#205 & #206 Peach and Pear 9/26/19

The last 2 of the 4 inch canvases, completed.  I thought, hey if I'm not progressing, let's take a step back and see what happens.  Let's revisit the eyeliner style.  So that's what happened tonight.  A heavy dark line was painted yesterday, dried enough overnight to let me paint the fruit without smearing the dark paint into the fruit.  Although it also dried enough so that you can still see the edges of that wide drawing inside the fruit.  But it might be that I'm the only one who would notice that.  I like the pear, but I'm on the fence about the peach.  It looks very cartoon-ish to me.  But the colors are true, so that helps.  The background on the pear didn't come to me naturally, I kind of had to think, and think some more.  Finally, I decided that the three colors inside the pear would compete and possibly lose if I went with anything heavily pigmented.  So, I decided on a pale, pale yellow....ever so neutral....and kind of blah.

#203 & #204 Radishes and Grapes 9/25/19

Moving forward, even though I might be stagnant.  I have 4 more 4-inch canvases, doing more fruits and vege's on these.  I decided on another try at the radishes, some grapes (which I've been avoiding for months), a peach and a pear.  The radishes were first, since I was familiar with this photograph.  I had painted them way back, 2/24/19, #40.  My cousin Justin ended up with that painting.  I donated to a charity cancer auction, which I attend every spring.  It went on the silent bidding table, and got one pity bid from my cousin Lori.  I over-bid her to take the thing home, with my tail between my legs.  When I brought it back to the table, she protested.  That's when Justin piped up and said, "Oh wow, you painted that? I'll buy it!"  I protested this as more excess pity, and he said that his Mom used to make him pick radishes in the garden as a kid and the painting brought back a memory.  So I gave it to him, no pity money needed.  At the time, it was my favored among favored paintings.  Let's put the two side by side here, to show my complete and utter lack of progress:

Well, they're two different styles again.  So let's not compare.  The grapes turned out well though.  In the beginning and middle of the grapes I was considering wiping it off, it just looked like a canvas with random circles on it.  But after I added the tiny bits of stem and the shadowing and highlights, it came alive as grapes.  My shadowing on the bottom sort of happened by accident, not sure how it ended up blue.  Then I added some black directly under the bottom grapes, just kind of danced the flat edge of the brush around the bottom-most grapes.  The plan was to blend it into the blue, but I skipped the blend, left it as is.  Went to bed, so will have to do the peach and pear tomorrow.

#199 - #202 Assorted Fruit and Vege's 9/24/19

I got a couple of 4 inch canvases with my latest Dick Blick mini-easel order.  I tested them tonight.  I decided I kind of like this size.  It is decidedly small, but not tiny.  I think they would look good in a grouping.  I went back to fruits and veges.  I spent about an hour perusing all of my photos, looking for something to stir my soul and was getting nothing.  Then it struck me, yesterday Daily Paintworks made one of my "old as the hills" paintings, from Feb 16, it was #34, a red apple, very simple and not 3-D-ish or painterly enough (for my current taste) a "Facebook Pic of the Day".  I can do a much better apple with nearly #200 paintings under my belt now!  Let's test it!  So I did two apples, a pair of yellow peppers and a purple "Bermuda" onion.  They're better than #34, but not THAT much better than #34.  Progress was assumed maybe?  Let's not think about it.  It would be a horrifying discovery. Let's let ourselves get distracted with the fact that pale orange on my paintings come through as bright yellow on my photographs.  Yes, look at the yellowish background on the Bermuda onion - yet as I sit here and look at it in real life, the background is tan-ish orange color!  Outrage!  Ok, perhaps we should assess the progress of this months in the making oil painting "distraction".  These 4 new paintings are a bit more "painterly" and I was much more relaxed as far as making decisions about color choices and shadows than I was with #34.  Let's put the pics side by side here, I always notice fresh things when I import the pics for this dang blog:

#199, painted 9/24/19

#34, painted 2/16/19

Well, hells bells, I'm not sure one looks more mature than the other.  The younger one was part of my eyeliner phase, and I still like that look.  I suppose it's not the end of the world if I'm not really progressing.  Let's look at the other 3 paintings:

#202 Bermuda Onion

#201 Yellow Delicious

#200 Two Yellow Peppers

#198 Red Heels 9/23/19

Just one painting tonight....wanted to try for two, but it just didn't happen.  I'm on a shoe theme.  Red high heels - likely my most despised footwear ever.  For some reason, women in red high heels look ridiculous to me.  So, I painted a pair.  Not a real pair, but a tan pair of heels that I found on Pexels, and I transposed red into it.  I used more of my naples yellow - my new favored background color.  The red of the shoes is a mixture of cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson and white.  After the shoes I painted the underneath background area next, and there was still some red from the shoes on the brush so it turned the naples yellow a bit fleshy.  But I ended up liking that color underneath.  Then for some reason it looked like it needed a 3rd color.  I bought a color wheel two weeks ago, when I dropped off the fundraiser painting at Howard's Art Store, but I couldn't find it to help make the decision on what the other color should be.  It was the color wheel's big moment, the first time it would be used instead of me guessing, and it was MIA.  Drat.  There was still some moist Bob Ross Green left on the palette, amazingly, and I took it as a sign that that was the color that should be used.  It's just a smokey bit of it in the upper right corner.  Fast and loose is the style on this one, just like the type of woman who would choose to wear these shoes!

#197 Mary Janes 9/22/19

I saw a painting on Pinterest of a tiny pair of Mary Jane shoes, and thought, "Awww, they're just a cute as the white leather Stride Rites!"  I looked for a cheap pair for my still-life shoe fodder, and found these on Ebay.  Totally weird hobby I've got going here!  Buy old shoes that don't fit anyone I know, photograph them in contrived "somebody just kicked these off" poses, and then paint them on tiny canvases.  But look how cute they are!!!  I tried to keep the style quick and spontaneous.  I had Bob Ross Green left-over on the palette from the fish-bowl flower painting, so that (by default) became my background color.  I thought "uh oh" after the first few strokes went down, "not very feminine, or juvenile either".  I lightened it up with some white, and then I felt better about it.  I pinked up the inside of the shoe, in order to feminize it a bit.  I used my rubber-tipped "brush" to make the stitching (ie took paint off), something I've done with nearly all the shoes I've painted so far.  It's a 5x5 inch canvas, and the shoes are nearly life-size, even on the small canvas!

#196 Fish Bowl of Flowers 9/22/19

This painting started last fall....a still-life (they were ALL still-lifes) during the oil-painting class I took at the Delaplaine.  Some of the flowers were dried, some were live, some were fake....  The only flower I liked was the small sunflower....but the whole table had to paint the same thing, so I couldn't play floral re-arranger.  The painting, never completed, has sat in the pile of classroom paintings on a chair in our computer room.  I had a great time in that class, but when I look through those paintings, they are all atrocious.  But this one, I thought I could rescue it, even though the flowers ended up going off the top of the canvas (poor planning).  So I set to work tonight to repaint some of the flowers, change the background, the foreground, the shadows, the leaves, the vase.  I like it much, much better now.  Like, not love.  There's maybe two more from the class that I may attempt to rescue.  But, not tonight.

#194 & #195 White Cat, Night Earth 9/21/19

A small field trip to Vermont got in the way of painting this past week.  Got back into it today.  Two more tiny easel painting.  A white cat that I met at Jumbo's Pumpkin Patch last weekend when I dropped off some earrings for the Craft Attic.  The little girl who lives at the farm wanted to show me her cat, who "really likes her, but was stuck and needed help."  We found the cat, just fine, but in a semi-protected area from the little girl.  This is the pose I found the cat in, looking to see if the little girl was going to actually make it into its hiding spot. Really the cat was very patient with the little girl, allowing it to hold her in various precarious positions.  I've got several photographs that I would love to paint, but figure I should ask her Mom first.  The cat is all white, and quite clean for a barn-cat.  I only had trouble painting his eye and mouth, but by the 3rd or 4th try I was happy with the outcome.  The Earth painting was a bit more difficult.  Well, mostly just the sun was difficult, and I'm still not sure I'm done with this one.  It is showing the night side of Earth, Europe....though I didn't try very hard to be sure the land vs sea lines were accurate against actual maps of the Earth.  Tap, tap, tap is how I got all the light-dots.  It's not as dramatic looking as the photograph, so I can't say I'm that happy with it.

#192 and #193 Wren and Robin 9/15/19

Two more birds, this time on little easel size canvases (3x3inch).  First, a wren, which I've wanted to do for a while....and last Friday I figured out why.  My cousin Lori was having an "estate sale" of all of her Dad's possessions that hadn't been claimed by any loved ones.  I hung out with her for a bit during the sale, with another Uncle (Uncle Phil, one of the 4 brothers), and my cousin was showing us all of the records her Dad kept.  Lots and lots of ancient documentation!  One of the things he kept was copies of all the paperwork that went along with his mother's passing, my grandmother.  Among that was the list of the "round the table" claims being staked by each of her 5 children...one of those children of course is my Dad.  Her will stated that they would draw straws for a sequence, 1 through 5, and go around the table and state an item that they wished to take...keep going around the table until their wants were exhausted and then the balance of her estate could be sold.  I remember my Dad asking me if there was anything that I wanted, so he could put it on his list.  I told him that I liked the small framed painting of the bird on fabric that hung in her living room.  Well, what do you think was #1 on my Dad's list of claimed items?  "Framed Wren"!  I forgot to mention that to him yesterday when we spoke....I really didn't think he'd make that his #1 pick, but he did.  More evidence that he loves me!  That wren has hung next to my front door since my Grandmother passed, which was in 1993.....more evidence of how much I loved her!  (Plus, that I still really like that painting.)

I also painted some sort of robin, although I'm not sure that's a correct ID.  I started both birds out with a background color, like I did for the water glass.  I used Naples yellow for the wren and rose permanent for the robin.  I love the wren, but am considering wiping off the robin.  I put the second layer of background down around the robin, hoping to tone down the fluorescent pink with some graphite.  It turned a garish purple color. Then I put some orange over top of that, hoping for something in the brown family.  Not sure what color I ended up with.  I leave for a training trip to Vermont tomorrow, and will reassess this one when I get home.

Nana's Framed Wren

Changed the background color again after I got home!

#191 Water Glass 9/14/19

I was feeling sick all day....got myself a shingles vaccine yesterday after work, and today I felt flu-like all day.  With a weird  exception though.  Today was the "Stained Glass Vendor Extravaganza" in Frederick, it only comes once a year and I've always missed it.  Today I vowed to make it, so I had to go even though the vaccine was kicking my butt.  While I was perusing this extravaganza of ideas and color and people I didn't notice a thing about nausea or headache or feverishness or lay-down-now feelings.  I got to the check-out area (who can go into a glass shop and not buy glass???) and I thought perhaps the vaccine side-effects had run its course, but as I stood still, waiting my turn at the register, bam, sick again!  I got home and took a nap, then stayed on the couch and called my parents, then ate some dinner that consisted of crackers and a smidge of hummus.  I was going to go to bed, but because it was Saturday and I was off work I HAD to paint something (or else suffer guilt and self-loathing).  I brought up my photo stash and said: simple.  I ended up with a photo of a glass from the basement bar.  It has lovely faceted sides, so I snapped some pics a few weeks ago.  In my delirium I put the tracing down and said: finish quick.  I smushed orange paint around the perimeter of the glass, then wiped it dry with a piece of scrap fabric so I wouldn't have to fight with it coming on too strong with the next layer.  I put Light Graphite on next, with some white mixed into on the light-source side.  Three quarters of the canvas was covered, so I was feeling on track.  I continued with crazy picks of color for the glass, some red near the bottom, some terra verte, some black for the edges, why not, some of my new Naples Yellow, get it covered and go to bed!  I look at what I did, I like it, but it feels like a stranger might have painted it.  More painterly than I'm used to, kind of like my crab paintings but I planned all of the painterly stuff on the crab paintings.  The water glass just happened.  Carol Marine said something hilarious on one of her recent posts, well actually her husband David said it.  That sometimes she gets into a painting trance, that the painting gets done but she can't remember the details of getting it done, and her husband has dubbed the phenomenon a "paint-gasm".  Given my feverish state I'm not sure that's what happened, but I'll take it!

#190 Paul's Boots 9/12/19

I've been too busy, busy, busy....but tonight decided, no matter how late it got, I was going to paint something before I went to bed.  It ended up being Paul's boots.  Once I got the sketch down I realized I was going to have to do laces, uggh!  But they were round laces, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad.  And it wasn't.  The laces were the very last thing I painted...they were bare canvas white stripes right up until the end.  And since I had to get up at 5 AM the next morning, I sort of rushed the whole thing.  I think that helped me keep the painting loose and not over-blended, like I tend to do.  Joe looked over my shoulder as I finished up, and I asked what stood out as "not right".  He said the red parts were too red and the orange parts were too orange.  So I did tone those two bright spots down, and was thankful he pointed that out.

On a side note....I actually hired a house cleaner.  My lack of attention to the house was driving me nuts and since I got a small promotion with a small increase in pay at work, I decided to dedicate it to someone who would pay attention to the dirt.  Dave's bachelor-brother passed me the name of his house cleaner...she's been here 3 times so far.  First time alone, second time her sister came and helped her, third time she had a new employee she was breaking it (as she told me).  The new employee was dusting the living room....and my wet giraffe painting was laying out flat to dry, and she "dusted" it...fingerprints in the paint at the bottom and an orange smear of giraffe body paint into the sky.  Gone were my nice giraffe spots!  Yikes!  Being oil paint, I was able to fix it...it took about an hour to get it back to the original look, and his face might actually be a bit better with this second rendition.  My biggest concern was that the oil-paint on the dusting rag might have been subsequently smeared over other pieces of furniture being dusted!  Oh no!  I didn't find anything amiss, and the house cleaner was very apologetic when I told her about it.  I'll be keeping my wet paintings out of harms way with the next cleaning appointment!

#189 Giraffe 9/8/19

I got rather busy the past few days, knew I should get back to painting something, but wasn't sure what should follow the fish.  I was putzing around with my matboard cutter, figuring out how I could package my paintings so they wouldn't get scratched up.  Transporting them back and forth to the farmer's market, in and out of the cute vintage suitcase is taking a toll.  Came up with a "solution" to using a matboard backing, but allowing the writing on the back to remain visible, while also creating a frame-able option.  Since oil paintings look somewhat silly behind a beveled matboard, I decided to put them in front of a beveled matboard.  I think it creates a somewhat "floating frame" type of thing if you then put the matboard in a shadowbox frame.  So with the one piece of matboard I had laying around I cut seven 8x8inch squares (should have been eight, but I mis-measured one), bevel-cut out the centers (though the bevel isn't really needed) and linen-taped the canvas to the matboard from the back....then slid it into an "archival" clear cellophane wrapper.  Looks professional, I guess....my reservation is that it is missing the tactile sensation of touching the canvas.  And the canvas "on the front" of the matboard just looks a bit wacky to me right now.  I'm hoping it's going to grow on me.

Tonight, while trying to remember the term "floating frame" so I could use it in my "framing suggestions sticker" that I placed on the back of each packaged canvas, I scoured Daily Paintworks, because I knew I had seen the term there somewhere.  I went into the ArtBytes section, and wound up watching a free video that Carol Marine published showing her painting some orange slices.  It was sped up, with music and within 7 or so minutes it was done.  New incentive to paint something!  7 minutes, no problem!  Multiply 7 by 12 or so, and I finished "A Giraffe".  Found him on pinterest - while looking for fish.  It is taken from a vintage animal book.  I doctored the environment a bit, but I liked the spots again, just like my reaction to putting the spots on the fish.  He suddenly became more interesting once I added spots.  He's what I call "impossibly tall".

Packaged Canvas, back-side

Packaged Canvas, front-side

Packaged Canvas in an 8x8 inch Shadowbox Frame

#185 thru #188 Fish Series 9/2/19 thru 9/4/19

I saw more fish painting on Pinterest and decided they were a perfect subject for my 12 x 4 wrapped canvases that I bought "3 for 1" the other day: fish-sized.  I decided I should do "local fish" and to find out what they were I googled "best fishing Frederick County".  Links abound to all the creeks and what type of fish you're likely to catch where.  Lots of varieties are local: bass, sunfish, shad, trout.  I found myself some old pics and selected rainbow trout, brown trout, brook trout and small-mouth bass.  I would also like to do bluegills and sunfish, but their outlines didn't fit my 12x4 canvas idea....so perhaps another fish series in an 8x10 size might be coming up.  Two nights ago I got their outlines down, and painted dark brown up against the outline.  Last night I was able to get the rainbow trout and brown trout completed.  They looked off, right up until I added all their speckly spots and suddenly they became "interesting".  Adding a color-flowing background made them pop, and I am very happy with how they turned out!  Tonight I finished the brook trout and the small mouth bass.  I was worried the bass wouldn't measure up because there were no spots.  Luckily the stripes were there, and his visual interest is fine.  I think these would look best stacked on a wall....we'll see what happens!

Preliminary Work 9/2/19

#185 Rainbow Trout 9/3/19

#186 Brown Trout 9/3/19

#187 Brook Trout 9/4/19

#188 Small Mouth Bass 9/4/19

#184 Appalachian Trail 9/2/19

For my birthday, Dave took me out to dinner.  But first he stopped at Howard's Art Supply.  Said I could pick out whatever I wanted!  Well, I needed canvases, but I just bought 30 of them!  So I ended up selecting some green "Bob Ross" brand oil paint, 3 new brushes and a "view finder".  While we were there, Dave spotted a sign that said they were looking for entries for their "14th Annual Art for the Animals Fundraiser".  $5 will buy a small canvas board, bring it back by 9/14 with something you've painted, Howard's will frame it and it will be part of their Silent Auction that runs Sept 28 through Oct 12.  I'm in!!  Today I painted my entry, a labor on Labor Day.  I had spent the previous 2 days attempting to stop in the middle of the road in order to photograph the Hiker Crossing signs.  They're on both sides of the road as you head down into Smithburg.  It seemed like every time I thought to do this, there would be cars behind me.  Finally this weekend, I lurked in a driveway until the coast was clear and I got my pictures. I asked Dave for a critique, and he said one side of the road needed to be shadier than the other.  I asked Joe for a critique, and he said the road appeared slanted and the tree trunk had too many stripes.  I asked myself for a critique, and I said the dappled sunlight on the road looked palette-knife-ish, while the rest of the painting did not. I shaded the left side tree line, I leveled out the top of the road drop-offs, I repainted the tree trunk and I blended the dappled sunlight into smithereens.  Hi, my name is Deanna and I'm an over-blender.  There's got to be a support group for people like me.  I couldn't fit the entire phrase "Appalachian Trail" on the signage.  I wanted it to be vaguely readable, so the lettering had to be big enough for that....the palachi part of Appalachian is kind of smushed together in order to get the word "trail" in before I ran out of sign.  Both Joe and Dave said they could definitely tell the picture was of stick-people hiking.  It has 11 days to dry enough for a quick varnish....hence a subject matter that didn't involve red.  On Sept 28 they have an "Opening Reception" - I may go, pretend it's my gallery show opening, get myself a short black dress and dangly earrings to wear, and sunglasses maybe, work on having a moody artist-persona....it will be fun!