Sptember ,28, 2010

The still life is complete and we have learned how to place highlights on objects in our paintings. No white, but white  yellow or ochre. To make a glowing reflection.We havelearned how not place brught objects near the edge of a composition, and it was a wonderful journey. I feel I have learned so much in seven I wonder what the next nine will bring.

Getting to the End

I will be sad when my first oil is done. But have learned a lot. Number one white will dull not brighten. To darken or grey a hue use its opposite. Also start with the darks and then add light. The darks are  thinner layers and the lights are a thicker layer.
I am starting to ask myself the question? Will they believe? I want them to believe. Margee is always saying you have to make me believe it. It has gone from will she believe it to will they believe. it.

Life is as good as the last painting session

The self-portrait was so much fun I felt obcsurely guilty.













The still life is still progressing we worked on our box and mug and drapery. The drapery was fun in that we could make it more or less detailed. Alizarin and orange and  blue made a lovely highlight. The background was darkened with the original color of dark blue and alizarin and orange.. The box was siena, chre with touch of cerulean  blue and white. The mug we used the two blues and a touch of orange and then we worked on the cup rim. It really is starting to looking 'finished'. Someone once said that 'a painting is never finished' if only that were true.... I always fell a little sad when I finish a painting because I will never do that painting a gain.

September 16, 2010 Part II

I almost forgot about my little man in the oil we are working on. He was so lonely we started giving him a little tone and definition. We used cad orange and yellow and ochre with  a hint of cerulean blue. In my painting he looks a little like C-3PO.  He looks much happier than he did

Who knew? September 16, 2010

Ah the joys of acrylic. It dries fast, stays where I put it and it smells good. But... oil is more of a challenge  someday  I hope to love them both just the same.Last Tuesday we went to the computer pit and using photoshop we manipulated the image Margee took of each of us and got a minimalist version of our picture. It was fun paying with the colors and effects in cutout and artistic.
Today we took the printed copy of that picture and made a measuring tool to accurately draw  the picture onto the  5x5 canvas. Taking a square sticky note we measured one eye from the inside corner and made a small mark on the paper and labeled it 'photo'. The next thing was to measure off the photo from top to chin and decide how many eye lengths the face had.  On the photo using a pen for better visibility we 'ticked off the lengths down the face'. We counted the ticks and then decided how big the measure could be for the canvas. We marked that on the paper and labeled that 'canvas'. Using that measure we 'ticked down the length of the canvas'.  Now for the fun part. Taking a piece of charcoal (or pencil if you have a very light hand) draw the image using the tick marks as a scale guide.  The real trick is to not name what you are drawing. You draw the SHAPES not the the eye, nose, or so forth. Drawing the little shapes and relating them to the other shapes one gets into this space in your mind and time slows and there is only the line and shape. Once you have drawn all the little shapes and lines, then comes the applying of paint. In my case it is yellow, red and black. I didn't get to the yellow yet but I got most of the red and black ( see photo). The serene satisfaction I felt after class almost makes up for having to do word problems.....

Day VIII

Working on the canister was frustrating. Sometimes there is an element one is just not happy with and this canister is it. But Margee assures me there are remedies.
Worked with shadows and on the canister and i did a bit more on my paint tube. Taking funny pictures was fun and can't wait to see what we will do on photo shop.

Day VII The Vase

The day came when we were onto the vase and the tube/tubes in the foreground.
The vase was a slippery thing to catch and I finally achieved partial success. The painting of wet on wet is harder than in acrylic because the oil stays wet and slides around. Acrylic tends to in the main stay where I put it.
To create the middle shadows of the thing we used cad-orange, cerulean blue and white. makes a soft gentle grey blue that is very pretty.
To darken this we added a ultramarine blue and this went in the left shadow(see picture at left).

the tube shadows got alizarin and cad orange a nd touch of light blue. White, but not a lot. Have to remember that white will dull not brighten. Then we used pure cad-orange and white to bring up a suggestion of details in the tube.

Progress from Day SIx

I am going to have to practice a lot to get these picutures in the right place each time! It is fun, never sure if it is computer error or operator error.

Day VI My books are coming along!

Wow. I love painting books. I never really liked still life pieces before but now I have a new appreciation for them.  The thing is there is something fascinating about capturing the light and shadows of a piece. To learn that red is greyed by green  and that the darkest color is helped by the brightest not necessarily the lightest color.  It is all very exciting.
Today we worked n our book part of the still life and toward the very end we worked on the paint brushes. It was a productive day all in all. Things are starting to read 'true' now. I learned that stepping back from the piece and looking is a invaluable tool. Not to keep working and working until the 'forest for the tress' syndrome kicks in and the focus and aim of a piece is lost sight of. One of my favorite quotes is this,
' a painting is never really finished-it merely stops in interesting places'-- Paul Gardner.