#43 #44 #45 The Leftover Paint Abstracts for February 2019

I am short of my goal this month....didn't make the 25 paintings for February....a trip to Michigan, Joe's quilt, Bev's passing....it was quite a month.  But I did teach oil painting to four of the niece/nephews plus Dave, perhaps I should count those toward my goal.  And I made several new breakthroughs....the under-color and the eye-liner.  I bought some Gam-Var, and tonight plan to varnish a few of the dryer paintings from last month, especially the ones that Paul said he'd take (he'll be here for his Grandmother's service on Sunday).

Here are the 3 "abstracts" that I worked on with the left-over paint on the palette; two that are in the same style as last month and one that I used a stencil for.  Note from the pictures that #45 looked totally different midway....I was just placing random weird whatnots on the 10x20 canvas, and decided it was a horror, so I painted over it....didn't even gesso it first.  The curlique stencil one I used some "liquin" in the black outline, which is supposed to make the paint dry quickly (like, overnight).  That way I wouldn't drag black paint everywhere on the early fill-in areas

Overall, I'm calling February a successful learning-to-paint month!

#43 February 2019, Swirly Stencil, 12x12 inch

 

#44 February 2019, they're not cellphones

#45 February 2019, Yucky Abstract, began a paint-over

#45 paint-over completed

#42 More Scotch Whisky 2/27/19

Yesterday I was pulling some of the dried paintings off their cardboard, adding titles, dates, signatures to the back, entered them on a new spreadsheet as Carol Marine suggested....and my favorite of these dried paintings was the scotch whisky.  Maybe because it has a lovely memory of my husband painting with me.  But I decided to do a larger version of the same photo.  I had pre-smudged a reddish brown color on an 8x8 canvas, so I used that.  You can definitely see the reddish brown popping through here and there.  I like the look.  The ice cubes were still a major challenge, and the writing on the bottle.  But I pushed through!  It may have helped that I wasn't actually drinking scotch this time!

#41 Bananas 2/25/19

Well, those hospice people know their stuff.  Bev passed away last night....a bit after midnight.  Dave went to the house to wait with the night nurse and Nick for the funeral home to pick up the body.  The hospice nurse had already been by to declare the time of death.  We are relieved that her passing was gentle.  She was such a brave woman and endured this illness with as much decorum as humanly possible.  I only hope I can face such a crisis with the same strength, but hopefully such a thing will not be in my future.  Dave, his brother and his step sister spent the day with Nick going over things, I met up with them at noon, we met with the undertaker, wrote the obituary, sifted through pictures to use at the service.  Good to have close family in these situations, the burden becomes a blessing.

To paint or not to, on such a day.  The therapy aspect was needed, so I went with another small 5inch square, another pre-colored canvas.  I chose bananas and did them quick....only a few colors on the palette.  When we were in Michigan last week at my brother's I photographed all the produce in his kitchen.  On the day we left we stopped over to say goodbye, and his wife had made banana bread.  I'm most certain these were the bananas, as they looked just about ready for bread when I had photographed them days before.  I left out those ripening spots, creative license.  If Bev could edit the pictures of herself, she would leave out the cancer ravaged ones near the end.  When we compare those to the ones just a year earlier....it's amazing, but she was a beautiful human being in either case.

#40 Radishes 2/24/19

Carol's guest writers in her book, the one's who talked about loosing one's mojo (something I'm not unfamiliar with, but so far not with the painting gig) mentioned that you can't let a lack-luster end-product get you down.  Not every thing you paint will be good, but some things will....let it happen.  And tonight I finished the radishes and said, hmmmmmm this one turned out NICE!  The radishes were purchased the same day as the turnips.  For some reason I didn't like how the pic of the radishes turned out, but there they were in my "Daily Painting Picture Stash" file. 

Dave spent the day at his Mom's house, I met him there after work, the hospice people are saying that she has reached a transition towards death.  Not eating, not drinking, bed-ridden, keeping comfort from morphine and loved ones afoot.  When we got home, and discussed tomorrow, and how it could be the last day....well, once that conversation was over I needed something to completely take my focus elsewhere.  An icky picture of radishes seemed like it might block out the world and I went at it with a carefree, glad to be thinking of something besides whether Bev's occasional heavy sighs might be last gasps.

Something new: I started with a pre-colored canvas.  Yesterday I used my left-over paint to smear all over a blank canvas.  Today I used it.  It was lighter at one corner, so I picked that for where the light source was.  And I used graphite for the floor and was going to use dark brown for the top background, but decided the base color of the canvas looked pretty good.  It came together easily, and I felt ready to stop without getting picky about details.  It was very satisfying.

#39 Apple Struggles 2/23/19

I like apples, to paint that is.  I used to eat apples all the time, but now, for unknown reasons, they seem like trouble.  If Dave is cutting one up, and he gives me a piece I eat it, and it tastes good.  But left to my own devices, I don't go out of my way to eat an apple.  It's a mystery.

What's not a mystery is Loew-Cornell 7000 Round #5.  I bought this paint brush years ago, some really great sale combined with my pre-knowledge that I would be needing high quality paint brushes eventually.  It still had the little protective plastic around the bristles.  Today was the day it was finally going to be used, I felt it was time.  Well, it stinks for oil-painting.  I felt like I was painting with a cooked piece of spaghetti.  The slightest bit of pressure on the canvas and the thing would just lay flat and limp.  I kept at it for the whole painting, just didn't want to give up too quick on it, something might happen to redeem its usefulness, one never knows.  Yeah, no, nothing.  Ahhh, youth. 

But what I love is my new tube of "graphite"....it's like a vintage seafoam blue-green-gray.  I love the color for the bottom background.  It's a Hobby Lobby sale item, not the greatest quality of oil paint, it spews paint then oil then paint, but the price is great when 50-off rolls around every 3rd week.

#38 2/22/19 Rose Regroup

Tonight I decided I couldn't let that rose get the best of me.  I was going to take my time, and see if I could get a rose down on the canvas without looking at it with embarrassment.  Here's what happened.  The side roses went down really quick; the main rose I stressed over, kept repainting the dark spots and the light spots and blending the reds and adding purple and scratching the edges.  Finally I decided, enough!  We're calling it done, we're calling it OK (at least, not embarrassing).

#37 2/20/19 Batman IV

Back home in Maryland, with lots of snow coming down.  We were able to pick up Batman early this morning from his kitty-hotel (thanks Widow's Mite Farm); the snow had already started but Dave and braved the elements and brought the Batcat home safe and sound.  When I was picking something to paint, I came across all my great pics of the cat and decided, what the heck, I'll do one more.  He's so photogenic.

#36 2/18/19 Pear

I liked the wrapped canvas result, so I decided to splurge and use up another one.  This time a pear, a moody pear.  I like it, especially when it is next to the moody apple.

#35 2/17/19 Repeat Red Apple

So that blank pink canvas....thought I would try out Carol Marine's idea to paint over a canvas that was pre-painted with another color, and leave little bits of the under color show through.  Went for the same dang apple, definitely not attempting another rose in front of the parents.  This apple was free-handed, that's right, I couldn't do my chalk carbon copy because the pink canvas was just a tiny bit damp.  So the apple's a bit thinner and taller than the actual, but still recognizable.  Not a lot of pink is popping out.  Another difference: this canvas is wrapped around a wood frame, 6 inches instead of my regular flat 5.  Found them half price at Hobby Lobby.  I painted the sides different versions of deep blue.  It's moody; yesterday's apple is happy.

#34 2/16/19 Red Delicious

This day was in spent in Michigan at my parent's house.....my Dad bought my Mom roses for Valentine's Day, so I snapped a picture and attempted to paint some roses.  It was terrible, really terrible.  I wiped it off, didn't want any family members to see how terrible it was, and pity my new hobby.  I now have a blank pink canvas.  Then I went to my brother's house, the kids got their oil paint lesson...and we all painted fruit (they did GREAT).  This is my eyeliner apple, painted on a fresh 5 inch canvas:

#33 Golden Delicious 2/13/19

I'm behind schedule.....picked up the quilt from the quilt-lady, she got it done in a week, and it's gorgeous!  So I spent the last two days getting the binding made and sewn to the edges.  Wrapping the binding to the back side of the quilt is a hand-sewing job, the quilt is queen sized so the perimeter is quite large!  It will be a car-ride-project, perfect when you sit for long periods....makes the time go by quick.  So, point, I am remiss in my daily painting.  I did a quick technique today, selecting the trashiest brush in the collection.  It's a very stiff bristle #4 round.  It not only put down the paint, but took it off at the same time, weird.  But I decided I keep going with it.  At the end, I get out a thinner, softer brush to do the stem and the highlights....then dinked around in the middle of the apple.  Overall, even though it's rough-looking, I like it.  I would eat this apple.

 

 

 

#32 BatCat, part 3, 2/10/19

Decided since I had two Bat Cat paintings, one large and one small, that there needed to be a third medium sized.  This is 5x7 inches.  One day they might be grouped together.  There he sits by the back sliding glass door, beckoning for someone to open it for him, even though it is late at night.  Dead-Eye is out there somewhere waiting for him to come out and play, that is, if you call just staring at one another playing.  We don't know who Dead-Eye belongs to, he doesn't have a collar.  But he's well-fed.  And, as per his name, he's missing an eye.  Perhaps one day I'll get a photo of him and paint his sad little face.  Actually he looks more angry than sad.

As for this painting, the floor is lacking something, it's too flat (ha, that sounds crazy if taken literally).

#31 Drink Scotch Whisky All Night Long 2/9/19

Saturday night and the feeling was right, Dave agreed to have a "Paint and Scotch" night with me.  I showed him some daily paintings on pinterest, with Scotch as the subject.  Dave loves good scotch, as well as a reason to share it.  He may have been humoring me, but I think he did GREAT.  His part of the prep was to select the scotch and pour some in his best glass.  My part was to photograph, crop and print.  I looked at what he poured and said, "Holy mackerel, that's too much!  None of the pinterest pictures employed THAT MUCH whisky!"  So he fixed it by drinking part of it.  He's so clever!  The ice cubes were a challenge for both of us.  But Dave caught on to the importance of painting the shadows, and his first painting shows great promise!  He's going to use his painting as wall-paper on his phone!

Dave's Number 1

Deanna's Number 31

#30 No 3-D 2/8/19

Coming up on a trip to Michigan soon.....the brother from California is coming into town, the other 3 brothers and parents live in Michigan, so Dave and I are headed up, a family reunion of sorts.  Dave thinks it's a crazy idea to take time off in February and spend it in Michigan.  Alas, blood is thicker than mercury.  So I have nieces and nephews afoot up there, and I'm going to make them paint (I mean, ask them nicely of course).  And I want a decent project for the assorted ages, I think they range from 9 to 16 right now.  Tiny painting, something personal, their initial in a fancy script, surrounded by lovely oily colors.  This is my prototype.  I hate it.  But it's a good thing I figured this out early.  I was thinking it over on my way to work the next morning, "Why do I dislike the D painting so much?"  There was nothing about the thing that I enjoyed.  Did I choose a bad font?  Are the jester costume colors too much?  Well, one thing I enjoyed was trying out my idea to lay this speckled cleaning rag over it, to see if it would create subdued polka dots (it did).  Suddenly the reason hit: what I enjoy with the paints is seeing something 3-dimensional emerge from the 2-dimensional surface.  The D was flat, thus without spark.  It will be a wiper.

The kids will be painting apples, by the way.

#29 Pear w/ Eyeliner 2/7/19

Back to a fast and furious painting technique, this time a pear.  Used the brown paint to "draw" the subject.  The pear ended up looking "accentuated", like women's eyes look when they put on their Cleopatra eyeliner.  While I would feel grossly inappropriate and cheap with Cleopatra eyeliner applied on my face, my Pear handles it well.  I will play a bit more with this technique.  My brushstrokes otherwise were an attempt at just put something down and live with it, but I ended up fussing over the interior of the pear.  I will play with that a bit more too.

#28 Bok Choy, 2/6/19

Since my "tomato tango" went so quick, I thought I'd try for a second on the same day.  Something a little harder: the Bok Choy photo that's been on my mind.  I love the shape of bok choy, and I wanted to use another of my tiny 4x6 canvases which the bok choy fit.  I felt ready to tackle it!  And then, screech, I fell into the familiar fussing over edges.  When I look at it today, I shouldn't have centered it on the canvas. I should have done a bit more up-close and off-center.  And that dark velvet background.  Not sure how that came to be.  I put the leaf veins in with the rubber-tipped paint remover.  At the end, I mushed up some of the edges, because the point was to not stress the edges, so I had to at least give the illusion that the edges were "whatever".  But I was successful in not paper-toweling the brush-strokes out of the painting.

#27 Tomato Tango 2/6/19

Had to take a paint hiatus.  Quilt duty called, my deadline for finishing my son Joe's quilt top was Monday and I made it by the skin of my teeth.  It turned out beautiful.  I dropped it off at the quilt-lady's house (she's got a long-arm quilting machine, and can turn around a quilt in a week).  If you had known me several years ago, dropping a quilt top off to be quilted by someone else AND quilted by machine, well it was just out of the question.  But life changes.  I am willing to make concessions.  And Carol, the quilt lady, does beautiful work.  It should be ready in time for my road trip to Michigan....a perfect time to sit and stitch the binding.

But while I haven't allowed myself to paint during the quilt-push, I did read some more of Carol's (the daily painter lady) book.  This chapter was tough to take.  She described the quintessential new painter.  And she described me: stingy, fussy, oblivious to a soft edge, refusing to clean the brush in between colors, etc.  I sort of wanted to cry.  But I'm post-menopausal, so the crying didn't happen.  Today was my day to get back on the horse.  I painted these tomatoes in like 10 minutes.  Take that Carol Marine!  I tried Carol's method: draw it with brown and then wipe it dry; do the subject first, not the background; find the intense color, put that down first, then the shadowy part, then the reflected parts, then the casted shadows, then the background, and at the end put in the bling (the highlights and stems).  Boom, done.  Messy looking, but quick....and it has much more of the "painterly" quality that Carol describes.  The brush-strokes are visible and I left them alone.  No paper-towels today.