AND THEN THERE WASN'T
The start of Mr. Fuz Zy Pants was rough. I was distracted. I was having difficulty changing hats from space designer back to painter. I started twice and twice wiped it out. All the good that came of my efforts was I did get a good mix of raw umbra and payne's grey/ with just a tad of cerulean that I like. I see this painting as being very dark with the cat glowing and Taylor hardly noticeable. I also see this painting as loose with big brush strokes. Will I ever be able to paint alla prima with total abandon? I doubt it. I'm still full of apprehension with oils. You have to paint with such small quantities. I did like mixing up sizable batches of acrylics so I didn't have to stop and start and rematch all the time. Watercolor in pans give you immediacy too. Maybe that why I keep going back to them? BUT it's a year of learning and I'm almost at the end.
After Fuz Zy pants failure, I poured my coffee over the dying mums probably out of Fuz Zy Pants frustration and also out of curiosity. I do like to see what will happen if I do this, if I do that. I think I like what happened. Now the mums look properly disheveled. I like
those little spidery lines too. You can't take the lines out of the designer.
Then Zac was bothering me. I had him up as my screen saver all last week and I kept thinking every time I looked at him: too violet on that cheek shading. So I attempted to mix what Schmid might call a color that doesn't exist--a sap green, violet, naples yellow concoction to tone it down. I think the gray with more green than violet softened and cooled down that shadow a bit.
I do have to frame this thing and get it away from my antsy hands.
Going back to work has unsettled me. I give my all to what I'm doing. If I'm designing, I'm thinking design when I'm off. When I'm painting, I'm thinking painting when I'm off. I can't seem to think about both disciplines at the same time. At the end of this week, the design ball should be in Ellis' court and hopefully I can put my beret back on---I don't really have a beret--they flatten your hair--God forbid.
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| There was a painting and then there wasn't--not yet anyway. |
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| Letting this soak in coffee brought back some of the original scribbles that I liked from the initial start up. they look ragged enough. What if I had presoaked? Hum? |
After Fuz Zy pants failure, I poured my coffee over the dying mums probably out of Fuz Zy Pants frustration and also out of curiosity. I do like to see what will happen if I do this, if I do that. I think I like what happened. Now the mums look properly disheveled. I like
those little spidery lines too. You can't take the lines out of the designer.
.JPG) |
| The colors/values are a bit stronger than this, but I think I do have the bleached out values of a high noon, open sky lighting situation. |
Then Zac was bothering me. I had him up as my screen saver all last week and I kept thinking every time I looked at him: too violet on that cheek shading. So I attempted to mix what Schmid might call a color that doesn't exist--a sap green, violet, naples yellow concoction to tone it down. I think the gray with more green than violet softened and cooled down that shadow a bit.
I do have to frame this thing and get it away from my antsy hands.
Going back to work has unsettled me. I give my all to what I'm doing. If I'm designing, I'm thinking design when I'm off. When I'm painting, I'm thinking painting when I'm off. I can't seem to think about both disciplines at the same time. At the end of this week, the design ball should be in Ellis' court and hopefully I can put my beret back on---I don't really have a beret--they flatten your hair--God forbid.
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| Play up the cat, play down the cat's owner is the plan. Now let's get that drawn. Pretty Pussy don't you think? All that fur (dander) makes my nose itch. |
Coffee??? You did said coffee now, didn't you? Last time I spilled-soaked a drawing with coffee, I almost cryed out of frustration... though, everyone else thought it was an artistic accident that happened on a subconscious purpose... I know, WTF-that's exactly what I thought.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think I must loosen up a little bit and try to soak and chop and ...do other things with my paintings too. For now all I think about is the house. So I totally understand what you are talking about. You need to constantly paint, in order to paint; if you have other things in mind, then painting gets harder..
Hugs and smiles.
I said coffee. I happened to have found a cup I had lost the day before. I poured it into a pan and put the painting in gentle pushing it down so that it settled into the liquid without disturbing the image that was on it. Then I walked away for about fifteen minute while the coffee soaked into the paper and tinted the colors that were there. The results were not radical, but just enough where parts of the second layering of paint were lifted revealing the first layer and the palest of washes were tinted a vague coffee color. I sort of liked it and filed the idea away. Tea is used to "age" a painting, why not coffee--it's got stronger color?
DeleteWell, my design commrade (if I may be so bold), I tend to think designers have a leg up when it comes to painting...because....uh, we understand design. Many painters don't. I have every confidence that you will paint a great cat/girl painting. It is always fun to read your posts and to find out what you are currently pouring on your paintings (haha). I must take issue with what you wrote about how one must use small amounts of oil paint. I took a workshop with a famed Russian (and I was told not to use his name on my blog because he seldom leaves his home state and he just did not want the workshop "advertised"). Well, his big thing is that he uses mounds of paint. It's no wonder his paintings are so "juicy". I don't use as much paint as he required in his workshop now ...but I know that he taught us to be extremely generous with paint and I currently TRY to pile it on (it's hard to do!) Take a look at a photo of my palette on a 18x24 plexiglass panel here: http://celestebergin.blogspot.com/2012/02/wednesday_15.html
ReplyDeleteI welcome your input. The little tubes are so small compared to the studio ones I was buying for acrylics, my palette worms are short ones--gone in a flash. You are the oil maven in my book. I'm just a babe in the oil woods. I like the idea of mounds of paint. I said the hell with stingy this morning and tried piling it on. It's working. I'm more generous loading the brush. You'll see next post.
DeleteWe seem to have the same day, but I can't wipe dried acrylics. I gave up, then just went for a painting without thinking and it worked fine. Thinking isn't good.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what you did with your water color painting, but I like it. It has great range in color and it got an abstract feel.
The coffee dirtied up the paint--just the way the mums were dirty looking. I like the way the soaking lifted some of the second layer to reveal the first, but not all of it.
DeleteThinking is horrible. It really gets in the way of just your hand/intuition and the painting.
Working day and night. I certainly understand that! When I am on a project, for me or a client, that is all I do, 24 hours a day and consuming my dreams! Love it though, wouldn't have it any other way. What coffee is best?
ReplyDeleteMe too--and it's odd to get back to it after three years of snail-slow business. I love it too. I just came back from a meeting with the client where my excitement and passion flared as I presented my first drawings. She got excited too and bonding took place--bonding is very important on projects that are very personal and will interrupt the homeowner's comfort for a bit before the final transformation is complete. Any kind BUT Starbucks. It's so strong it would grow hair on anybody's chest; and hair on a watercolor is frowned upon of course.
DeleteToday I was free from assignments at last ... but try as I might I couldn't go near the studio. I mooched around cursing myself for wasting time. Lit a bonfire in the garden, lots of branches pruned from the trees. A neighbour came around shouting his mouth off about the smoke, I told him too -------- off. In a rage he called the fire brigade, they came out, lights flashing, horns screaming. I explained, they were on my side and departed. I told the neighbour to----- ----- again
ReplyDeletePat said, "You have a way with people don't you?"
Must try to draw tomorrow!
LOL. I had a day like that yesterday. I really got nothing done. You at least did some work in the garden. I think some time is needed in between one kind of work and another. I too have to practice my people skills. I tend to get uppity.
DeleteYesterday was a day for fire trucks I guess. The fire department sent out two trucks to Ellis' job when the work guys tripped off the alarm and couldn't turn it off. The alarm company called the home owner who came rushing over to see if his house was in flames. He had forgotten that the work guys were coming and had set the alarm himself. Ellis got there just as the trucks arrived along with the homeowner. Lots of excitement. Ellis is cool guy though. He calmed everybody down and gave the homeowner another copy of the work schedule so he wouldn't set the alarm again. Ellis does have people skills.