One more from "Mongol". Desaturated palette. Love, love, love the lighting in this one.

Thru a good twist of events, everyone left today and I got a rare few hours alone. From the movie, "Mongol". A pretty unsaturated palette, few cadmiums, grey sky; in the peace and quiet, actually got to hear myself think uninterrupted, got to linger and love this one little. 2 hours +

This was actually done yesterday. Lots of saturated cadmiums in this one. Had gone to Chinatown with my dad and his sister the day before, maybe influenced by the trip?

The King's Speech

Was watching the movie and came upon this great face during the last part of the film. This older gentleman had such character, he seemed almost like a caricature. I did not capture how weathered he was, but I loved the colors~I used my new Quinacridone Blue Violet for the darkest skin tones in shadow. It worked perfectly for this; while not an exciting color right out of the tube, it is desaturated enough to give me a more "muddier" skin tone. (For those of you not familiar with painting with acrylics, it is hard to control it's brilliance.) I also used a new brush~Grumbacher Gainsborough 1271 flat #4 bristle brush, which is scary to use because you have no control. I loaded the brush with paint and went for it. I actually had to repaint the face all over again, since I did not like the first try. But because this brush was so bristly (I think it's a canvas brush), it gave me a wonderful random performance, yeah, you probably think I did the brushwork on purpose...I got lucky. This, I think, is my best entry in my color journal as yet! :)

More from the King's Speech~
Helena Bonham Carter as Your Royal Highness~ quoth: "I don't have a hubby, we don't 'pop', and you will have to come to us!" to Geoffrey Rush, as Lionel Logue.

Struggling with the lowkey, unsaturated pallette. There are not a lot of cadmiums, just Orange Cad hue, and Red cad light. I think I had hit a high with the Vincent Price painting and feel like I am starting all over again. Been hit with a bit of melancholia and I mention this because it comes with the territory of being a creative, but fortunately for me it never lasts for very long.

On a better note, I ordered several tubes of paint from Dick Blick catalog, which had a 49% off sale! Don't know if it is still going on, but I made out like a bandit! Bought a new color, Quinacridone Blue Violet, which I can't wait to take it for a spin hopefully soon!

And a warning to those who want to try my paints when they see me whip out my pallette~I let my daughter use them and she switched the Titanium White tube cap with the Burnt Umber~my white is now contaminated with brown; my brown now looks like mocha...Grrr I am very protective about my tools!

I've just finished a run of nearly 2 months constant work, no weekends and I feel burned out~and it shows in these works. I finally got to sit down and watch a movie The King's Speech. I loved the cool colors in this film, the thalos, blue and green and the cool flesh tones.

Horses Taught Me to Draw

Some rough sketches for a project I am working on. I grew up drawing horses. I read every horse story for girls there was, Black Beauty, The Black Stallion, etc. My parents bought me Breyer horses for my birthday and Christmas. I drew them from all angles and so drawing horses come as natural as breathing to me. For a long time, I wondered why I could not draw the figure like I could draw animals and sometimes when I get a block, I will draw a horse to get my brain flowing again. I will forever have this Visual Imprint of a 3 dimensional model horse in my brain. People ask me all the time, How do you learn to draw animals so well? If you want to really learn, you sculpt the animal. I have been working on a sabor tooth cat sculpt which will give me that Visual Imprint.

I picked this pic because it offered weird color choices. The hair is diox purple, thalo blue and burnt sienna; a terrific color combo which gave me a striking contrast to the warm desaturated olive background. No saturated colors anywhere, all neutrals. Love neutrals. Real quick~20 minutes, if that. Small, maybe 3" x 2 1/2" in my moleskine Color Journal, acrylic. It's a Happy Mother's day gift for myself!