Day 3 of Daily Painting

 

Daily Painting - Day 3 - Monday - I had to work today, and get laundry done, so I figured I would probably skip today.  But I also should have vacuumed, and painting provided an excuse to put it off.  Didn't read any more chapters, so I worked on the same stuff as yesterday, value and color mixing.  My color mixing was a bit off.  Both Dave and Joe guessed that I had painted an orange....and it's an onion, drat.  Joe's assessment was that it needed more purple.  But to be fair, at dinner, which was take-out Chinese food, this particular restaurant always gives a container of sliced oranges.  When I saw them I exclaimed "nobody touch those oranges until I take a picture of them!"  Because, if you've seen Carol's stuff, you know she likes to paint orange slices.  So the two of them had "oh, she's going to paint oranges" on the brain, and it might have perhaps influenced their guess.

The photo, I liked the curly shadow at the far end of the onion.

The painting, needed less yellow, more flesh-tones.

Daily Paint Day 2

December 30, 2018 - day 2 of my attempt to learn to paint (well).  I read two more chapters of the Carol Marine book (Daily Painting): Value and Paint Mixing.  So this time, when I did my "quick-draw" and outlined my subject matter I also outlined the value stuff.  I looked around for things that were white and put them on a white background, so that I would only be dealing with value.....well, more value than color.  I mixed up some grays with red, blue and yellow per Carol's instruction.  I went to town and painted for about 40 min.  I like this one better than yesterdays.  Not sure if it's the subject or what.  I tested both Dave and my son Joe.  They both guessed correctly and deemed it a painting of garlic!  I'm calling this progress.

Piece of cardboard, tiny canvas with double-sided sticky-puffy tape, chalk and photo (cropped to a 5 inch square).  The tiny canvases are more manageable for me if they're attached to a larger piece of cardboard (I can paint all the way to the edges and still pick it up and turn it around).

I chalked the underside of the photo (DIY carbon paper), and outlined the main elements (and value sections) with a ball-point pen to create the "quick-draw".

the photo

 

 

the painting

 

 

CanvasCalls, First Post

Putting paint on a canvas has been calling for a while....but alas, no time to answer.  Last Christmas, I asked Dave (husband) for a gift certificate to the Delaplaine in Frederick (Maryland).  I took an oil class, forcing me to buy the supplies and get started.  This Christmas, I asked Dave for the book, "Daily Painting" (by Carol Marine).  So, per her instructions, I'm starting this blog and plan on posting the journey.  I did my first tiny painting today, less than 1 hour of canvas time, maybe 30 minutes of prep.

So here's how I decided to start.  Well, first I considered briefly to dismantle the Christmas tree before starting.  Perhaps all of humanity is afflicted with the tendency to procrastinate?  Instead I decided one of the prettiest ornaments on the tree would be my first subject matter.  I took a photo.  Drawing is the "ball and chain" of this process for me, so I decided to skip that part.  Not skip really, but cheat.  Not cheat really, but economize my time.  Not sure if others do this too:

My canvas is only a 5 inch square.  After I took the picture and imported it to my desktop, I cropped the picture to a square, put it in a word document, adjusted the size to 5 inches and printed.  Then I scribbled chalk all over the back of the printed photo, placed the photo (chalk-side down) on the canvas, and traced with a ballpoint pen the main objects in the photo.  Now I could paint, without having to "draw". 

So, Day One, we'll see how long this calling continues to call!  I told Dave, after I finished it and brought it to the kitchen for a quick pic, that since Carol assured that I would see amazing growth with this daily process, it was good the bar ended up so low with the first.  "Amazing" might not be so far fetched!  Not sure I'm a fan of this one, but it did get me started.

Here's my photo's: