Happy New Year and a Resolution

It's been a long time since my last post - months as a matter of fact. (sounds like confession :'bless me father for I have sinned, it has been 35 years since my last confession.' 'Go in peace my child and say 4,272 Hail Mary's').

Not sure what caused it. Could be that I opened my studio and sold some paintings and that freaked me out. I started thinking "will someone like this" while I was painting and that paralyzed me. Or it could be that work suddenly got incredibly busy and consuming and stressful. Painting - at least for me - takes a lot of energy and requires that I not be stressed out. Suddenly work got stressful.

I think it is a combination of insecurity, made up pressure and work stress. I lost sight of the fact that I am a new painter and my only mission for the next few years is to paint and paint some more. Not to sell paintings, not to be perfect, just to become the best painter I can be.

During this time I have been going to the studio and I have been painting. But in the past 2-3 months I have only painted ONE painting that I liked - this one. This is a little painting of my dog Sammy. I did it at home and I did it while she was sleeping on her bed. I had to move fast because animals don't sit still for long, even when they sleep. I really love this painting - it is Sammy all over. I like how loose it is, I like that I didn't use black (I don't even have black paint) and instead used blues, reds and greens to create her black, shiny coat. I like that I captured her beautiful face and her floppy ears and her fuzzy fur.

Other than this one, I've painted lots of things that I've hated. Its been 3 frustrating months of creating a lot of crap.

But...it's a new year and my New Year's resolution is to recommit to my priorities, which are, in order:

1) My son
2) Painting
3) My Health - hmm, not really sure where this should be - first? last? can't do much if you're not healthy - and hey, I'm not getting any younger.
4) My family
5) My friends
7) Work

Notice where work falls. I will figure out how to still be a good employee without working stupid amounts of hours that drain me. It can be done - I took this job specifically so I could do that. I have just finished a week and a half break from work and tomorrow I will return with a new attitude and work ethic. I will give them my all and then I go home. Radical, isn't it??

Out Damned Red

I guess after having a few good painting weeks I was due for a struggle. I am having the hardest time with this subject - and it isn't just the problem that I'm having with the red, I'm starting to question what I'm doing with these still lifes (so is it "still lifes" or "still lives"? There is no past tense for "still life" as far as I know). They're starting to bore me a bit - so I think I need to add more complexity to what I'm doing.

But back to this painting. So many things that suck. This the second weekend I've tried this - last weekend I wiped the whole canvas off in complete frustration.

The red of the tomatoes and peppers are very different - but I can't seem to capture that difference. There are shadows on both of them, and mid-tones, and highlights - and I tried very hard to depict the differences between the two very different veggies but they ended up the same. I'm closer on the color of the tomato because there is a lot of yellow and orange in the tomatoes, but the pepper is more blue. I couldn't figure out how to get that bluish hue without making it muddy or just not "light" enough. The peppers have a kind of internal glow and it is totally escaping me. So frustrating!!! I can see it with my eye, but I am not skilled enough to interpret it on the canvas.

The veggies are sitting on a black stool. I'm ok with where the reflection on the stool is going - but the background is not working. I changed it halfway through, the stool actually extends all the way to the left but that didn't work. The background is really a placeholder until I figure it out. I think the issue is that I didn't think through the composition enough before I started painting. The background doesn't exist really, and I'm making it up. I'm trying to create the "air" around the still life and, again, beyond my skill level. I think I need to create a decent background in life, and then paint it.

I'll get back to the studio during the week and continue working - try to separate the colors of the tomatoes and the peppers. They all have stems too, in fact the tomatoes are connected on a vine. The stems will make this more interesting, and add green in other places besides the big green pepper, and they will be the last things I paint in.

Struggling with red

Last weekend I tried painting some tomatoes and peppers and had a really hard time. I struggled with the reds and getting the shadows etc. I started the painting on Sunday and thought it was going OK and then came back one night during the week to work on it and it was all down hill from there. This is where it was on Sunday:


I thought it had some promise but as I worked on it things went poorly and I got so frustrated I scribbled it out, and then wiped the whole thing off, and finally ended up just painting over it with red.

The biggest issue I had was the curly red pepper (is it a chili pepper? not sure) and dealing with the light and shadows on the red. So I decided to just do a quick practice on a panel to try and work out the light and curves of the pepper.

I posted the pepper study below - and yes it is pretty ugly but it helped me figure out the color problems I was having. I went back to the studio today and started the still life of the tomatoes and peppers again - different arrangement. So far so good, and if I don't have a spaz attack and wipe it all off, I'll post it when I finish it.

Artichokes, Marketing and Mediums

So I do a lot of fruit & veggie paintings - not because I'm obsessed with them, although it looks like that, but because they are the perfect subject for me to learn all the things I need to learn about painting. There is an endless supply - I just stop at the grocery store on my way to the studio and look for interesting shapes and colors. I am that weird lady in the produce section picking through pears and apples and nectarines, holding them up, staring at them, turning them over, comparing them to each other. Taking fruit waaaay too seriously.

During Lowell Open Studios a woman asked me if I had any paintings of artichokes because she loves artichokes. While I failed miserably as an art marketing person by actually telling her she didn't have to leave her email address - just check my blog - it did get me really into the idea of painting an artichoke. Dropping the ball on the art marketing is sad considering I've been doing marketing for a living for years - I guess when it is my product that I'm marketing I find it harder.

Anyway - here's my first artichoke. It's another small one - 6x6. I had a hard time with the photo, the focus is off. I'll probably do a couple more because I enjoyed this and I worked through a lot of painting challenges. My favorite parts of the painting are the leaves on the table.

Oh, I also tried a new medium on this painting. Medium - for those non-painters out there - is not some new age psychic coming in and checking the painting chakras, it is the stuff you mix with the paint on the palette to get it to flow better, dry faster or slower, add gloss and probably other stuff I'm forgetting or I don't know about. I have used Galkyd (my first oil paintings) and linseed oil (the past 3-4 months) and I liked both of them. Then someone told me about Liquin and that's what I used on this painting. I'm not sure I'm digging it actually - I think I really like linseed oil the best, but I'm going to use Liquin a few more times before I decide. The advantage of Liquin is that it allows the oil paint to dry faster, which is great because you can come back the next day and it's almost dry - or at least dry enough to paint over. Galkyd supposedly does the same thing, so I need to go back to that again now that I have more of a clue what I'm doing.

I sold my first painting!

I sold my first painting (the one titled "The Sentinel") and it is a result of the Lowell Open Studios I did in September. I got an IM from someone who had brought a friend to the studio and he liked one of my paintings. I dropped it off on Sunday and got a check so it is official!!

This is the painting - I posted the many variations it went through a few weeks ago, but this is where it ended up. I probably would have kept fiddling with it but once someone said they were buying it, I had to stop.

It is a very strange feeling to sell a painting. Its gone now, never to be seen again.