Mistakes, Scrapes and Surprises

I'm back to trying new things and focusing on learning what styles and techniques I like. Painting on a bit larger canvas after doing a lot of small paintings. This is 9x12, not huge, but a lot different than painting on 6x8. This is a painting of a little glass syrup pitcher I bought at a junk store (I mean 'antique store') that I drive by on my way to the studio.

I spent a long time sketching the shape of the pitcher - it was surprisingly tough to get  the shape and proportions correct. My goal for this painting was to do the whole thing with just one large brush, thinking that it would help me not get all anal and detailed. It was going along just fine until I put some yucky color on the background which led me to scrape it off with a palette knife. I scraped and scraped and then realized I kind of liked what was happening. So after that I started using the knife to lay paint back down on the canvas and it started to get that multi-dimensional color that I love and have struggled to achieve.

This is a work in progress and I liked where it was going. And then I stopped by the studio on the way home from work tonight and proceeded to muck up the background so it doesn't look like this now.  Ended up wiping the whole background off. Unfortunate, but that's ok, the layers underneath that are dry stay there after you wipe the wet layers off. And that helps create those layers of colors that if you do it right, (which I haven't quite figured out yet) peek through the subsequent layers. I'll just keep going until I get back to where I want to be.

Summer Reading

There's something about these chairs that appeals to me. They were very hard to paint because of all the angles and I'm not really satisfied with the perspective. I based this on a photo I took last summer.

I like the painterliness (made up word) of it, but it looks like an illustration to me which is not what I wanted. The angle of the table top is off as well. But the light and composition are pretty good.

I might try to make the light on the chair on the left more pronounced and add some light to the flowers next to the house. The ones in the front should have more light on them.

I think I might, just might, be over my looooong slump.

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.