#183 Batman on a Nice Canvas 8/29/19

Batman has been such a good cat, always letting me paint him....all he asks for in return is some chicken from the dinner table.  This canvas is top-notch....one of those expensive ones I got at the 3 for 1 sale - but small, only 5x5 inch.  And I used my new tube of blue paint for the background: Prussian Blue - I really like the tone of this blue....it may be my new kid on the block.  Goodbye Lt. Graphite, hello Prussian Blue.  I'm thinking of doing a series of fish next, and this prussian blue may be a good background for all the different trouts I've got planned.  Though perhaps I should save the prussian blue for a saltwater series.  Lakes and streams round these parts aren't really blue.  I need to mix up a color called "muck" - I'm thinking red and green might do the trick.

#182 Little Crab on an Easel 8/28/19

One last easel painting remains....and the winner is?  A crab.  I've got the two big crabs, the two tiny magnet crabs....so here's an in-between crab.  I feel like something went missing with this one.  Perhaps it was the missing bottom layer of acrylic red?  Perhaps the shadowing is off?  No, definitely the shadow under the crab is missing.  Back to work.  Legs are too monochrome too.  Will fix it before releasing it into the wild.

#179 - #181 Three Easel Paintings 8/27/19

I decided I needed to get a few more paintings in before the end of August, Go Small, I said to myself.  Enough with the Small, Go Big, another part of me said.  I found a great sale at ACMoore: buy 1 canvas get 2 free, and on top of that a coupon for 20% off your total order.  I made the trek.  Came back with 30 wrapped canvases....the largest was 2ft by 1ft, the smallest 5in by 5 in.  There were plenty of 3ft, 4ft, 5ft, canvases for sale, but I was too intimidated.  What could I possible paint so well that it deserved to be so large?  Too soon for that, my internal rational self said.  I got home, sorted them on the book shelf, and picked up the 4 remaining 3x3in easel canvases and decided I would work up to the nice, large 2ft by 1ft.  Perhaps November.  For now, find something interesting to put on the little canvas.

First, Grizzly.  My friend Mary has a large, hairy beast - a rescued St. Bernard.  Last time we got together at her house for drinks and dip, I took some photos.  I love painting animals....they will be my gateway to humans perhaps. I cropped one of the photos of Grizzly and painted him, love it.  But will the owner of said-dog love it?  She'll love it because she's my bosom friend, but what if the Grizzly she knows doesn't stare back from the painting?  It's a risk.  But we have to start somewhere.  That's what I've been telling myself as I look back on some of my first paintings.  Uggg, I think, why did I think this one was finished?  It needs work!  But my internal rational self then says, "If you hadn't of painted that one in that way then, then you would have painted it that way at some point, and it's best that we got that point completed so that we can move forward to the next point...eventually getting to a place of utter comfort.  Without those tries, I'd be at a stand-still of just wishing.  Good job you, getting those tries completed!"  A little pep-talk.

Then I did a planet picture I found on the internet.  I liked the light coming from the back side of the planet.  And the red and brown together.  And the moons. 

Then I did a dare.  A few weeks ago I sold the Statue of Liberty painting.  Paul was home that weekend, and he and Joe were yucking it up with the idea that because I shipped it to Texas, it was someone wearing a MAGA hat who bought it.  Then Joe said that since Batman is my best-selling subject, that I could really sell paintings fast if I combined the American Flag with Batman.....hahahha, the two boys laughed at the thought.  So I told them I would test that theory.  So, here it is, Batman in front of an American Flag.  Well, what do you know - it's adorable!  Joe took a picture of it to send to Paul.  We'll see what happens when it's dry enough to varnish and present to the public.

#175 - #178 Four the Birds 8/19/19 through 8/22/19

I spent the week digging through "The Artist's Way" - a book recommended by one of the artists on Daily Paintworks, Taryn Day.  I bought her "Artbyte" called "An Artist on a Budget", with the hope of learning how she frames oil paintings.  I have this idea to use linen tape to put them on front of a matt board rather than behind it, and her description of the segment claimed it showed an inexpensive way to frame your art and led me to think, "oh good, someone else has already figured this out."  But her description of that was cryptic to me....with some keywords I was able to youtube my way to figuring out a potential method.  But my $5 was not misspent.  She recommended the the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron....and made it sound like you'd be foolish not to read it.  So I spent another $10 on Amazon and got the book.  So far, I kind of like her sale's pitch on "how to become/stay/live creative"  It's going to be a bit of an investment of time though.  Something I'm short on with this quest of 300.

I also spent the week doing birds, four of them.  I painted two previously: the chickadee and the sparrow - but on a much smaller scale (they were done on magnets).  This time they were on 6x6 wrapped canvases.  Such a luxury to have space to express the creatures, life-size!  I found several more pictures of birds that I liked on Pinterest.  I selected 2 more to paint....and voila, I have "The Bird Series" - 4 matching paintings.  They went quite smoothly.  When I say that, I have a brief thought, "perhaps I'm getting the hang of this, and it will now always go smoothly."  But really?  It won't, I'm going to hit more bumps.  And if I'm not hitting bumps, it means I'm probably in a rut. And if I'm in a rut, then my artist-child is being squashed (that's from the book, not me).  Before I am accused of being in a rut, I may do 4 more birds and call it a series of 8.  We'll see.

#175, 8/19/19, Chickadee

#176, 8/20/19, Sparrow

#177.....getting started

#177, 8/21/19, Tufted Titmouse

#178, 8/22/19, Cardinal

#173 & #174 Wild Roses on Boxes - 8/14/19 and 8/15/19

I continued on my flower rampage....even though I felt my first rose mishmash was lackluster.  I have had these two short wooden boxes gesso'd and attached to cardboard since March, waiting for the right project.  I had seen and admired these same size wooden boxes on pinterest painted with mishmashes of flowers that wrap the sides.  Now that I have been formally introduced to flower painting, the marriage proposal was made, and the boxes accepted the match.  Over the past two days, I painted away.  Except I doctored the rose recipe a bit....little dots in the center, and now they're wild roses.  These roses make me happier, they're cheerier than the regular roses.  Plus, I finally used the wooden boxes! I took pictures along the way (although, I don't have a pic of the boxes before they had their life redefined as canvases, which would have made for a fun "makeover" sequence).

I attacked it pretty much like the first rose project...three versions of red for the flowers with raw umber centers.  Yellow and blue in different proportions here and there to make for a water-colory greenery in the background...pretending like some were leaves and whatnot, but at the end using a rough brush to slightly smear it all together.  Go over everything again to be sure the nooks and crannies were filled (the wood boxes were a bit rough, even though I coated them with 3 coats of thick gesso....everytime I would think I had it all covered another white pit would jump out).  Second to last: add the "petals".  And last: add the center dots.

#172 8/13/19 Rose Tutorial Run Amok

I was perusing some youtube videos and came across something titled "how to paint a floral in oil" by Wilson Bickford.  He looks like the kind of guy who will give you advice on taking care of your car...not someone who wants to show you how to paint a rose.  Yet he's a painter, and I love that these painters are ready and willing to post how they create things - thank you to all of you!  So after I finished the red truck the other night, I pulled a blank canvas that I had attached to cardboard months ago and decided to paint one rose before going to bed.  Dang, it was easy.  The next day, with plans to finish the canvas with all kinds of flowers in a vase, the rose being one of them, I pulled the painting from the easel to begin and drat, it came off the cardboard.  It was a lucky happenstance, as I realized that when I put that one rose down I wasn't paying attention to the top vs the bottom (as per the print on the back of the board).  When I attach the boards to the cardboard, I draw a line on the cardboard that shows the bottom of the canvas.  Rather than at the top of the canvas, this rose was at the very bottom.  A vase was now out of the question.  Therefore I put roses everywhere - as if it was a helicopter view of a rose bush....or a vintage floral chintz fabric.  Alas, I got sucked into a television program and ended up only getting through putting in the first phase of the flowers - a red circle with a dark center.  I used the 3 reds that I have on hand: cad red med, alizarine crimson and rose permanent.  Since brown dries so quickly I thought it would be beneficial to paint the rose petals the next day, less colors being inadvertently mixed that way.  Then I thought, hey finish up the in-between parts too, with multiple greens and whatnot.  They looked like unfinished poppies rather than roses, and I kind of liked them...but there was the original rose, looking like a fish out of water.  So I kept to the rose chintz plan.  I'm not sure I love the finished product.  There wasn't that sense of satisfaction of capturing a "view" of something real.  These were just imaginary flowers, they never existed.  I didn't help them "live on".  This is what I speculate might be the reason for the lackluster response to finishing this painting.

#171 8/11/19 Another view of the Red Truck

I had this canvas sketched out for a while now, I think it was supposed to be part of the "vacation" painting pack, but it got lost in the mix of everything else.  I decided to tackle it tonight.  I keep thinking I'm finished, then I stand back and look, say nope, not done, rework another area.  Right now I'm looking yet again, thinking the front grill needs to be fixed.  Edges!  Edges!  They seem to make or break everything!

#170 8/10/19 Second Blue Crab

Six brushes, I used six brushes for this painting...holy moly that's a lot of clean-up!  This crab seemed to be a little tougher to paint than the first one.  Perhaps it was the different positioning, perhaps it's his creepy-esque face.  I tried to keep it as loose as the first one....attacking it in stages of color, not stressing over too many of the details.  I started it yesterday, getting barely anywhere before I didn't have any paint-time left.  And finished it up tonight.  I didn't try a different style border, mostly because (despite Joe's dislike of it) I am quite taken with it.  There was a small compromise: the sides I painted dark, rather than smudged blue.  I am likely to dink with it more tomorrow, we'll see how I feel in the light of day.

#169 8/8/19 Big Blue Crab #1

I finally had to mentally override my procrastination all week and get started on the bigger crabs that were on the menu.  The canvases were prepped, I just kept finding other nonsense to attend to each evening.  So after dinner tonight, the newspaper, the dishes, the this and the that, I sat down at the desk and got started.  My desk is a wreck.  I'd take a picture of it, but it's embarrassing.  Picture a 5 ft by 3 ft surface....15 generous square feet, with just a 16 x 9 inch plot of space in front of the keyboard without anything on it but paint smudges.  And that little part is full of canvas during the painting sessions.  I'm still attaching every canvas to a larger piece of cardboard with double-sided foam tape, seriously my best idea ever, as it allows me to handle the canvas easily at all kind of angles as well as paint the sides of the canvas without making a mess on anything important.  I keep the canvas on the cardboard to the very end, ie when the paint is dry enough to varnish and the varnish is dried.  At that point I remove it from the cardboard and if I'm gentle enough on the removal the double sided tape can be used again.  Every once in a while, on the canvas boards, the paper backing rips a bit and I have to glue it back down.  The gesso'd canvas boards are sometimes printed on the back with headings and spaces to fill in the name of the artwork, the medium, the artist and the date.....depending on the manufacturer of the board.  I also add my sequential number in my "Quest of 300".

Last fall, during my oil painting class at The Delaplaine, I was having trouble figuring out where all the paintings we worked on were going to dry....they ended up stashed on top of random things up high around the house.  A bit ridiculous.  When I started the idea of the Quest...knowing they would all be smaller things on cardboard, I decided I would need to invest in a drying rack, nothing too big, something I could put out of sight.  Well, hell's bells, those drying racks cost a small fortune!  Then I stumbled upon the most perfect contraption at a Home Goods store.  A metal stand, the kind we older folk used to put our LP Albums in, with the record player on the shelf above.  Only $39.95.  Sold!  I will share a picture of this one....it sits in the corner of my living room, not exactly out of sight, but it keeps me moving things into their proper stages of being completed.  The wet-wet ones sit horizontally on the shelves, after about 2 weeks they can be moved to the vertical slots, when I run out of slots I know it's time to varnish a few.  The Gamvar product that I'm using has instructions on it's website and claims the oil paintings can be varnished after you can no longer put a fingernail into the paint and that the oil paint will continue to dry for about 6 months even with the varnish applied.  I don't really paint that thick, although this crab that I just finished as some thick spots.

So, the crab.  Loose, I was going for loose (or looser than my normal).  I had a photo of a real crab with the most beautiful colors in his front claws.  I started with a 8x10 inch black wrapped canvas, painted the center red with acrylic (for a good under-color), put down the sketch (no, dang you, it wasn't free-handed, nag!), then began the painting itself.  Off-white parts first (with my un-polluted fresh brush, a 1/2 inch angle brush), then I mixed in some phalo blue with the white to get the different tones of blue for the crabby leg parts.  Low and behold, I grabbed a fresh brush to mix up the greenish-olive color for the crab body: white, cad-orange, perm-green-light.  And another smaller brush with the raw umber shadowy parts.  And another smaller fresh brush for the orange, yellow and purple parts.  Four brushes for one painting - it was a milestone event in my Quest.  I cleaned the brushes of excess paint along the outer edges figuring I'd paint over it at the end.  But I decided I kind of liked the primitive look about it.  I got mixed reviews on that decision from Joe.  He said it made the crab look less free....and that the blue on the edges took away from the blue on the crab...and that he dislikes guitars that have the neck the same color as the body and that's the same feeling he was getting with my border around the crab.  I'm keeping it this way though...tomorrow's crab will maybe have a different border style.

#165 thru #168 More Little Magnet Paintings: Flowers 8/4/19

Four more tiny magnetized canvases were prepped last week: flowers.  I haven't had much success getting flowers to look right, so I'm not sure why I decided to do 4 of them.  I had good photos....summer has brought rain and lots of healthy and hearty flowers.  The black-eyed susans are from the patch that surrounds my mailbox, the purple coneflowers are from the mean-spirited neighbor's yard, the nasturtium is from the outside of a Mexican restaurant I had lunch at a week ago, and the petunias are from a pot on my front porch.  I would just like to say, that the mean-spirited neighbor does a lovely job with her yard - it is a haven for bees and butterflies.  She just hates on anyone who veers off the sidewalk and into her grassy lawn.  When my boys were young, they and their friends would dare each other to run through her yard.  Even a dart in a few feet and back out earned a commendation of bravery.  So, when I was photographing the black-eyed susans at my mailbox, I looked up and saw the coneflowers beckoning.  I reasoned that I would be standing in Doris's yard to photograph the flowers at the fenceline...and Doris wouldn't mind me tramping through her side yard for the brief bit to take some pictures.  Yes, I was too lilly-livered to step foot in the mean-spirited neighbor's yard.

The flowers went easier than I anticipated.  I actually started them yesterday, when I had dark brown on the brush, I filled in the spots that would need dark brown on these 4 little canvases.  They dried just enough overnight that the brown didn't smear everywhere when I painted over parts of it (brown dries the quickest I have found).  The trick to the flower project here was to get the flower itself right, but wing the leafy parts.  With the exception of the nasturtium....those leaves (I find) are more interesting than the flowers, so I was careful with those.  I think these will be sold as a set of 4, they don't look as good singly as they do as a group.

#158 thru #164 Crazy Little Magnet Paintings 8/3/19

I have had another setback, no painting for a full week!  What the heck?!  Life just got busy and I couldn't get myself started on anything.  So Saturday came, I had a good day at the Farmer's Market (sold 4 paintings, woohoo!), so when I got home and finished lunch I got right to work with new enthusiasm.  I at least had prepped a bunch of tiny canvases last week....little 2x2 inch canvases that I put magnets on the back side.  I wanted to do some blue crabs.....I've seen paintings of blue crabs on Pinterest, loved them and thought, I live in the blue crab capital of the world (Maryland) so I definitely have to get on this train!  I free-handed the drawings (I know, I know, finally).  They aren't as cute as I had intended, and the style is a bit messy, but overall I like them.  I have plans to paint more blue crabs on larger wrapped canvases later this week.  I should be able to translate them better with more space (hopefully).

Next, I had in mind this wacky idea to paint something I saw on a t-shirt: ,,,, (pic of a chameleon).  The intent is to get the viewer to state "comma, comma, comma, comma, comma, chameleon" and a bit later say, "oh, like the song!"  I painted the chameleon, liked him, and added the comma's above him, hated that, thought about it a while and finally erased the comma's.  He just a chameleon now, no clever song-play.  He looks a bit pissed about it.

But I had another, original song-esque play-on-pictures that I kept.  It is a series of 4 magnets.  See if you can guess the song.  I won't reveal the answer till the end of the post.

The limes and the coconuts were easy to paint, as I have painted lots of still-life fruits and veggies by this point.  The drink ended up looking like a glass of milk, which it wasn't (even with a lime slice on the side).  I decided the only way to make it look like a cocktail was to add an umbrella.  Most intimidating was the doctor, but he came out OK.  I played with different hairstyles...and tried to fix his eyes several times (he looks like he's wearing mascara), but overall with only 1 human to my portfolio, I'm calling the doctor acceptable.

Naturally these 4 will have to be sold together as a set.  Harry Nilsson wrote the song "Coconut"  which is perhaps better known as "Put the Lime in the Coconut".  His heirs may want this magnet set.  If so, give me a shout.  The song is impossible to get out of your head once you start humming it!