Collage of September Daily Paintings

Collage of September 2015

30 Paintings in 30 Days (Not in order)

Not in order and not always with the right proportions, but better than last year's collage. Some of my subjects last year weren't recognizable.

I had to delete everything and start over on this one to get everything this well, but it's a big improvement. 

I plan to keep on with daily art and may post again later today with a new daily painting. But I wanted to post this just to share in the glow of completion. This year I did it. This year there are actually 30 paintings for 30 days.

From now on I'm keeping that 48 hour rule too - if I make it up the day after, it still counts. Some days get worse than others and that's a fact I have to live with. But I can still count a gesture sketch of a familiar subject and nothing about size, the idea is more to say hello to my art at least daily.

Purr at you! Ari Cat sheds his Cat Hairs of Inspiration in your direction!

Tulip, Marigolds and Petunias

Tulip, Marigolds and Petunias

7" square 

Pan Pastels, Rembrandt and Terry Ludwig pastels

White Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede pastel card

This little painting took three stages to finish, first blocking in the tulip over a bright orange background, then the yellow-orange marigolds and greenery and most of the tulip's form, then the last details came very fast and I added the petunias to balance the composition and unify the colors. Also some little forget me knots between the flowers. 

This garden is overgrown and unreal but I don't care, it looks the way I wanted it to. Or maybe the plants just filled out enough to fill up the spaces between them. I always liked that look in garden plants. It's not weedy though, all garden flowers. I love being able to use the bright colors in a painting and still be true to life. Ruffled petunias and the tulip were both from the Pastel Spotlight challenge this month on "Violet" theme at WetCanvas, photos by BlackHorse and DAK723. The orange marigolds were more or less taken from another painting I did some time back from a photo by DAK723 but I changed their color based on ones I remembered.

This month has been a bit rough for changing weather. Not that bad for pain but I've been sleeping a lot and doing less sketching and painting. Need to get back to sketching and painting so I scheduled myself an extra hour in the garden on Wednesday's clinic visit to be able to settle out there and sketch something from life. I will be packing art supplies, probably water media.

Clouds Coming In

Clouds Coming In

pastel on paper, 8" x 10" horizontal

photo reference by tj84 on WetCanvas.com reference image library

This painting gave me some frustrating moments. I had some design problems with the areas on the land and one patch in the clouds bugged me. So I hung it on the wall across from where I sat and did other pastels and other paintings. Half the procrastination was physical, just not being up to getting out what I needed to finish it.

I went from hard pastels at the start to Rembrandt and finally finished with 120 Unison Half Sticks because that gave me the range I needed for the finish. The shadow area was too muted once I got it to the right value, so bringing in some purples made that work. I played with the foliage some more and having different hues and values in foliage colors helped enormously. 

I put in a tiny patch of sun hitting some distant trees. There's other little fun areas where light causes details. I gradated the water and added the cloud reflections, that helped a lot. It was really just finishing strokes for most of this - but every one of them was needed.

Paintings sometimes go through an Ugly Stage where it looks like you've ruined it. The last details need to be done and the finishing touches, without them it looks horrible but that is the right underpinning for those final touches. I first ran into this doing Colourist works in Charlotte Herczfeld's class because it looks ghastly right before the end - those finishing details are always needed. 

This time I think I just got tired when I was finishing it and looked down, noticed the ugly stage and choked. A couple of friends on WetCanvas provided critique. Many of them said it was better than I thought. Now I think it's better than they've seen - but thanks to them I didn't chuck it, did go finish it. 

I much prefer being decisive and moving on to the next painting than endless reworking! I hope I don't catch the wibbles again like this for a long long time!

Pacific Wave

Pacific Wave

5" x 7"

Rembrandt pastels on Uart 600 sanded pastel paper

Photo reference by kathymackay2 on WetCanvas.com

Painting the ocean has been on my Artist's Bucket List for all my life. I loved the sea from as long as I can remember. As a toddler I had a book about a hermit crab that fascinated me, had both beach and undersea illustrations that were absolutely wonderful - good illustrations, not just cartoons.

So I took a piece of Uart and decided to use my field pastels, 60 Rembrandt half sticks. I worked from the Weekend Drawing Event challenge where kathymackay2 posted a bunch of photo references last Friday on the last day of the current challenge... and I changed the weather. The photo reference was taken on a gray overcast day, the sea was very blue-gray and the wave was not quite as shapely, but from previous paintings and studies I understood its anatomy. I changed the weather to reflect what might have been a warmer climate or just a warmer season, moved the foam, gave it color and sparkle and light... and it just blew all my previous seascapes right out of the water.

I wasn't even thinking verbally while I painted it. I spent about 20 minutes and did not hesitate. I think I'm finally ready to try painting the sea from plein air. I understand the waves well enough they don't have to hold still, just repeat. This rocks. Today is a personal triumph.

Blissful Repose (Snow Leopard)

Blissful Repose

9" x 8 1/2"

Charcoal on Aquabee Hemp Draw paper

Today was the Animal & Wildlife Challenge at WetCanvas reveal day. Since I try to draw or paint within one day, I usually do these challenge paintings on the reveal day - it's too frustrating to finish and then set it aside and not post it. I'm liable to forget to post it at all if I do that, don't trust the fibromyalgia or my sense of time. So it's more fun for me to just wait for the day and do it with whatever I reach for at the time.

This is a little change from my usual renderings, I didn't measure carefully so much as block in and tighten to the likeness. Got better accuracy in less time working this way. Of course it helped that it's a cat. Any cat, I have a lot of practice with their anatomy and sense of where their bodies flow while in a pose. This is a very flat cat! Ear flicking in a dream, he's just comfortable. Looked contented to me. My own cat sleeps this well too most of the time.

Winter Pines

Winter Pines

5" x 7"

Rembrandt pastels on Bee Bogus Recycled Rough sketch paper

Photo reference by PaintBoss on WetCanvas.com

A third painting for the September 2014 Pastel Spotlight challenge, "Blue." This photo reference was posted as part of the lesson showing a variety of hues, the surface of the snow was distinctly lighter and more purplish than the somewhat green-cast blue sky. I enhanced those differences a bit but the camera really pushed it farther. Light patches on the snow field were fun, the shadows of other trees were making that foreground area interesting. 

I'd worked out how to do snow laden pines years and years ago while playing with colored pencils, distinctly remembered doing a Christmas card design with them as my first successful snow covered pines. This time I got much more colorful working with pastels and sketched just the darks in the pines in with charcoal, then got at the rest entirely with pastels. As usual on unsanded paper I did some finger blending in early layers, then finished by rough layers of side strokes and heavier strokes over it.

Bluebird in Pastel

Bluebird

7" x 10" Pastel on Artagain paper

Photo reference for the above by Dave Slaughter on WetCanvas.com, where it's in the Reference Image Library. I had fun using my 60 Rembrandt half sticks on a pad that I know fits in my backpack with them.

These are practice and field tests for my using those pastels outdoors. I can get some good effects just using these, and the color range is sufficient for anything I want to paint when I'm out. They are a lot of fun and not that expensive. I almost got the 120 color set but I'd also wanted a watercolor set and some Pan Pastels so I went for the smallest set size that'd work for plein air.

It was a good choice. 90 or 120 colors are great if I'm going to be at home but when I'm out I want a smallish set that can be on my lap at the same time the drawing board or pad is. That became a serious point. 

I also think I'm going to be goofing around on the Artagain and Bogus papers with charcoal some more. Love how that goes so fast and comes out so powerful, it's a great sketch medium either under pastels or by itself. Shows up on the sketch wall just fine!

A Page of Little Ari Drawings

Technically this isn't a painting - it's a 9" x 12" page of life drawings of my cat Ari. It's a serious project. I used an archival Pitt Artist Pen, black brush tip for its expressive line, on 100% rag watercolor paper. Every one of these little drawings is from life. The dates come in two clumps, back in November when I first started the project and then picked it up again late in April when I realized my winter slump had lasted that long.

This piece was difficult not because I don't have a lot of practice drawing my cat, but because I had so many little drawings of him and was determined to give the page a decent layout. The more of them I finished, the tougher it was to use the remaining space well, have everything leading in toward the others with a good eye path, create a good page as a whole instead of "cool little life studies."

I love my cat. I could and do draw him endlessly. I also don't mind having a lot of bad sketches of him crop up in my sketchbook. I lighten up when I do these gestures and don't worry so much about whether each of them is a good drawing or even an accurate likeness. This project, I wanted to do my best on them.

It's part of an art trade with Charlotte Herczfeld, my pastel teacher, a Swedish Colourist who heads up the Pastel Guild of Europe. She taught me how to handle color, how to handle pastels and depth and distance. She freed me from literal adherence to the photo and from sticking to local color instead of what I see. She also taught me how to create any hue I want with optical mixing and use a limited palette in pastels.

I've got several other artworks in the package. I'm nowhere near her level of skill, honored she liked so many of my works though. I'll be packing them all up this week to ship to Sweden and then wait for a wonderful, glorious package containing a painting that went right to my heart. I need to order a good frame for hers too, need to set aside that budget and not unpack it until I have a frame big enough - though I have mat board and can cut the mat for the painting myself just as I did last time.

I'm so thrilled about this and honored. I'm also vastly relieved that A Page of Little Ari turned out so well! I can't believe I managed, with all that care and patience waiting for good days and of course waiting for the cat to hold still in good poses, to fill the page just right. He is a great beauty of course, there was no question of the model's competence in this piece.

A long project completed just right! Nothing compares to that feeling!