Saturday, October 20, 2007 - Ink on Phone Book

Myrna Wacknov (see my sidebar for her blogspot) had a challenge to paint/sketch with ink on old phone book pages. I tried it and it was fun.

I put several together into a little interactive vignette when I finished them (did about a dozen but some were just blobs of ink when I finished). I used the business section of the yellow pages - it might be interesting to carry this out further and, using the businesses listed (bakery, library, etc), create a sketch around that subject?

This first one - a possible self-portrait?

I think this one on the left is going to be wrapped in cellophane and given out as Halloween candy.

And this one on the right - just 3 models for art class who have no body image issues.

And this guy? He's a body builder at the gym!

And now almost time for my open figure drawing session on this lovely fall day.

Friday, October 19, 2007 - Marion's Birthday, Finished Cactus & Started Another Bloody Castle

Today is the 82nd birthday of one of my painting buddies in watercolor class, Marion. She is 82 years young and I mean it! Here's a photo of her busy painting and ignoring me :) Happy Birthday, Marion! I finished the cactus painting for the group project. There were several lovely paintings. I like their versions better than mine - but that's the way it always is!

And I started another small castle painting - I just was not happy with the other one. Maybe this one will look better to me...

Thursday, October 18, 2007 - What Do You Think?

What do you think about artists who have a blog and list their own sites as favorites or something like that? I have run into this more and more the farther out I got in the blogosphere. Seems pretty egotistical to me but maybe you have to get people to your blog and then to your site and then to your eBay store and then...you get the picture!

I reworked the water/shadow reflections in the Beaumaris Castle painting. I think it looks better now but I still should do it over to fix that dark shadow on the castle itself...but I'm feeling lazy today and probably won't (landscapes so are NOT my thing!)

Wednesday, October 17, 1007 - Gina's Cactus (WatercolorWorkshop October Project)

A group project from WatercolorWorkshop is to paint these cactus flowers. There have been some great renderings already but I wanted to try my hand at these, too. The photo is great - taken and shared by Gina Hall. Gina does fantastic animal portraits and also paints sculptured horses - check out her blog at: http://ginahallstudios.blogspot.com/
to see some of her great work.
So now all I have to do is do this beautiful photo justice with my watercolor painting :) Here's what I have to start. I need more greens on the cactus flats (whatever you call those) and darken the background in the left and maybe it will be done. Don't want to do much else to the flowers or they'll be overworked but the greens need more work.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 - Class Work + Dragonfly Again

We had watercolor class on Monday morning instead of Tuesday morning - and did landscapes. I took a 5 x 7 photo from Jerry's trip to the UK - this is Beaumaris Castle in Wales - and did that one. I'm not good at landscapes. I don't do greens well. But I tried...
And I worked a bit more on Jerry's dragonfly so you can see the body position and shape better and took the background back to a paler color so you can see the dragonfly. I think this works better.

Now have lots of jobs to do around the house and errands to run today...so catch you tomorrow!

Monday, October 15, 2007 - Cassie's Red Hat Again

I wanted to try something different with this portrait when I got "stuck" at the previous stage... So here's what I did...I went into my photo program and worked with the background to see how to make it more interesting and stronger...


Then I took that printout with me to the art room and tried to get it to look that way in the painting. Unfortunately, I overworked it too much. So I thought about the demo and talk Judy Anderson gave to our watercolor society about saving our "dogs" and got out some ink and thought about where I could pump up the volume.

I came up with this:

Sunday, October 14, 2007 - Sandy Maudlin Blog + Jerry's Dragonfly

My watercolor teacher, Sandy Maudlin, has finally broken down and joined the blogging revolution! Check out her work at http://sandymaudlin.blogspot.com.

I have been going to class with Sandy for 4 years and am still learning all the time from her - I guess I'll keep going until I know it all :) ha-ha

Jerry says the dragonfly needs more definition at the head - that it isn't showing up well in the position off to the left. Maybe I should have painted it straight on in between the wings but that's not how it was in the photo and I thought I could pull it off. Hmmm..

Saturday, October 13, 2007 - Open Figure Session

I haven't taken the time to work more on the dragonfly or the portrait but here's what I did in my open figure session this morning. The 1st one is in graphite pencil and took about 1 hour. The 2nd one was started in pale yellow pastel pencil, then I reworked the shadowed areas in orange and a touch of brown. (This is how Jason Franz said to try to get the modeling of the body better. He said putting down the yellow first keeps that area light - you can't go dark using yellow but you can then put in the darks with other colors.)

I actually spent more time measuring and comparing on the 1st one (which looks okay but not quite right) than I did in the 2nd one which seemed to flow more naturally. Could be because it was the second hour, could be that drawing with the pale yellow lightens my marks more so less erasing and changing.

And I don't know who James H. Boren is (will have to google him) but I love this quote:

"When in doubt, mumble;

when in trouble, delegate;

when in charge, ponder." James H. Boren

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - Portrait Start Tuesday Morning

I went to class Tuesday morning with my portrait sketched out on the wc paper and a value study but didn't remember to take the photo so I had to wing it and couldn't finish it there. So worked on it more Wednesday. This is Janet Rogers' granddaughter, Cassie (she was our model in a Janet Rogers workshop I attended last year). Using the photo at home, I darkened and refined the painting.

It is very very hard for me to go in with pale layers over pale layers like many people paint - I really want to get in with darker colors right away and this is where I make a mess at times. I need to watch my Janet Rogers DVD again to get the pointers again.

Here's where I am right now...the misket is still on for the whites so I don't lose them.

Monday, October 8, 2007 - Jerry's Dragonfly Stage 2

No masking/misketing because it's on gesso and I can lift back to white. Did the limb and the background first. I will leave them more muted and really push the colors on the dragonfly - or make it very detailed - well, that's my thinking right now.

Sunday, October 7, 2007 - Figure Drawing x 2

Here are the 2 figure drawings I did Saturday morning. In the first, I made her neck as long as a giraffe (well, almost) and had to rework it at home - then added some color later.

I MUST learn to measure and measure and measure again...

We did just a few gesture drawings to warm up this time and the class is small and has a nice feeling to it even though I only knew 1 other person (who also came over from the Tuesday night session).

Saturday, October 6, 2007 - Another Dragonfly

I decided not to redo the 2nd portrait on gesso. I did regesso the paper and smooth it with a roller. Then decided to use a dragonfly photo Jerry took and do another painting with the gessoed paper. This is the tracing paper sketch (I have to transfer it to the wc paper) and the original photo (sorry but my photo of the 2 is a bit blurry, I see).

Also, we started another 10-week session of the Open Figure Drawing through Manifest Gallery early this morning (10a - 12p). I switched from Tuesday nights to Saturday mornings. I think I'll be less tired and will enjoy going over during the daylight hours, too. It's a small group - about 7 or 8 of us - so join us if you want to work from live models (which really trains your eye to see shapes in the human figure).

Don't forget, if you're in the Greater Cincinnati area, to go over to the Second Look Saturday open house at Essex Studios - our open figure drawings are there, too. Stop by sometime between 6:00 and 11:00 this evening to see some great work on the walls!

Friday, October 5, 2007 - Three More

Reworked the portrait of Mr. Forbes - softened his mouth, worked on the light around his left eye and worked on the moustache a bit more. Done.

Reworked Susan's Dragonfly painting, too, darkening here and there to bring out some details. Done.

Also, in the mood to experiment and play after the Judy Anderson demo and talk Wednesday, I got out my white gouache, tinted it with colors along the way, added that to a true "dog" of a painting because it's bad bad bad - lost all the lights - and it's dogwood! ha! So with some gouache, some more watercolor paint, some blue ink (only color besides black I had), redid this thing. Now, it's not a good painting by any means but I think I learned how to bring back some things in a painting - of course it's not watercolor anymore but mixed media - but I played with the design a bit and the materials (haven't worked with gouache much but Judy Anderson says she uses it all the time, mixing an off-white with her watercolors - plus she has lots of inks in various colors). I like the bars of ink like a fence but I don't like how I aped the angle of the one bar with the flower stem :( Judy says put tracing paper over your "dog" (what she calls an unsuccessful painting) and work out the changes on the tracing paper before going in with paint but, of course, I didn't do that or I would have seen that stem was not right and there is an X of the stems crossing, too. Oh, well, like I said, it was a play time thing.

Thursday, October 4, 2007 - Wire Sculpture Challenge

Myrna Wacknov has issued a challenge on her blog (see my side panel for her painting site and her blog site) to draw like you are making a wire sculpture. This type of drawing is actually contour drawing and I'm familiar with it. Myrna gave us a photo to use that was perfect for this.

Here's mine and I she will upload it onto her blog, too.

She now has a challenge to paint like your favorite painter(s) and has done some self-portraits a la Van Gogh that are great! Go over and take a look :)

You don't have to do self-portraits but just a subject and style of your favorite painter or painters. Hmmm....O'Keeffe, Sargeant, Modigliani, Winslow, Van Gogh...so many to choose from!

I'll be painting later today - have some errands today that will mean I can't work on the portrait again until I re-gesso it and get rid of the dragonfly on the face more = putting another gesso layer on and then smoothing it with a roller will take care of that.

Wednesday, September 3, 2007 - Scrubbed Off Portrait

Put it under the tap in the tub and scrubbed it a bit with my hand - and this is what I have left. Now, one problem is that the dragonfly is right on the nose area of the face and it distracting and hard to work around. So maybe I need to rethink the position of this or maybe do something different with it.

After seeing Judy Anderson demo and talk at our Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society meeting today, I'm in the mood to try new things. She uses watercolor paints, gouache, waterproof inks, gel medium and matte medium on her paintings and even gessoes on tempered masonite and paints on that! Suggestions always welcome - what should I do with this one? Another portrait try or something different?

Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - In Class Portraits on Gesso

Today in class we took our gessoed paper, drew our portrait, and got to work. Many of the students watched Sandy do her demo of a mountain man from Friendship, Indiana, and then did their own version of the same man. I painted Mr. Forbes. Mr. Forbes is 72 (?) and still is the main groundskeeper at the Gerace Field Station in San Salvador, Bahamas. He is still going strong, mowing and weeding and tending the place and keeping everything looking good. It needs a bit of tweaking (the mouth seems too hard-lined and needs to be softened a bit and the bit of beard and moustache mixed with grey could be worked on a bit more) but it's almost there and it does look like him.
Because Mr. Forbes is an island man, I stamped sea turtles in the gesso before I started painting. You may be able to see them in the photo but may not - they are small all around him in the blue and on his tee shirt.



Then, because I finished with this one quickly, I started another from a photo given to me by a classmate - from a copyright free photo site. I am not happy with this so I will show you how you can work with gesso when you don't like it --- here is the painting ---

Now watch when you wash it all off under the sink to start over --- (tease) --- you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that!

Saturday, September 29, 2007 - Susan's Dragonfly 2

I was getting too impatient with the little details on the dragonfly painting so stopped. It needs more highlights on the wings and more detail on the veins before it can be called done. But this is what I have now.

Friday, September 28, 2007 - End of September Already?

Well, today just got away from me. I don't know where it went. I did get a haircut/color, and I bought a new, larger purse, but that didn't take the whole day. So no excuse for neither painting nor sketching today. My new bag is large enough to carry some drawing tools and my small sketchbook, though, so I'm all set!

How about some photos from Jerry's Great Britain trip? The town is a little railroad station village for the tourists and it gets the tourists because it's the village with the longest name in Britain. Can you say "Clan Fair Pee Gee?" That's all you have to say to sound like a Welsh native.

Although I've nothing to share in the way of paintings or drawings, take a look at the sidebar and see the 3 new artist sites I've added: Check out Myrna Wacknov's work in her painting site and her new blog and look at the Robert Genn newsletter site (so much great info there).

I'll get busy tomorrow and finish that dragonfly, I promise!

Thursday, September 27, 2007 - Profile Sketch

Did this sketch from Michael R. Britton's online lessons at http://www.artacademy.com. I recommend these online (free) lessons to get you started at seeing and drawing the portrait. Each month, he emails you another one - I am very far behind, since this is September 06, but I am working through each one and not skipping any - some take longer to finish and give me more problems. It is not easy to get a correct likeness and I don't think I accomplished it here but I'm still trying (the upper lip still juts out too much but I'm not getting the jutting look to his whole "muzzle" area right and I keep fiddling so extra eyes will help).
His photo and lesson is to show how to sketch the profile. I started this last night and finished it this morning, seeing more things to work on and the nose really gave me fits. Well, first the nose, then the mouth, then the upper lip, then the eyes... :)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - Changes, DairyAires + Dragonfly for Susan

Sorry, but I just didn't like the new template very much so returned to the old one. It just seems cleaner to me and easier to read.

And I took some advice given by Sue Cole at WatercolorWorkshop and grounded my cattle and lifted a few lights from the yellow. Done, and thanks Sue and all those at WcW who commented and to Sandy and Kathy in watercolor class Tuesday for their comments!

Also, I got a photo a while back from my friend, Susan M. in BC. It is a gorgeous photo and I thought I might try my hand at painting and trying to get those delicate wing structures. Below you'll see the painting with Susan's photo and then a larger version of the painting so show you where I am = a lot of misketing out shapes in those wings and this isn't done by any means but it's getting closer. I hope to visit Susan sometime in 2008 but for now we are just exchanging emails and photos when we take them. This is from Susan's garden.

Monday, September 24, 2007 - Speaking Honestly

Speaking Honestly


Satya, or truth, is one of the yamas Patanjali refers to in the ancient yogic text, the Yoga Sutra. But telling the truth may not be as easy as it sounds. So what does telling the truth mean? To some yogis it means speaking with the intention of being truthful, given that what we call the "truth" is filtered through individual experiences and beliefs about the world. But when we speak with that intention, I have a better chance of not harming others.


Another aspect of satya has to do with inner truth or integrity, a deeper and more internal practice. Honesty is what we do when others are around and might judge our actions or words, but to have integrity is to act in an honest manner when others are not around and will never know about our actions.


In Sanskrit, sat means the eternal, unchanging truth beyond all knowing; ya is the activating suffix which means "do it." So satya means "actively expressing and being in harmony with the ultimate truth." In this state we cannot lie or act untruthful, because we are unified with pure truth itself.



From http://www.everydayhealth.com (under the yoga section).

Sunday, September 23, 2007 - Autumnal Equinox + Cow Butts

It's the first day of autumn, officially - why is it still so hot???

And speaking of hot, here is a painting I have tried about 5 times and never gotten it right - I call it Dairy Airs (pun intended) but they don't look like dairy cattle so maybe that's a bad title. My working title is just Cow Butts which is what the photographer (see the photo below) called it.

This is on tygerag paper, a tyvek plastic paper that I'd never used before. I put watercolor pencil on the back of the photo and then traced the objects, putting down the yellow-orange pencil I thought would lift off - but it didn't. So...guess I'll just use graphite next time. So with the lines there it gives it a very graphic quality and I'm not sure I like it but...well, this is the 6th time I've tried to paint this photo.

The photo caught my eye a few year ago. It's from a WetCanvas member called K9 Artist(real name is Dana Lee Thompson and check out her site for some great animal portraits she's done: http://www.danaleethompson.com/

I've used one of her photos before - the dark clouds over the farmland one - she takes great pics and shares them in the IRL at WetCanvas (copyright free but it's nice to give credit to the photographer).

Friday, September 21, 2007 - Wind Chimes Finished

I think the wind chimes are finished.

I think this week was a hard week but my sister, the computer wizardess, came over tonight and restored all the emails and addresses we had lost - didn't believe that could happen. It took her 3 hours but she did it - for nothing but a cup of coffee and some Biscoff cookies (she's family and you're allowed to use family!).

Thursday, September 20, 2007 - Wind Chimes

Back to the wind chimes and getting back to normal, I think.

Next step to put the color on the chimes...

And then I'll add more darks to the greens and more greens into the blues to make them look more like glass with the greens showing through. That's my plan, anyway...

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - Computer Meltdown!

I tried to print out some pics from Jerry's trip Tuesday morning. Apparently, I asked the computer to do too many things at once and it froze up completely. So, couldn't get out of anything and kept getting the fun error that I could send a report to Microsoft that my computer was frozen. Finally, I just hit the power bar. When it came back on - well, it didn't except for another great message from Microsoft telling me it was sorry but....

After 6+ hours with help from a wonderful tech named Amanda at Gateway, I finally got something that looked like what I had before. And still needed to install all my programs, including printer/scanner and programs for wordprocessing and spreadsheets and then had to work with my ISP and get that all back online and ready to go.

The worst fear was - Jerry had downloaded all 700+ photos onto the computer the night before. And had then reformatted his compact flash card for the camera. So if those photos were gone - they were long long gone. Fortunately, we got them back!

But no painting, no drawing, no watercolor class and no figure session yesterday. And chewed all my fingernails off today as a residual stress factor, I guess :(

So...will share tomorrow what I got painted a bit today but I'm feeling a bit unfriendly like this little crab who just wants to stay in its stressfree shell...

so see you tomorrow -------------------------

Monday, September 17, 2007

I intended to work on the wind chimes today but instead went to the allergist and had injections for allergy testing - too many to count!! OUCH! It's something I've had to do for years so I knew what was coming but still a bit painful. And then just came home and pampered myself, reading and spending time looking at all the photos my husband took on his recent trip to Wales, Scotland and England. So just so you have something to look at...here's a great photo of Three Kilted Lads in Scotland. I think this was in Edinburgh (apparently Subways are all over the UK now as are Starbucks - when I was there in the late 80's I was shocked to see Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's).

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - Listen

"All beings cry out ... Listen
All mistakes point the Way ... Listen
Everything is Truth ... Listen
Put aside self interest and help others." --- Zen Master Dae Gak


Are you listening? Do you hear the songs of the birds outside your window in the early morning as a gift or as a nuisance? Are you listening?

Do you choose to hear the truth or believe anything that is being said? Are you listening? Listening is an active art. It takes practice. It takes time. It takes effort to do it well. Let's all listen carefully today and filter out what is harmful or untruthful.

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you walk in beauty with the sun shining warmly upon your shoulders and the breeze gently caressing your face. May you put aside yourself and...Listen.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - Sketch + Cincinnati Galleries In The Artist's Magazine

I did this small sketch the other evening - the eyes aren't right but I've worked the paper too much to keep erasing and trying again. Oh, well, practice practice practice is the key...I did this a few days ago and forgot about it because it's just not a good likeness (the original photo is from the Michael R. Britton online lessons at http://www.artacademy.com/

for August 2006. No, I am not that far behind, I just seem to have skipped around with the dates somehow. This tutotial was to break symbolic preconceptions in portrait drawing by using a photograph and working with the sketch while the photo was upside down so you couldn't see "the nose," "the mouth," "the eyes," etc. Well, I started that way and had a heck of a time - could not get the shape of the face right. And as you can see, I made him more attractive than he is in the photo - the upper part of the face isn't wide enough, I've made his beard and bottom lip fuller plus the eyes - the eyes just aren't right. Now, if I didn't show you the photo, you'd never know, but then it wouldn't be honest, would it? I won't ever be someone commissioned for portraits (I would hate doing that) but one needs to get the person close to looking like them! I think I've made my sketch man more attractive than the photo reference but I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate that - or would he?

We're almost finished with the "summer" session of the figure drawing sessions hosted by Manifest Gallery (http://www.manifestgallery.org/ and I'm looking forward to fall weather and the start of another session in October. I just received my October 2007 issue of The Artist's Magazine and see that Manifest Gallery has another good write-up, along along with The Fifth Street Gallery (5th and Race Streets gallery hosting the Pendleton Art Studio artists) and Dicere Gallery (http://www.diceregallery.com/).

"One's individual behavior can contribute to the making of a happier family and community." --- H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama