Fiddly bits

- are being worked on as I go. Can't wait to get to the ornate ribbon
to use the trick I've had up my sleeve! But first the mask...

Mask on mask

the eye mask of the facemask first pass.

The need to sell

is very strong, at least for this one as the 4.75 yr old is afraid of
it and wants me to hide it! Adding in some warm tones now to work off
the cools. Testing iridescent gold with yellow ochre/ my black.
White needs to warm up quite a bit!

Heavy body paint

Seemed like a good idea, but totally lacks enough pigment for thin
applications. Luckly this is a thick puppy, so can take full advantage.

Black

I'm amazed what a nice black can come from a primary mix. Not flat at
all. Having to really push the gamma down to see the folds in the
photo.

Next up

One of two on the go

Painting vs reality

Here they are side by side:

Final lighting

well, I would love to keep futzing because the bounce lighting on the churches was incredible but must get some more work finished for the show. This was quite the challenge putting the lighting in based on several reference photos from different angles. I loved my reference photo I took, but with the dull lighting and scaffolding all over it, it needed a little work!

Midtones in

and they've been there for a while. Slowly doing a lighting pass
based on a few other photos, very interesting process, but slow
going. Fun to use my computer graphics experience on something
completely different!

No Guts, No Glory

So after spending way too much time on a way too detailed underpainting I've almost completely obliterated it with a wash of Ultramarine blue... Turned out actually much darker than the picture and actually darker than I intended but makes for a good "black". At least with all that fussing I've discovered a lot about the building and what is hidden under all of the scaffolding in my reference photo. Currently enjoying painting in the midtones loosely and at least a bit more quickly! Soon I'll be on to faking the lighting! May have to hang the photo in the show so viewers can appreciate my pain....

Working with limitations

Got about 20 min of "interupted" painting time this afternoon. Hoping
my new studio partner can adjust to longer sessions, or be happy to
run off and play in her room...

Figuring out a dark blue glaze to get some blacks and greys in there,
then need to work out the lighting and colours for the lit side. At
least I'm happy with the scaffolding removal.

Shared studio space

Allosaurus and small Dino in the rain...
She got much further on her painting than I did on mine. Need to
teach her how to open her own tubes, but a little afraid of the
consequences!

Sketching at city farmer

Swiss chard and apple tree
Note to self - don't white balance on the sketchbooks when outside - missing in shot is the super cute branch swing in the upper right and the rest of the beautiful plants!
Great art day all around - got to explore a craft gallery and the Federation gallery on Granville Island.

Sketching with the girl

Stanley park petting zoo/farm

Back!

What a summer!

Two weeks in Alaska, 10 days in Wisconsin and happy to now be back at
home in the messy studio. Taking this week to clean before I crack
open the paints this weekend. Some how extra boxes migrated in while
I was away :(

Big clip

For a small head!

Fast and furious

Not my strongest, and not really my regular subject but quite a learning experience.

This is from the workshop at the Evergreen by David Langevin- very intense, very good, hoping someday I'll have time to test some more of the stuff out before I forget it.... fortunately I took lots of notes and pictures so there is a chance and David kindly said we could always contact him with questions, which I plan on doing!

Check out his amazing "tree portraits"!

Hooray

for babysitters! Finally we are back in business, after two weeks...
I've preemptively cleaned out a spot to start sharing my studio with a
smaller artist. Going to surprise her with it on Tuesday - hopefully
having a setup just like mom's will inspire her for more than a few
minutes! I'm inspired by our aquarium trip, have a great idea I can't
wait to try out. Hopefully I'll finish up this floral, crank out a
Venice painting and have a spot for it soon. This weekend is very
exciting, painting workshop at evergreen, hope I have the stamina to
keep up!

Bog blog

On location

Green Day

Twins

Collaboration drawing!

Back at it

Let's see less reading about painting and more actual painting around
here! Starting a 16" square, establishing the lights and darks,
trying the workshop pallette out on something fresh and less
confusing. Plus the more florals I do the more flowers I get to buy
myself right? Really liking the flow so far.

Researching

and thinking today. Trying to formulate an action plan.

[sent from iPhone]

ArtWalk 2010

What a weekend! Had a wonderful and intense time. Absolutely froze,
got great feedback, experimented with my pallette, did a decent
acrylic sketch and even sold a (tiny) painting.

Our location was great, ended up introducing a lot of passers by about
the ArtWalk since we were right across from starbucks and thrifty's.
The space was great - huge windows but no heat so ended up quite
chilled by the end of the day.

There were some confused people who eventually found us after ending
up at a different spot. Apparently one of the artists at another
location went rouge. She didn't like her spot and decided to show
somewhere else, apparently near or on the way to our spot. Pretty
insulting to the organizers and volunteers who made it all possible
and to the locations who were so gracious in their support of local
artists. Kind of takes the community out of community based art.

I took the opportunity presented by the two days to really dissect the
pallette from my landscape workshop. I'm now more aware of the
character of most of the pigments and how they mix and ir is a good
fexible core of colors. I'll have to clarify my notes a bit more, and
explore the remaining few odd colors before I'll be confident to takle
the landscape again.

Saturday ended up being quite difficult as I stayed up late scanning
and framing. Then I couldn't sleep because I was too wound up! Thank
goodness I could sit all day... Not the best way to start off, really
felt quite ill for most of the day.

Sunday I felt much better and really enjoyed talking to folks about
art, my work, their work, and the ArtWalk. So many creative folks out
here in the burbs! It's always neat to see how people respond to my
paintings, even if it is a bit nervewrecking beforehand. Unfortunately
(?) I got into the zone a bit with my painting and testing so I may
have missed out on interacting at some points.

All in all I'm very happy to have participated this year and to have
met some very nice and talented artists. Which is the best part about
sharing a venue!

[sent from iPhone]

What a week

Spent the whole week in prep for participating in the ArtWalk and in an epic failure of an attempt at digitizing my images and setting them up for printing... Totally exhausted after a great weekend. Should have the brain cells to post about the experience tomorrow!

Back to basics

I'm finding myself quite confused about my notes. Part of the issue
is how much time has passed, but as I paint I can recall more about
what I had planned to do. But the other issue is how overwhelmed I
was/am about the suggested pallette. There are so many colors on it I
barely have room to mix! Going to have to study it in detail to see
if I can discover the reasoning behind it. I'm thinking there must be
a few triads in there, slightly offset from one another.

Also spent some time at Opus picking up frames and mat board. Good
thing I can cut my own mats... Yikes... Still spent over $100. I will
now officially stop complaining about doing "gallery wrap". It is for
sure the lesser of two evils!

Next in line

Figured I should finish one of my last workshop paintings before I
sign up for another one! Already started in on the sky again before
remembering to document.

A breakthrough!

Something major happened at Science World yesterday. I did a totally
unbelievably crappy sketch of a T-Rex, wereas DD did a bang up job:
Notice the three toed theropod feet and the two fingered hand.

But that is not the breakthrough, even though Dino sketching is new
for her (and myself actually, not that it would excuse my poor drawing.)

The breakthrough is that we were sketching _TOGETHER_!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is something I didn't think would happen for _years_! A dream
come true. I am so excited! Not sure if this will transfer to non-
dino subjects, but I will take what I can get. There are plenty of
fun specimens there to keep us both busy.

In other news - will be implementing a new wordpress templated website
soon so I can have searchable tagged images and a slideshow - but
first a lot of photography and scanning has to happen.

Oh and I'm still painting the church.

Roses Finished

Well, I'm going to be looking at them for a few days, just to make sure - but I'll be needing that big palette for the weekend.

Switcheroo

Swapped in Ste. Maria - actually there is another name for this church
I've seen - must remember to look it up... Anyway - need to finish
roses before I can use the big pallette for the landscape so ended up
with the church tonight since I need live reference and daylight for
the roses. Fortunately!? I've got a lot of unfinished work to chose
from when I'm stalled on a particular piece - just grab the next and
I'm good to go! Big work weekend, I'm totally stoked!

Getting there

Working on at least changing the most annoying bits about my blog - while reading through a blogging book of all things - of course searching the Internet is providing me much more useful information and html code bits to use... The Rose painting is going to be put aside tomorrow after a quick pass on one side for the gallery wrap - I've got all of the main shading in - will need one more pass for color correction but I'll need some daylight to do so - this is the first on my plate for Saturday painting. It's going to be a busy weekend!

Time

...is not on my side. I've got to make peace with that. I have a huge list of things to do to present myself professionally at the artwalk - website redesign, business cards, possibly setting up to print some of the paintings. But the reality is that I have 10 hrs a week available to me, not 40. I'm lucky to find the time to paint - the business side might have to slide a bit.

Still on the roses, also mulled over pricing and attempted to read some website design books while DD played with trains at the bookstore. Must start doing some small modular sculpture or something more portable and process oriented.

ReErgo

Still working on the roses... Just have to keep the faith and keep plugging away - managed to work on some art related stuff while DD was busy with a craft. What a wonderful day it will be when she can paint along with me in the studio! If I had a space that was un-carpeted and spacious she'd be in there now. Finally dawned on me that I should set up my mini easel thing again (I think its actually more of a sculpture table) so now I should be slightly less sore after painting. A warm-up collage is still taped to the surface, but it doesn't get in the way! Really need to get in the studio a lot this week, hope I can find the time.

Last lecture

Finished up the last history of Impressionism lecture this evening.
Going to miss having my art buds over every week. We'll take a break
to get ready for the ArtWalk and then resume with movies about artists
perhaps!

[sent from iPhone]

No big

....breakthroughs in the past 2 days. Couldn't paint yesterday due to
an ankle injury!?! But managed to research competition deadlines with
my foot propped up on the couch. Got too late of a start tonight and
interupted with tax prep questions so very little paint to canvas.
Will try to encourage upstairs play tomorrow to get the rest of the
paperwork out of the way and clear up my time for painting.

Finding it super annoying to be making such little progress on such a
tiny painting. Just need to keep reminding myself I'm still getting
up to speed. The more I do, the faster I will become!

Feeling this one is going to be getting a shading pass and then
another pass to tweek the colors. It will actually work out better
that way since I want to build up the surface with my thick paint.

Working from the outside

...in to the focal point. Need to start overlaping and it will allow
me to work out all the color issues on the less important flowers.
Mixed a large amount of warm (tops) and cool (lower portions of
flowers) shadow color which should get me through to the finish - as
long as I can get a good chunk of painting in before the pallette
dries! Background is still super transparent, not sure I like that.
Will have to see how it plays against the solidity of the flowers.
Kind of backwards from reality, but it might look cool. If not I'll
have to remember it for something else because I really like the look...

[sent from iPhone]

Reading, recuperation, and roses!

This was mostly a recharge week for me. Read art books, had my art
buddies over to watch the history of Impressionism, painted a tiny
bit, and did battle with the mess in my studio. Finally feeling ready
to start taking on the next deadline - the ArtWalk on April 24th &
25th. Starting back in to finish all of my UFPs (unfinished
paintings) so I can have a clean slate to start applying for more
shows and competions. Hard when you have lots of orphans staring at
you!

Still working and playing!

Pretty slow going this past 5 days or so. Spent the time painting the
sides of the canal painting and finished up by finishing those final
details that were bugging me. So now it is finally finished. Thought
about sneaking a signature into the stonework but I really can't stand
to mar the picture with text. I know it is pretty standard, kind of
extra advertising in a way. Still very torn. People like to say they
own a piece by so and so. Maybe it's just a modern art museum thing
for me. Can't put anything extraneous to the picture in the picture.

Saw the most amazing show of the da Vinci notebooks. Can't wait to go
back without the Olympic crowds!

[sent from iPhone]

More of the same

Still painting edges - note to self: do this at the end of each
session next time - will save on time and will solve the paint drying
on the pallette problem. Plus be much less annoying to deal with!

[sent from iPhone]

Weekend work

Doing the gallery wrap (painting edges) and cleaning studio. Catching
up on sleep and cleaning too.

[sent from iPhone]

And Breathe

Photos taken, proposal written, CD burnt, package delivered!
(Fingers Crossed)
Taking the weekend off from any pressure - still planning on painting though.
Start planning for the next show on Monday!

Extreme Fail / Resounding Success

Well it turns out attempting to complete 5 paintings in 6 weeks was
even more impossible than I had imagined. Throw in getting sick for
two weeks offset slightly from our daughter's 2 week illness, flaky
childcare, a trip to Seattle, a long visit by the in-laws, a long visit
by my mom, a 4th birthday party, and the Olympics I'm surprised any
painting got done at all!

Yet it did and I have two paintings I'm happy to show, another two in
the works, and plenty of ideas for others. I think we'll have a very
strong concept for our proposal and a good chance at a show. I've
also got a great routine of getting into the studio daily now which
I'm planning on keeping up with, except for the late hours!

Good pictures to follow tomorrow - after the application is turned in, these are all from the cell phone with my standard wacky light setup.

Count down

One more painting evening tomorrow, hopefully a writing filled visit
to the play park as well. Then a fun filled scramble of
photographing, writing, burning a CD, printing hard copies and
delivery of exhibition application on Friday.

Looking forward to a weekend off. Although I'm still planning on
painting everyday! (But with no pressure).

Happy with the stone and shadows. Think there is just enough to
ground the lion without taking away from him. A nice stage for his
majesty.

Looking...

more and more like a painting every day. White bg will stay as I've
discovered some scratches on the paper - can't see them without paint
over them and so they will remain. I was thinking of leaving it white
to begin with so this makes for an easy decision. After I already
mocked out a bg in Photoshop of course!

Hrumph

First background pass, shadow pass to going on tomorrow night. Seems
like I don't have childcare this week so finishing the church is out
of the question and I'll be writing a good bit of the application
sitting at preschool classes and the play place at the mall - luckily
a new found favorite. At least the painting is going well, when I get
the chance to do it!

Roaw-er

Wow - this flip back and forth between pix on the iPhone really
helps. After a frustating few painting sessions when I thought I was
totally messing up and not accomplishing what I wanted to, seeing the
difference in the pix shows that the painting is working. Or at least
much better than I thought it was! Wrapping up with a good feeling
tonight. Who knows, maybe I can even wrap up the church this week.

Flow

Or lack there of... This is so not what I wanted this watercolor to be
about. It's tending so much to tightness that I'm tempted to just go
for it and start back in with the mechanical pencil. Was too timid in
the beginning to just jump in feet/brush first. Best to just let this
picture be what it wants to be and approach this subject latter in a
different style.

Close enough for jazz

Still some issues to take care of, but no major problems. It will do
for now. So the easel is tucked away and the lion is back on the
drafting table.

Bridge over troubled water

Looks like I should be able to "finish" this tomorrow. Just the
bridge and water with glaring problems. The rest can wait till after
the show application.

Discovered how to get acrylic off of carpet after one drops a brush
right through one's fingers... Spray until completely wet, which
appears to spread the paint into the carpet, but no worries - it comes
out with the water when you blot it up!

Just a bit

Of bare canvas left - but no babysitter this week. We'll see if
Grandma is up to lots of one on one with the girl... Otherwise this is
just not going to happen this week.

Bridge

First go at the bridge. Pretty happy with the house on the right.
Letting go of my dibilitating perfectionism.