds, ca 1905

 

62a)  Jean-Pierre Cassigneul. Jardin d’été. 1996.

62b)  Jan Sluijters, Still Life with Flowers Overlooking the Amstelveenseweg, 1925

62c)  Anatoly Nikich, Flowers on the Balcony

63a)  Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, (1865-1953)

 

63b)  Milton Avery, Maternity, oil on canvas, 30 x 25in., 1933

63c)  Karl Hofer, Kinder unter Sonnenblumen, oil on canvas laid down on panel, 39¼ x 29½ in., 1929

 

64a)  Vanessa Bell, Landscape with a Pond and Water Lilies, 1915

64b)  Itō Jakuchū

64c)  Ray Morimura, Lotus Pond, 2007

 

65a)  Peter Doig, Milky Way, 1989-90, Oil on canvas, 60 x 80 in.

65b) Jan Mankes, Moon Light at Woudsterweg, 1914

65c)  Georgia O'Keeffe, The Lawrence Tree, 1923

Elaine O. — June 26, 2021

This is a work in progress of another painting in the Water Lily series. This opening flower intrigues me. The crisp structure inside is different than what I'd expect after seeing  the fully open flower with its soft petals.

Water Lilies VI    9" x 12"

My experimental color? Sennelier Emerald Green. I originally bought a tube as I read that it was developed for and much beloved by the impressionists. I wasn't sharing the love at first. It's an odd, unnatural color and I think this tube may have been left over from the actual impressionist era. The binder and pigment have separated badly, resulting in sticky pools of gum arabic. But I'm finding the color works well as a mixer, so the verdict is still out.

Previously, I did a value sketch, a color study, and a pen and ink sketch, just to get to know this flower.

Her Grace

 The painting is inspired by a photo of my sister who was born with Cerebral Palsy! Inspite of her disability, Grace, has maintained a gracious demeanor  & a can do attitude, thus my given nickname to her, Grace, not her baptismal name. Anyway, this has been a busy week for my family. An out of town nephew, a teacher from Colorado visited us from Monday night to Friday night. Almost no time for Art at all!  I finished only the drawing last night. Before I went to bed, I managed to finish the underpainting on the face. I painted the hair, the background & the face features this morning. I was done @ 11:30 a.m. Happy Painting to All on a Rainy Weekend!

Bird lives

Wanted to show you the first layer of the painting

And here it is at completion

 

Elaine O. — June 19, 2021

I've finished another in the water lilies series! I liked the flat graphic quality and the colors in my reference photo. I'm happy with the result, even if I didn't get that exact effect—the colors are fine, but maybe gouache would have given a flatter look. On the other hand, the underwater world wouldn't have worked as well in gouache. Not to mention that I don't think I have any gouache, so....

 

Water Lilies V        9"x12"

Today's exploration? Lifting vs. masking. I tried to mask some of  the underwater weeds and compare them to others where I painted the weed, painted over them with the color of the water, and then lifted the water to reveal the underwater component. I like the control you get this way—you can lift a little or a lot; you can add more of the undercolor if you've lifted too much; and you don't get hard white "mask" edges. On the other hand, this technique requires an understanding of the staining qualities of all of the paints in use.

The Older I Get, The Younger I Feel

 The absence of tourist spots & landscapes as inspiration due to lack of travel & pandemic lockdowns took me to the challenging field of portrait painting. Practice & more practice are steps to acclimatize an artist to the hills & valleys of the face. Finding the right color,  shade & transparency is the hard part of the fun. No hardship, not fun!My first painting is in honor of my father who passed 20 years ahead of my mom, thus I was close physically to him when both of us were younger! Tatay ( father) was  affectionate,  loved to play the "banduria" & a devoted family man! He valued education & I remember when I graduated with honors in accounting, he took me to the doctor's office, to "show off" that I was so embarrassed I almost disappear! Anyway during my initial attempt to paint him, I painted all the wrinkles & folds of the face which resulted in a solemn unsmiling demeanor. My sister/ critic requested to give him a gentler look so I minimized the aging effects which resulted to a portrait of my Tatay when he was younger, high cheekbones & nosel

! A salute to my " poging" (handsome) Tatay! The second painting is a reworking of my Birthday painting, fixing the eyes, sides of the face & the teeth! 

The Tree Next Door and The Musician

Terrance Kiser of Indoor Creature

I loved this tree but now it’s growing into my territory

 

pigeon done and moving on to a new adventure

 I like it.

This is a heavily photoshopped version of the finch I painted earlier surrounded by stained glass.  I've liked it a lot, but how do I render it in watercolor?

Here are a couple attempts.  In the first one I used a bigger brush than I usually do because I want to cover the whole paper with that kind of netting effect, but it was too large and I got thick globs of sepia which I was not able to overcome.  The second are four attempts to find a suitable rendering.  I like the lower left best.

Candle, Water Bottle, Glass of Water, Vodka with Lemon at The Oyster Bar

Candle, Water Bottle, Glass of Water, Vodka with Lemon at The Oyster Bar 

 

Sara sketches

 I’ve been sketching the garden every morning, trying to imply things like value and shapes with squiggles. Not always successful but I like the energy of the marks.

I tried to translate it  to watercolor —totally unsuccessful! I don’t know how to capture the same energy with brushstrokes mainly becausei put down these broad swaths of paint. I’m thinking the energy comes from more variation in color and values within the great of color…I don’t know…

A couple more sketches from photos…

And here’s the finished Madonna.

First Best Friend

 I painted her portrait in her lifetime & her official response was the usual" does not look like!". This time, when I decided to paint her likeness based on a birthday party in her honor where she was enhanced with make up & upswept hairdo, I felt I got some techniques on hand. It felt like a reunion with her when I was doing the face, it was like putt

ing makeup on her physical face before any main event. I invested a lot of time fixing the hairdo from a helmet type to a more natural curl. I have been lucky to grow up in a household with parents who were also friends. She migrated to Chicago after she became a widow.  She embraced the change with enthusiasm & gratitude! As the daughter of a fisherman & the hometown midwife, she never dreamed that she could travel to our new homeland !She was able to continue her devotion with a daily mass at St.Greg. Shopping at Jewel  & cooking were  enjoyable tasks. She made friends with her senior group, & one time when she got lost at an Independence Day parade, I found her later, happily, at the police station!  My family love solving puzzles. She won some of our Scrabble games by reviewing the dictionary for high value words while her opponents were at the office! The list is endless! To you my beloved, I honor you with a portrait of my love!

White Winged Warrior

 Back in my youth one of the local radio stations ran a comic serial called Chicken Man and called their hero the white winged warrior,   Pigeons are kind of clunky walking around and bobbing their heads, but when they take to their wings they can be an awesome sight.  I got a shot of one taking to flight from my balcony floor.

Not a lot of information from the photo, but I loved the spread of the wing.  I am going to ignore the background in the photo because it was hard to make out and not important, I think I will just have a granulated blue sky.

a penny for your thoughs

 Should have been thoughts.  I thought there would be some outliers in the poll, but everybody, including me, seemed pretty much in agreement most everybody ranked 1, 4, and 8 tops among the birds, with 7 being the most disliked.  Among the fish it was more varied with 7 and 8 being the most disliked.  Thank you all for your time.  I am thinking of calling it Fish and Chirps, whaddaya think?

Fish and Chirps

Madonna of the Driveway

 I don’t know if she’s done, but I have to stop fiddling and look at it for a while. It’s gouache on hot press, 8 x 12.

Elaine O. — June 5, 2021

I've finished the latest of the Water Lilies. I find the colors very relaxing and summery, but I'm not sure it's exactly got the lazy feel I was going for. Still, I like a lot of things about it... and it's finished! Oh, I forgot to mention the color I was focused on. I pulled three old, grungy tubes of yellow green (under various names). In the end, I had to tweak all of them and found I preferred the colors I mixed myself. Seem there's a reason they were languishing in the "old, dried-up and grungy" section; I don't think I'll be re-buying them as convenience colors.

Water Lilies IV        9" x 12"

I also did some value and color  studies and began to sketch my next in the series.

I really like the feel of this color trio—yellow, green and blue. See you next week.

Farewell My Lady

 The Lady who has helped me do house maintenance for past 10 years plus snow jobs among other things just told me that she & her husband handyman plan to move back to their hometown anytime soon. We have bonded over the years, thus in my grief over the sad news, I was inspired to paint her. The art work has several challenges. In the underpainting, there was more Alizarin Crimson than the Gamboge. Older women in their fifties have skin folds on the side of their faces and necks & I feel that I was not able to articulate the shades enough. The Lady has curly salt & pepper hair. She has a strong personality, is  trusted & true! I felt I have captured the essence of smile in her eyes &  lips and I stopped! My family will miss her family! I also enclosed a photo of the beginning underpainting per Ken's request! Happy Painting to All!

finch finished

 Put some foliage behind him. Thought about it for three or four days, and then it took less than a couple hours to put in.

Alan’s big maple

 This is the pic that I liked so much after Waterlogue.

I had ideas for a Yupo painting. The big maple in fall. 

Then I wanted to see it in spring. 

Now I’m doing a winter version. More work needed to bring out the ice and snow. Not going to be easy. 

I loved what Yupo does. Summer’s next.