Okay-I really bit off more than I could chew on this one! So much going on here-many lights and shadows and midtones. I was looking for a scene that had: perspective, objects in the foreground and background and objects relating to each other; foreground shadow and sunlight. Object: to simplify the shapes.

I got up to go pee; came back, and someone had put the white lawn chairs infront of the pond. Awesome! I could not have planned it better! Then I had lunch, finished early, and someone was in one of the lawn chairs! Even more better!

In hindsight, I went a little el nutso on the color palette-shoulda really limited myself on just greens for awhile. Should just painted the shadows and lights in greens, (value study) then loaded in a selected palette.

I just did this this morning with the Santa Clarita Artists Assoc. I am working on getting more perspective in my work these days; even tho the perspective is atrocious here. Will work on that.

There is another paint out tomorrow at Rancho Camolus on the 126 tomorrow all day. There will be costumed period models there to paint, if anyone can get a sick day.

Threw some quick color on.

Quick gestural.

Statue:

I'm going to call this done. I'm actually tired of looking at it. It was painted entirely without burnt umber because I ran out. I had finished most of it before I left for Hawaii and forgot to post it. Today I just threw a few more highlights on it and glazed it.

I usually struggle with reds, but am pleased as the way the reds turned out this time.

Lots of diaxozine purple with cad med red and cad orange hue which gave me the inspiration to paint the squid-which I need to finish also! Acrylic on canvas board with several glazes inbetween paint layers. This would look terrific with a gold gilt frame.

Golden Dragon

I'm still not very good at color correcting these...

Hopefully I will be done with this on the next pass.

Getting in the mood

Greg's away for a few hours, my baby's asleep, so it is unusually peaceful here. Comic Con is just around the corner so maybe I can sneak in a few fantasy pieces to show?

Establishing the values, planes, using big and thick brushes--this is my favorite part of a painting. This stage is pure inspiration and bliss--the next parts are pure work.

This is taken from a ball point pen scribble (see below). This is approximately 45 min. of work; acrylic on canvas paper.

Brain and Ball point pen aways moving:

Back from Hawaii. I went for my cousin's wedding, so I wasn't able to sit much and sketch, but I did get these.

I started to sketch a lot with a ball point pen, which I have not done in years. It was the most handy tool available, and if I got the pages wet, I knew the pen would not run. The dragon drawings were done in the car as we drove around Honolulu! Without husband and child with me, I could really jam with the creativity. The turtles drawings were done after snorkeling with them off the shore of Waikiki-the one day I got to roam on my own.

Celaphod
This will be my last post for awhile. I am leaving for Hawaii tomorrow.

This is just a quick color, brush exercise. I wanted to paint something optimistic and happy. I love the salmon pink color and was finally able to reproduce that type of color on canvas. I don't know if I will ever finish this; I just needed to loosen up.

I love octopuses; they are so weird and beautiful. A lot of people know that many of the celaphod family can squirt ink in the shape of itself to fool an enemy, but did you know that at the same time it can turn completely transparent in the ocean afterwards and "disappear"? I just learned this reading books to my daughter...

I need to finish the gold statue and the painting of Jim Zamlich but I will be flying to Hawaii on Thursday and just needed a visual break from these.

New Blogger! This is a person to watch! Dorota paints and draws traditionally and apparently is just now taking to the digital paint world. I can't wait for her to gain confidence and momentum because I know she is going to show us more great stuff in the future!

Another Update. I've been doing more freelance with a tightdeadline, otherwise, I would have finished this by now. As it were, I've only been able to throw down a few brushstrokes here and there. I've also moved the left eye up a little.

I've really had fun "organizing" the brushstrokes on the face and practicing with saturated colors and desaturated colors. The statue is a gold but I've thrown in reds, greens, blues, purples to make it more rich. I also ran completely out of burnt umber so I've been mixing raw umber with dioxazine purple and 'thalo blue to get the dark darks.

An update. At the last minute, I thru the red in.

A few hours later...

Our bigger image scanner is not compatible with our new iMac, so I am using the little scanner and cannot get the entire image.

Just a few weeks ago, I hit a wall creatively, but am on fire now. It goes to prove that once you hit that block and you stick with it and get thru it, artistic growth is just around the corner. So! Blocks are opportunities to grow! So get your brushes and/or pencils out!

Exercise on the planes of the face

Mr. Meaty(er)

My G-4 be illing. I am working off the laptop and will get a new iMac shortly. Here's an underpainting:

The landscape painting was done this Saturday. The rain went away for a little while and I joined the Santa Clarita Artists Association at Olga's in Newhall. Not great, but I painted anyway. Lately I've sort of hit a bit of melancholia. To make matters worse, I've strained my back, a new experience for me as I have resorted to popping advils--but it did not stop me from meeting with Laura Wambsgans and the group.

Olga has a steer, yes a steer in her backyard. I did something i never have tried before--sketching the brute with acrylics.

I retooled this tiger. Gave her a darker background and a better silohuette.

This is dedicated to Tatiana the tiger at the SF Zoo, who, enraged, leaped over her enclosure, alledgedly, and killed one of her harrassers and severely mauled 2 others. I've been to the SF Zoo and have witnessed children and their parents alike taunting the lions in the lion house while their keepers fed them. Can you imagine being taunted every time you ate a meal and you could not do anything about it? Poor Tatiana probably thought as she leapt over her wall-"Why the hell did I not try this sooner?"

My daughter's first grade teacher gave me a gift for x-mas for volunteering every Friday morning in her class. I asked Sienna what Mrs. Adachi likes and she said beagles. So I painted the puppy, however uninspired it was. Then to loosen up, I did the Nosey Beagle, really taking care to place certain brush strokes just so. I was done in about 30 minutes. I like the rough looseness of it. This year I'm going to take the hyper-jump to oils; acrylics just are not giving me the performance I am looking for.