#93 4/28/19 Another Abstract Attempt

I got trapped in some abstract painting themes while perusing Pinterest today on my break at work.  Without looking at anything directly in front of me, I attempted an abstract tonight....mainly to use up the paint on the palette from the Toothpick Man just prior.  But also to see what would happen if I just winged it.  Many of the examples I looked at earlier in the day gave a feel that there was a distant horizon, so I tried to incorporate that idea.  I also tried to make the paint thicker.  I didn't get out the impasto, however....and the purple (from a Hobby Lobby tube, sorry) just wanted to disappear into the canvas and then show the canvas weave, regardless of how much paint was there.  I mixed in some high quality burnt sienna...still too thin, oh well.  I figured tiny abstracts wouldn't work, but alas this is tiny, only 3x5 inches.  I'll reassess whether I still like it tomorrow, maybe add more paint.

#92 4/28/19 Toothpick Gnome

When I was a kid, we had this little wood sculpture, a squat little man with his mouth wide open, and he held toothpicks.  He was in the kitchen.  I don't know what happened to the little toothpick man, my parents no longer have him in their kitchen.  But a few years ago, my Uncle Gene would frequent estate auctions and bring his treasures to my house, where I would photograph them so he could post them on ebay.  Every so often I'd find a little something I wanted within his treasures, and he'd let me keep it.  One day in his pile of whatnots I found the same little toothpick man....and he has since been in my kitchen, on the stove, cute as a button, holding toothpicks and reminding me of my childhood.  So this painting is a painting of a painted piece of wood....so it naturally has lost-detail.  Perhaps a good way to let go of the irrelevant detail is to paint something, then paint it again, with only the painting as the source (not the photo, or scene).  If it is still too fussy, maybe a third level down will fix it.

#89, #90, #91 4/26/19 Three Birds

Day off today, wooooohoooo!  I slept in, then got busy with some painting, as I had plans for the afternoon.  I decided to paint a bird.  I've been seeing cute baby bird painting on pinterest, and decided the subject was simple enough that maybe I could tackle it.  I searched for "free bird photos" and found a bunch, plus some Lynyrd Skynrd images.  The first bird finished up very quick....so I decided since I had two more identical sized/shaped/colored canvases, I would do a trio.  These are 4 inch wrapped canvas, with a mauve background color.  The second bird I fussed over a bit more, and the third bird had to wait till I got home from my afternoon plans, and I fussed over him too.  But the three of them are cute, and I tried to make the brush strokes obvious.  It occurred to me that when I first started painting a few months ago, the brush marks were intolerable.  But now I kind of like them.

 

 

#88 4/23/19 Old Red Truck

I took a pic of this truck at the Farmer's Market last Saturday, one of the other vendors said her husband forced her to take the truck that morning, and she made a face and said the vehicle was not easy to drive.  I told her I thought the truck was beautiful, and would she mind if I took a few photos for a potential painting.  Permission was granted.  It's a 7x9 canvas, so a bit bigger than my average.  It was pre-painted with a light coating of orange-red oil paint several weeks ago.  When I decided my project would be the truck, I rummaged through my stack of pre-painted canvases looking for something already red, so that's how I ended up with a 7x9.  I couldn't bear the thought of attempting this type of detail without my trusty broken brush, so I thought I might attempt to tighten up the wiggliness of my pathetic scotch tape fix job.  I pulled it apart and thought perhaps I could shove the brush end on some narrow dowel rod, or maybe a bamboo skewer.  When I inspected the diameter of the open ferrule (my new word today) it became apparent that the tail end of the brush was that same diameter.  It shoved right in and is now as sturdy-feeling as any of the other brushes I have.  That's got to be why this painting turned out nice.  Because my brush was back in business!  So, today I went a step further: the name brand of the brush was rubbed off, but the barcode number wasn't.  I googled that number and found several places to buy it online.  I've got a Blick order coming with 2 of the favored brush - just in case the back end of my latest fix goes kapoot and it's twin goes kapoot.  (It's a "Princeton Lauren Golden Synthetic 4350 Angle Shader 025", 7.4mm, $5.02, btw, which is listed as a brush for acrylics and watercolors.....not sure why oils isn't mentioned because it is working well in this medium!)  Dave walked through the room here just a bit ago, and I asked him to admire the red truck.  He said, "Wow, looks like an old international harvester."  The iH logo that I painted was super-blurred out, so how did he know?  The front grill, he said.  Boys know the weirdest stuff.

 

Top brush: the new "mangy" angle brush.  Bottom brush: the favored and now fixed angle brush.

 

#87 Joe's New Electric Guitar 4/22/19

Well, I DID celebrate my first sale with 3 new paint brushes, 3 small (5x3 inch) canvases and a tube of Terre Verte green paint from Howard's Art Supply store.  I think they might be hurting for business at Howards....as I was the only patron in the store on a Saturday, and the crew was eating, when I told them I was ready to check out, the one guy looked at what I had and said, "You just need to buy 3 more things."  Not sure what that meant, but perhaps if I had bought 3 more things he would have met a quota of some sort.  I used one of my new paint brushes and one of the small canvases on this particular painting.  I decided it was a good size and shape to do a close-up of Joe's new electric guitar he got a few months ago.  It's a beautiful pale blue color.  I couldn't find exactly the same brush that I had purchased there before, but I got 3 of the "angle" style brushes.  My favored broken brush is smaller than the 3 I was able to find at Howards this time, but I thought "hey, oil artist advice on the internet is full of "don't use small brushes.""  Alas, I wasn't a fan of the first new brush put into practice on this painting.  Its bristles were too thin, too floppy and it couldn't seem to hold the paint so that it was available to put down on the canvas.  I couldn't get into tight corners like I can with my broken brush.  So, this small 5x3 guitar seemed to take forever.  Plus, after cleaning the new brush after just one use, the bristles look mangy.  What the heck?!

#86 4/19/19 Cut Avocado

Yes, 5 paintings in a single day....granted, 4 were very small.  But this one is larger, at least by my current standards (5x7).  Unlike the plums, which were similar, this painting didn't cause me to question my sanity.  But also unlike the plums, I'm not emotionally satisfied with this one.  It's OK....and I think it might be the plate's highlights aren't as pronounced.

On a separate note, I set up at the Farmer's Market today (4/20/19) and brought a second table to set up several of my finished paintings (there were 3 that I simply couldn't part with: my paint night with Dave (Lagavulin), Beach Baby (Pryor) and my Fiesta Coffee Cup).  I actually sold my first painting!!!  It was one of the teacup paintings, the one that belonged to my grandmother....$10!!!!  So I'm on my way now to the local art supply shop (Howard's) to get myself a replicate of the broken paintbrush.  Heck, I might get two!

#82-85 041919 Four Pet Poses, Includes Batman

I thought the tiny canvases on easels turned out adorable, so I wanted to try a few more.  My favorite was the French Bulldog, so I tried 3 more dogs....and of course Batman, only because he's so handsome. I did them all in a single sitting, they went pretty quick, which surprised me.  I've been avoiding the paint all week.  The intentional abstract took the wind out of my sails.  I like the colors, but I don't like the layout, or the paint thickness, or the size.....so I'm thinking that since my initial goal when I began the oil paints was to be an abstract painter and I dislike the first one, perhaps I need to reset the goal.  Perhaps a lowly pet portrait artist instead.  My pet paintings turned out cute!  The dogs are all from that same news feed for "dog breeds" that the French Bulldog came from.  And of course Batman is always willing to pose for a photo!  I tried to keep more paint on my brush, so the finished product would be a bit thicker, with visible brushstrokes.  The cockapoo was the toughest, couldn't quite get the texture of his fur....and I continued to work on him after I saw the close-up photo here.  Still using my broken paint brush.

#81 041319 Abstract in a Day

Couldn't bear to do anything complicated today so I thought I might try copying an abstract idea I saw in a magazine.  Finished in a mere 2 hrs.  So, while it wasn't complicated, it took some solid effort before I deemed it "finished".  I used a long, large paint brush, with stiff bristles.  Most of the paint seems to stay in the brush with this type.  But eventually enough was in the brush that then it would allow some to leave the brush and stay on the canvas.  This is 10x10 inches, wrapped canvas.  The original didn't have blue in the painting, but it looks like a reflection on the glass is blue and I liked the blue with the other colors, so I incorporated it in my rendition.

#80 4/11/19 The Second (and maybe last) Key West House

Ugggh.  These Key West Houses, which looked so interesting in person, aren't looking so interesting in my portrait renditions.  The experience of painting them feels identical to what I felt painting the first two (and maybe last two) fancy china tea cups: tortured.  It has left me feeling unworthy of holding a paint brush at all.  Though, when I look at my finished and varnished tea cup paintings, they look OK.  Perhaps I'll look at these two Key West Houses that I've done a few months from now and think, "they're not as bad as I remember thinking they were."  Nahhh, they're bad.

#79 April Abstract, Floral Stencil

This one took a while; it was going to be a March Abstract for left-over paint, but I never completed the in-between areas, as I was waiting for it to dry enough for that task....and as I was waiting for it to dry I would keep adding more paint here and there.  Last night I finally added the in-between "black" color.  I recently came across an on-line article about mixing paint, and it talked about mixing black: "mixing all 3 primaries will create black; it is liking making a very dark purple and then adding its opposite, yellow."  And then it went on to say: "ultramarine blue mixed with burnt umber is a cheap and fast way to create black."  Cheap?  That was explained in the "how to mix brown" section: "since earth pigments are cheap compared to the primary colors, it is advisable to buy brown oil paint and not mix it."  For me, Miss Economy, the advice was like finding treasure.

From the beginning I wanted black in the in-between areas of this painting.  To help that effort, I started with a black wrapped canvas, it is 12x12 inches.  I taped down the stencil, and tap-tapped red acrylic paint in the holes, ie the flowers.  Then I oil-painted over those red areas, but wasn't very neat about it, figuring the neatness issue would be solved when I put down the black paint.  It worked as planned.  Only one area sticks out, one where I used more safflower oil in the black paint, it looks very wet still.  Hopefully in a month it will look like the other areas.

Of course of all my paints on-hand, the one I don't have is burnt umber.  So my black was mixed with ultramarine blue and all 3 browns that I do own: burnt sienna, raw umber and raw sienna.....equal parts of all 4.  This same article said that if you paint something black-black (ie with purchased black paint), it can look strange in a painting, as if there are holes in the painting where you've put the black....and the solution is to mix your own black.  Now I know how to do that....and if I need just a tiny bit of black I'll maybe still use my purchased black, but cut with a bit of raw umber.

Still using my broken paintbrush, btw.

Link to that awesome article: http://ranartblog.com/blogarticle04.html

#75-#78 4/8/19 Tiny Easel Paintings

I was off work today, so I made a list of everything I wanted to get done.....one of those things was the 4 tiny easel paintings.  I'd had my fill of food paintings, via the magnet paintings.  I'd seen tiny easel paintings before, and they were tiny reproductions of famous artwork.  Well, I didn't want to do that, but I realized that if it's going to be placed in a spot of significance like an easel (even a tiny easel), it should be something a bit more "special" than a red pepper.  I felt a bit bad about my school of fish being drawn from a picture I found via google, like I had stolen something.  So I looked for free photos and somehow ended up on a website called "pexels".....looked for another school of fish, and found 8 more photos that I thought looked "paintable".  I used two today, the sunset boat and the clown fish.  The seagull is cropped from a photo I took in Key West.  The French Bulldog is a photo I took a few weeks ago from when I clicked on one of those articles on a default internet news page, something about good dog breeds.  The cute breeds that looked paintable, I downloaded their pic....stolen?  I don't know the rules on that if you're just painting them...

#69-#74 4/6/19 Magnetic Produce

This project right here represents a blatant attempt to inflict my artwork on the public, as well as get closer to my goal of 300 paintings in 2019, and practice (of course).  Yesterday, upon waking and getting my carcass into the shower before work, I bent down to pick up some sock link off the shower matt.  To my horror, the sock link scattered in a 360 degree pattern and even without my glasses I could see that the lint was indeed a pile of ants.  Spring is apparently open for business.  What was so dang interesting on the shower matt, I don't know.  But on my way home from work I stopped at WalMart to get some ant traps.  Got them on the food side of the store (I know, right?) and had to walk caddy-corner across the store to get to the pet food section for an SPCA drive at work.  So along my route I had to pass the crafty section....and I found these teeny tiny magnetic canvases.  The retail section of my brain said, "Ohhhhh, cute, tiny magnetic painting will sell easy-peasy!"  I bought 6 as an experiment, they're only 2.5 inches.  This Saturday is the first Farmer's Market in town, so they likely won't be dry yet, but a month from now will be the debut!  Jewelry, with a side of tiny oil paintings...hopefully Josh won't mind me stepping outside of my "box".  I also got 4 tiny easels with 4 tiny stretched canvases.  They're next on my line-up.

04/03/19 #68 Fish School

One of the amazing things we did in Key West was visit "The Dry Tortugas" - a Key island even further out than Key West, accessible only via ferry or sea plane....it is a national park and bird sanctuary now, but it used to be a naval fort back in the early 1800's, then it was used for a prison once it's usefulness as a fort wasn't working out.  The ferry was booked, so we spent the extra $$ and took a sea plane, which was fascinating!  I'm so glad we did that!  Part of the Dry Tortuga adventure was a snorkel mask and flippers that they hand out to everyone upon getting to the island.  Coral grows all around the brick sea walls that encase the fort, the water is that clear turquoise that vacation brochures always show.  Dave and I snorkeled around the island, swimming alongside schools of fish.  Amazing.  Then today at work, while on break sipping coffee and perusing Pinterest, I came across a painting of a school of fish and was inspired.  So that's what I started to paint when I returned home.

This one took three days to finish, it's bigger than my normal daily endeavors, a 12x12 wrapped black canvas.  I found an underwater picture of some fish on google images, and used that for my drawing, but painted the fish in Key West house colors.  It was fun to do this one!  With the exception of my favorite paintbrush breaking.  It is an angle brush that I bought maybe only a month ago.  I have used this brush almost exclusively since buying it.  The metal sheath just snapped near a crimped area and the wooden handle separated from the brush end.  It looked repairable, I could insert the handle into the brush end a bit.  So I glued it, and taped it, but it's still wiggly.  Yet, I'm still painting with it.

04/02/19 #67 First of Many Key West Houses

We got back from our Florida excursion late Sunday, wow!  It was a great trip!  We got to laze about in Key West, and then we went to Tampa to spend a few days with my son Matt, his wife Eva and their 9 month old baby, Luke.  He is the greatest baby ever born, always happy, always interested in what's going on.  Matt and Eva are wonderful parents!  So, I spent yesterday after work sorting through the myriad of fantastic pictures I took over the previous week.  Key West has the most interesting old, little houses throughout their town, many built by ship-builders, painted all kinds of bright colors.  So I took a walk one day snapping pictures of colorful or maybe just interesting, houses....intending to paint them when I get home.  I have about 100 different houses to paint now!  Today, I decided to paint the first (of many).  For unknow reasons I picked up a wrapped canvas that had been painted with a background color of tan.  It's only 4 inches square, so it's tiny.  I really had 5 inch boards in mind for the houses.  The next one will be on that....and no under-color, as I want it as bright as possible.

3/22/19 #65 Coffee Fiesta

I really-really wanted a pair of those Faith Shoes to photograph, but they had to be worn well.  So as I was heading into the Safeway a few days ago, I realized the Good Will was just a few doors down.  So I stopped there first, to scour the shoe section.  No Faith Shoes, except for a baby-sized pair (which I bought for Luke, he'll be the hippest baby on the block as soon as he grows into those little shoes!)  But I did find this orange Fiesta Ware coffee cup and saucer....a mere $2.  Heck, the tiny shoes cost $3.  I took tons of pictures of my new treasure, then realized it would look so much better if there was coffee in the cup, duh.  I had today off, I was supposed to be packing for a week in Florida; we were leaving for the airport at 4:30 PM.  I packed, cleaned a bit, and then started in on this fun project, finishing it at 4:29 PM.