Emmet’s Birthday Card

 Had to get this in the mail. He does not, in real life, have a lot of hair on his neck or coming up from his chest. Lesson:  lots of little brush strokes make a shadow look like hair🙄. He has always loved microphones. 

Alan Harbor House

 One more pear.  These are fun.

We stayed at this place on the Gulf Coast.  I tried painting it before but it got too busy. Fun too.still have some choices to make  

The alley and a sleeping cat.,

 I'm calling it done.  But you know maybe I could...  No No No, it is done.

A drawing I made at the Ten Cat, and a couple studies I did in class.

And I put down some paint this morning.  That is a sketch for some of the windows in the upper right.  Maybe I will make them delicate like that to contrast with the savage beast who is my roommate.

Stealing from the Masters…

 Here’s two studies of two Fairfield Porter paintings.I really admire his ability to paint representational In an abstract way.  Painting these is helping me learn to see shapes instead of objects, a quest I started to understand when I started doing the integrity drawings…

Elaine O. — March 26, 2022

The masking fluid is off...and I'm ambivalent about the result. It feels very pop art, doesn't it? I'm trying to decide what went wrong—not enough masking, masking the wrong lines... or if it's simply too distracting a technique for portraits.

9" x 12"

So I decided to try again. This is the beginning of another portrait that looks like it might work both as a traditional portrait and as a pop art painting. I'll have a better basis for a decision when this is finished and "un-masked."

9" x 12"

I've also been playing in my sketchbook and think I've found subject matter that would work well. That's up next! And that should be the last of my masking fluid. So I'll have to decide if I'm having enough fun to buy another jar... or if I should just break off my relationship with masking fluid.

Copying John Singer Sargent, another Garden Vignette, and Continuing Color Studiea

 Think I’ll go back for one more take on the darks. 

Right out of the gate the birdbath stand was wrong, but I persisted, then went back and rubbed out what I could. 

Blue/orange glazes. Then a wash of Quin Gold

Yellow/purple Wash Quin Gold

Red/green (Perm Rose/Sap and Perylene) wash of Opera then more Sap. 

Harmonious yellows golds. From Lemon to Burnt Umber. Wash with Quin Gold. 

Experiment with glazes. Each layer dries before the next painted over. Saving the lights but not the whites. To be continued.  Maybe. 

Practice, practice, practice…

 I guess I’m trying to get to Carnegie Hall…I’m tired of my elaborate process of drawing on tracing paper and transferring it to wc paper, so I’ve just been sketching on wc paper and painting it. Most of these are from photos, but the orchids are from life.

I did the closeup of Ben kayaking in class yesterday, the other ones at home.I’m still looking for that sweet spot between overworked and impromptu. But I’m beginning to think it has less to do with drawing and more to do with paint handling. But I don’t even know what I mean by that….back to practicing my scales….

Still in the alley

 This started out wellm but is looking drab right now.  Time for desperate measures

Elaine O. — March 19, 2022

Still working on the masking-as-outline technique, this time with portraits. This just needs a few more tweaks before pulling the mask for the big reveal. I'll admit that I'm not sure how well this will work for a portrait. But you never know until you try—so come back next week and we'll see how it turns out.

9" x 12"

Alan’s not as busy as it looks

 Still working on my Mississippi front yard.  I did a couple of darker washes after I darkened the sky. I refreshed the azaleas and darkened the bottom of the leaf groups. 

I did a series of tonal studies using colors and washes to bring different feelings to the same structure. They’re all quick watercolor sketches on 3 X 5 

Then I bought a pear to eat but it was so pretty that I had to paint some versions of it.  I made a value drawing of it and tried complimentary colors and washes  with several small watercolors.

Then I ate the pear. 

Another dog portrait commIssion (pro bono) and a color exercise.

 

This is 6 month old Achilles. I could have used Ken’s help with the eyes. 

cats eye done and alley one

 Did a little work on the eye, just sloshed around some very wet paint almost randomly and stopped when it looked pretty good at the moment.  Sometimes I think you have this very important part of a painting and so it needs to be really worked over, but sometimes its best to just get it good enough and then perk up the background to give it a contrast to make it pop.  Anyway that is what I am thinking this morning,

I

Here is something new, no drawing on the paper, not much attention to the grid, just slapping down the indigo and sepia and hoping somehow the alley will appear.  So far it's fun.

Drawing with Integrity…

This is a drawing from last week’s class. Pat taught me how to draw with integrity. I have trouble when I draw from life getting the proportions right. The secret is to take one thing and draw everything else in relation to that one thing. In this case, the one thing is the vase. It’s hard; you can only use one eye and you have to do the pencil thing. But it works. Previously I was measuring things in relation to each other as I drew them (ie, building to vase, windows to building, foreground to windows, etc.) It makes a big difference…

 

I spend half my posting time trying  to enlarge photos. That little button just doesn’t respond to my touch. This is done or close to it. Not crazy about the vast expanse of yellow or his face….I might try this again on better paper. Not sure I like the composition either…Maybe that tree should come down closer to the figure….or maybe the shadow should be higher up. Background looks kind of unfinished….hmmm…Not sure how integrity figures into the drawing since  I deliberately made him bigger…altho I thought I kept things in proportion….

 

 

Finishing things up

 I’ve gone back to some older work that I never considered finished and did some more work on them.

I’m still working on Wyatt by going back to the original photo and seeing what I’ve missed. 

I put an opera wash over the lily to make it brighter. Maybe I will do another. 

I changed some of the fruit and took out those shadows in my market basket. 

I did another value drawing of my Mississippi front yard and then painted a version on hot press. 

Not done yet but I can’t figure out what to do next. 

Elaine O.—March 12, 2022

Another painting with white outlines. Something about the uncontrolled masking fluid lines calls for the paint to be the same, with loose, casual brushwork. While this feels more like illustration than painting, I'm having so much fun that it may end up as a series. I'm thinking the technique might work well for architecture or a cityscape.

9" x 12"

The painting above was all done with one dagger brush. It's now officially part of my brush family.  I've finished my 30-day challenge (final sketch below) and really like the way the brush behaves. It occurs to me that a return to normalcy means re-learning how to paint mouths and noses, so maybe a new 30-day challenge is in the works. 

 

Brotherly Love…l

 Working on a study of my older brother from this tiny snapshot. He died last fall and his children just held a virtual memorial for him this past Saturday. This is one of my favorite photos of him, at Yellowstone NP; he was about 15, I was 8 and I think I took this photo.

First study, done in class last week. A little cartoonish, not too crazy about all the background.then I decided to go big.

I think the paper is about 12 x 18. I like it so far I just have to stop messing with the head. Here are some studies I did of the head.