Charcoal

Charcoal is a layering and push and pull just like any other medium. I began this in class but got bogged down and had to finish it at home. The highlights are quite developed and there is a sense of rest that I like. Charcoal is a soft medium both in actuality and in feel. There is a warmth to charcoal that is soft and makes one want to know more about the subject.

Samhain

This is a shivery sort of piece. I continued with the layering in of color and tried to keep a sense of 'Harry Potter' brightness about it. The Raven is pulled from a painting  I have done and I made him 'real'. My background is a bit muddy yet but hope to solve that problem on Teusday. My hat is as I see it all satin and elegant. The darks are alizarin and french ultramarine and the lighter tone is alizarin with cad orange and touch of french ultramarine and white.  Just a touch of white to lighten. To give one more layer I used cad orange and alizarin and a touch of cad red hue. with a tiny bit of white. I sort of drug that here and there. The candle strick is a bit of this and that layered and blocked with the flat of the brush to give a sense of reflection. most likely I will go back and knock down the brightness of the bottom book and shade the pages a bit more.

This is going to be a fun painting. It is that time of year with the swirl of fall and the hint of the otherworld in the air.  This a is time for remembering our year of work and challenges and for remembering our loved ones. So I assembled the elements from things I had at home. The hat was given me by my son who always thought his mom a bit magical. The books are favorites that  were bought from a small shop in Virginia called the Daedelus. The drape, a piece of crazy quilting I had started from remnants of kids clothes, and the candlestick part of a set given me by my favorite aunt. And the Raven, my own work from a photo taken on the best trip I had ever taken with my husband which is saying something because they are always great. The underpainting I an developing completely as possible since I want this to be a slowly built layered construct. Kathryn thinks it is a shame we coverour lovely warm siena underpaintings and I agree!

The second day of Bison painting

I think this is at the yucky stage. The magic hasn't happened yet but it will.

"And the Raven greets the Morning"

When you know you have done good work there is not other feeling like it in the world. I finished the Raven painting and I was satisfied. We tried a lignin treatment but that was a non issue. SO I began again and worked the old fasshioned way a step at a time. The post the bird was sitting on was a gnarly thing with lots of whorls and broken light. Trying to be as painterly as possible I brushed ochres and cad red and siena with touches of blue. The raven needed only a few more violets and blues to be complete and the grass was a matter of push and pull until the right feeling had been accomplished.

The raven as I have said in an earlier blog is a clever beautiful bird. The American Raven is really large and one is always surprised to see how large they actually are.  The native Americans have stories about Raven hw he taught his brothers how to hunt so they could feed themselves and thier families. He also is found in some of Charles deLint's books, a fantasy writer. The Raven in the old stories is always shown as wise and clever....

Bsion and Birds

Painting portraits of animals I have seen is rewarding in a unique way. The memory works by stimulus as we all know. As I begin to paint something I have seen, it takes me back to that moment and the moments after. In taking the picture of the raven, it was early morning and he seemed to pose for that perfect shot. Perfectly still it was as if he were saying, "yes I am a pretty bird now take the picture!" I didn't use black, I used a mixture of cerulean blue, alizarin crimson and ultramarine with a smudge of cad orange. then added a tiny tiny touch of white.

The bison underpainting is where I finally got the hang of relative proportion you find one thing in a scene and measure all else to that one thing. Example: take one Bison and measure all other Bison against it. For that moment he is Every Bison.

Not only am I taking Painting II, but also Figure Drawing I.This is the second drawing I have turned in to receive a grade. The hardest thing has been adjusting to the size of the paper. Too, standing for three hours is not something I do well. I am learning alot from the teacher Mr. Dewayne Pass. He breaks things down to thier simplest form,  answering questions clearly. Anatomy can really give insight to what one sees when looking at a figure. If one knows what is going on underneath there can be greater depth and character to a drawing.

Some paintings

Some paintings flow from one's brush others work to make one humble. This painting has made me a humbler artist.  Tiny incremental steps to achieving the 'make them believe status'. Clouds are beautiful and tricky but the rewards are worth it. Discovering the the lovely warmth of cerulean blue based greys make it a treat too.

The raven

The raven is a canny clever bird. he is beautiful with black feathers that give a blue sheen in the sun. I began this painting with a siena wash and blocked in the raven and where I wanted the grassy shadows to go. Viridian and alizarin and blue made the shadows warmly intense.  I merely sketched in the raven with Fr.Ultramarine and a touch of cerulean and orange. I fell in love with ravens many years ago on a trip to Wyoming at Yellowstone. A park ranger there told us a story of two ravens who helped themselves to someone else's lunch. A motorcycle left unattended with flip top saddlebags aroused the curiosity of two ravens in the park. They opened the saddlebags and found baggged sandwiches. Working together these two bandits took turns carying off one of the sandwiches and when they deemed they had gone far enough they broke open the baggie and had lunch. I have loved ravens ever since.

Here is the beginning study of clouds. A wash of siena and the house and foliage with the clouds above give that feeling of limitless space I only feel in Texas.

The next step cleared up some mysteries for me. We firmed up our compostions and then with viridian and blue and touch of yellow and orange the greenery became green. Alizarin warmed up the shadows and our skies were warm with cerulean blue and cad orange and white. The clouds became clouds as then the paint was pulled and pushed into our vision of what clouds were to be. I left a lot of the siena showing in my painting because.... I like siena. I love the warmth of it and how it can make a painting glow. 

Well this is the finished product.  I learned even more this time, than the last time I painted a fruit study. The process has not changed. It is still gesso, tone, abstract, shadows, medium tones and lights. Thick over thin and always start dark and go toward the light. But this time I really got the idea of thick paint being a modeling tool. The strokes that comprise the fore ground were few but thick. Titanium white and yellow ochre are mixed to make a glowing white that is then stroked on thickly and in a painterly fashion. The flow of thick paint moving smoothly over a cansvas is a satisfying action and once done it felt that something wonderful has been accomplished.