#300 Bunny 4/15/2020

300

Well the day has finally arrived, I met my goal, 300 paintings!  Correction: met my goal, but late.  Better late than never!  I started with a Christmas ornament and ended with an Easter bunny.  The bunny needs a few corrections as I look at it now....the shadows on the left are illogical. His feet need some work.  And his background is a bit dreary.  I'll do a bit of touch-up on him tomorrow.

I celebrated this 300 milestone by buying some fancy paints from the Draw-Mix-Relax guy.  I should give him a shout-out, as he posts very generous tutorials on you-tube.  Thanks Mark Carder!  Shout out to my family, who graciously give me honest feedback on my work.  Shout out to the 70 some people who have bought one of my "early works" - that's what I'm going to call these 300: The Early Works.  Only 230 more to get rid of!  They are all fortunately small, and fit just fine in the spare bedroom closet.  I think I'll put in my last will and testament, "Please distribute all unsold paintings as a thanks-for-coming gift to those who attend my funeral."  With 230 to get rid of, I'm thinking each attendee will get no less than 6 paintings - depending on how many more goals I set!  I can see my funeral attendees now, shaking their heads, thinking to themselves, "Jeesch, even in death she's forcing her crafty ideas on us!  What the heck am I supposed to do with a tiny painting of an onion?" And then they'll smile graciously and thank one of my sons for the generous gift.  And my sons will be thinking, "God bless Mom for not expecting us to keep all of these paintings!  Maybe she was smarter than we gave her credit for!" 

     

#298 and #299 Two Shepherds 4/13/20

The bird house went quick so there was some time left in the evening.  I have 2 tiny 3x3 canvases left, and one of them was earmarked for my friend Lora's pooch, Guppy.  I had painted my friend Mary's pooch, Grizzly, a few months back on a 3x3.....and I wanted to do the same for Lora, but I needed a decent photo of the dog and didn't have one.  Finally, the universe gave me one!  In the midst of the pandemic, while Mary and Lora and I cannot go out on our normal excursions and discuss our lives, we are now texting updates about our lives.  Lora sent a picture of her dog next to one of her (grown-up) puppies who had come to visit.  I now had a good picture of Guppy!  Last fall, Guppy gave birth to her first litter, a bajillion puppies or so it seemed!  All of the puppies were given names from the movie "Finding Nemo".....Dory, Bruce, Crush, etc.  So I'm going to name this painting "Finding Guppy".  After a girl raises that many babies, she's absolutely got to find herself again!  I am very happy with the way Guppy turned out here; I thought her markings might be difficult to convey, but when I showed it to Dave and asked him if he recognized this dog, he immediately replied that it was Lora's.  Success!!!!  Hopefully Lora recognizes her too!

The other 3 inch canvas?  The same German Shepherd that I've done twice already.  He's so stately!  I was halfway into doing this when it looked like a complete wreck.  The black that I had mixed for the bird hole suddenly seemed very blue.  I had to scramble to tone it back with some brown, next thing I knew the whole dog became browner.  After some panicky moments he started to come together.  I may do a bit more work on him later, especially around the mouth.  You can tell I was getting tired!

#297 Bird House 4/13/2020

I was on Pinterest, collecting bird photos to paint.  This one caught my eye - first because it's a blue bird with nice colors, second because of the bird house, third because of the patina on the bird house.  What I didn't like was the way the bird was clinging to a smooth vertical surface, it looks unreal.  Three out of four, good enough, so I painted it.  I put the bird down first, then cleaned my brush of left-over paint on the bird house, figuring it was going to be a muddy color anyway.  I had just watched a video from the Draw-Paint-Relax guy on you-tube on how to mix your own colors.  A limited palette, start with a little of this, then more of that, then some counter-acting color, then a touch more yellow, oh no, add some blue, 10 minutes into it and you've got your first perfect color.  So I was resisting the urge to get a perfect color, because I value my laziness - no, no, once more - it's my economy!  The bird house was already recognizable due to the hole and the bird getting ready to go into the hole.  This bird house could be any color!  The patina in the photo was lovely, but alas I added colors willy-nilly, thinking I would blend them all into a wood tone once they were all on the canvas, and then add a seafoam green with a palette knife.  But once the house was painted, it looked like it was reflecting maybe a garden and I left it like that.  It has a weird water-color feel about it.  I did actually use some advice from Mr. Draw-Paint-Relax, I mixed my own black for the hole and the bird's eye...blue and brown make a nice calm black.

#296 Water Lilies 4/11/20

Carroll Creek in down-town Frederick, Maryland - it gets dolled up for all kinds of city events.  But it also has some just regular-old water lilies in it here and there.  I snapped a photo of them last fall. I've had this rectangular canvas waiting a while.  What to do with long skinny canvases?  Fish, check.  Elephants, check.  Pie, check.  Still one more to go.  Finally, it hit me - the water lilies!  A perspective that goes out far...so the canvas can be placed vertical.  Why didn't I see this before?  But once again, like the lilac leaves, my rendition of green is way-off the mark!

#295 Lovey Dovey Lilac Leaves 4/7/20

I had today off.  When I took the promotion at work last year, I was finger wagged from both my boss and my husband to "keep it at 40 hours!"  It is my first job that is not paid "hourly".  So previously, if the work demanded it, I would be paid over-time rates.  In healthcare, you need to keep it staffed safely and if coworkers were sick or on FMLA, you might be asked to work over - but you were rewarded with a nicer paycheck.  Well, that all ended with the new job and with (first) the software transition, (second) too many new instruments, and (third) the pandemic I now work crazy hours without the benefit of a nicer paycheck (as does my boss now too).  I start to get bitter every once in a while, as I feel like I have the lowest hourly rate of all my coworkers with unreasonable expectations of what a single person can handle in a day.  But then I get over it, or at least stop dwelling on it.  I took today off, to try and make up for some of the crazy weeks that have just passed.  I thought I would paint all day, but instead I tackled a few other projects.  I did get in one painting though.  One of my other projects was to clean up the two hydrangea bushes behind the garage.  Next to the hydrangeas is a forlorn looking lilac bush.  While our house was being built back in '93, we were living in my grandparent's house (it was empty, they had both passed away and it was stipulated in their will that their heirs had to wait a year before selling it).  They all thought Dave and I would buy it, but it was just too far of a drive for Dave who was working at Ft. McNair in D.C.  When our house was built, it was void of vegetation....and I was picking up plants everywhere.  Nana had a purple lilac next to the wash-house and a white lilac next to the water pump.  I pulled up some shoots near the edge of each and put them in the dirt behind the garage.  The purple one perished, but the white one took root.  Even now, 27 years later, it lives on - but it always seems to be just hanging on.  Joe describes it as a landscaping piece for a house of horrors - part alive and pathetic and part dead.  Each year I think I'm going to prune it back to nothing, and then I forget.  But while I was messing with the hydrangeas (which are very healthy), I spotted these two leaves on the lilac bush, grabbed my camera, and decided this was my painting subject of the day.  Nana and Grandpop, who lived together without talking to one another, recreated with a second chance in fresh dirt, finally come through with the lovey dovey leaves - which required one of them to break a bit, something apparently neither of them were willing to do in life.  My painting of such a sight: not that great.  But when I look at it from a distance, it looks interesting....so I'm thinking I won't paint over it (which was my first inclination upon finishing it).  Now that I see it here in the photographs, I'm thinking it deserves to be painted over.  We'll see.

#293 and #294 "Winter Street Girl" and a left-over paint "Palette Abstract" 4/5/20

I wanted to do another face, but this time not anyone I would necessarily need to recognize.  Nearby was a stack of old photos that Dave brought home from his mother's house.  He kept the ones that he wanted but he didn't know what to do with the rest.  I kept them as "ephemera" - thinking they'd come in handy for something.  One of those photos was a class picture, looks like it's from the teens or twenties....so it wasn't Bev's class picture.  I'm thinking it might have been her mother's class picture.  The only thing I know is that it is Winter Street School in Hagerstown, MD.  Most of the little girls have giant hair-bows....such an odd fashion, since they are so over-sized. So I picked one of those cuties and painted her.  It hardly looks like her, yet it was very satisfying to paint!  The best part was that her ears were covered with hair.  Hair is way-easier to paint than ears!

There was a bunch of paint left-over.  My energies were nearly gone for the day, but not entirely.  I grabbed another canvas and my palette knife - which I have never really used.  In my oil class at the Delaplaine, one of the other students told me he had recently taken an oil painting class where the instructor refused to let them use paintbrushes.  Everything had to be painted with a knife.  He said it was a great learning experience.  So ever since, I've had it in the back of my mind that I would tackle an entire painting with just a knife....and here it is!  I knew I couldn't attempt anything that needed to look like something, so I kept it abstract.  Though if you look at it just right, you can see a landscape.

#292 Three Pears in a Bowl 4/2/20

With the trauma of not being able to find Grandpop in my portrait of him, I decided to paint something not quite so personal.  Fake fruit at the ready!!!  While Christmas shopping in downtown Frederick, I came across a stash of fake fruit that I thought might be nice to keep for "still life" stagings.  So here's the first bit.  They look like pears, I didn't retouch them.  Success!!!

#291 Grandpop 3/29/20

I have this old photo of my grandfather, Melvin, known to his grandchildren as Grandpop, known to his children as Pop, known to friends as Scoopy.....and I'm not sure what his wife called him, they somehow reached a point in their marriage where they decided to never speak to one another, yet they lived together, he worked and she kept house.  It wasn't till my cousins and I were teenagers that we ever questioned this as odd.  Well any how, we loved them both very much and they loved us.  At our most recent family gathering my Uncle Tim handed us all a copy of this photo.  So, Grandpop has been sitting on my painting desk, next to the photo of my Uncle Gene....my deceased patriarchs, watching over my work.  I decided to paint Grandpop.  I like his even-keeled look, such a calmness.  I sketched it without benefit of tracing.  With the first layer of paint down, I saw my brother, my Dad, my uncles, but alas not my Grandpop.  Each day, another layer of skin, another touch-up on the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears.  I think the only thing I left alone was the hairline and the jaw.  I tried to keep a sepia-like tone, just like the photo.  While I still don't see my Grandpop, I see a relation, and I'll call it quits there!

#289 and #290 Teacup and Lipstick 3/28/20

Took another break, working too hard to prep the lab for the pandemic.  But this weekend I painted, and it felt good!  I sketched things myself, and just put 'er down.  I might not live through the pandemic, this changes how important details are.  The cup had painted-on flowers, but I decided nope, I'm leaving them off.  Now that I look at the photo, I might touch up things a bit tomorrow.  And probably the day after that, and the day after that....the Wallace painting from December has turned me into a perpetual re-toucher.  I'm not sure it's a good thing.

Next up was some lipstick.  I went to the drug store with the hubby a few months back to pick up some prescriptions.  While he was waiting for the drugs, I perused the make up aisle, and decided to stage a few photographs with some pretty lipsticks...then some fingernail polish.  I imagined these on a small 5x5 canvas, but for some reason today they went down on a larger 7x9 canvas.  It was pre-painted red.  So the pinks came out lovely.  Now that I contemplate the photo-shoot, akin to the pandemic, it's kind of gross that lipstick isn't sealed.  Kind of gross that I just willy-nilly took the lids off, twisted the lipsticks up, took a picture, twisted the lipsticks down, recapped them and put them back.  What was I thinking???

#288 View from Above the Clouds 3/16/20

I'm always thrilled to get a window seat on an airplane.  Then I take pictures out the window, beautiful sunsets, beautiful cloud formations, beautiful rainbows.  But the pictures never fully get how amazing it looks.  I decided though that this photo almost looked like an abstract, so I tried to paint it as such....though it doesn't really look abstract.  I'm on the fence about this one. I love the blues though!

#283-287 Five Paintings in One Day - Beware the Ides of March!!! 3/15/2020

I never got out of my pj's today.  There's a pandemic afoot, the president said stay home, self-quarantine, so I never left the living room or kitchen really.  I'm sneezing, but I think it is due to the pollen, not Covid19.  Dave went to Safeway and Cosco - thinking that perhaps he should bring home some meat.  We're good on toilet paper, so I think he felt like he needed to be doing something to prep for the "disaster of the pandemic".  The only meat at Safeway was 3 expensive cuts of beef - a porterhouse steak and 2 packs of short-ribs.  The meat department was cleaned out, the cleaning supplies cleaned out, the bottled water cleaned out, the TP an PT cleaned out.  So, we'll be eating well the next few nights with our expensive beef cuts.

I started painting today with the sea turtle.  I love the underwater photo, with the reflections on the water's surface.  This one took the longest of the 5 that I painted today, so it's a good thing I started with it, otherwise I likely wouldn't have finished it.  I wanted to paint all the rocks on the bottom, but just couldn't do it.  Hopefully, without the reference photo nearby, viewers won't see the missing details.

Next up was the kitty that lived at our hotel in Key West, a beautiful Siamese cat with blue eyes.  I left this one to be as simple as possible, and I'm tempted to touch it up - but I'm going to resist and leave it as it is.

Third, these two bears - perhaps grizzlies?  I found this photo on the internet, and it screamed "paint this one"!  So, today it did - and I really like how it turned out.  After I took the photo of the painting however, it seemed the "speaking" bear's teeth were a bit too white....so I'll be taking a look at that next.

Fourth - another pair of friendly animals, this time elephants.  Same deal - saw the photo and it screamed "paint this one"!  I started with red canvas, because if you look at the ears, there is a red reflection there....there must be a red sky or something.  And the background colors morph nicely from beige to orange to yellow up to green - I liked that part too.

Last, the cutest boy in the world - my grandson!  He got his first haircut, and his Momma sent me this picture to show it off.  He changed from a baby to a boy!  I finished it up and texted a photo of the painting to the Mom and Dad, and Dad says - yikes the eyes are scary!  Mom, replies how lovely it is, then Dad replies again and says "never mind, looked at the eyes again and they're fine"  At which point I laughed - I'm pretty sure Mom gave Dad a whack over the head and said "How dare you insult your mother's painting of our son!"  I worked on the eyes and the shadowing on the shirt, and sent another photo.  I still think the eyes might be a bit too dark, but tomorrow is another day to play with these things!

scary eyes

#282 Orange Tabby 3/14/2020

Ahhhh, a weekend with nothing planned!  Except for maybe getting called into work due to the pandemic.  I decided I would paint, just paint.  No side-gigs.  Just paint.  So I prepped 7 canvases, in case I got on a roll.  I selected 7 photos and put down the tracings. (Yes, yes, I know, I could have sketched these, but the Wallace painting still stares at me with that contorted face, the bad chin saying "Why didn't you just trace my outline, then I wouldn't look so freakish!")  I decided to start with the orange tabby from the internet - he is a super-chunky cat, much like BatMan.  The painting is a bit cartoon-ish looking, but still, I like how he turned out.  His eyes seem to be saying "You'll be sharing that chicken with me, right?"

tracings, then some values, completed

Kitty Cat from the internet

additional work done on Wallace, causing him to look worse

Today's Painting

#281 Magnolia Blossom, 3/4/2020

I started this painting a month ago...sketched it, and started painting.  I only got as far as the stems/branches.  Then it sat.  While I stressed over things at work.  And then I took a break for a week and went to our now-yearly sojourn to Key West, Florida.  Ahhhh, it was wonderful!  I came back somewhat refreshed, and jumped back into working on the 300.  Finishing the Magnolia Blossom was first on the list.  It was difficult to get the white petals against the white petals to show up.  Other than that, it came together pretty quickly.  I was painting on a red canvas, which I like because there is a nice warm undertone.

#279 & #280 Daffodils & Purple Droopy Flowers 2/1/2020 & 2/2/2020

I've been a terrible daily-painter this month.  I thought last month was bad....but here it is 2/18 and I'm just now talking about my last two paintings - that occurred over 2 weeks ago!  Miserable, terrible painting promises!!!  Life at work got in the way, not my fault, not my fault!  Well, really I could have done better, I was simply a couch potato, mentally spent.  Excuses, excuses.

So while Christmas shopping last December at Tuesday Morning, I came across a "coffee table book" - full of giant photos of beautiful flowers.  I gifted it to myself, so that I could use those photos for fodder for future paintings.  The daffodils were my first try at one of those pages.  I let the petals fall over the edges of the (wrapped) canvas.  It went down as I intended and I was happy.  The next day, it looked "off".  There was a petal missing in the topmost flower.  So I painted it in and I was happy.  The next day it looked "off" again.  The second stem was missing.  So I painted it in and I was happy.

The next flower picture I altered quite a bit.  The bell-shaped flowers had a checkerboard pattern of color on them.  My first attempt at that checkerboard was awful.  I decided to make it a solid color.  It then lacked some pizzazz.  So I made another attempt at the checkerboard.  Still awful.  Painted over that again, and what you see here is the fourth and final flower color: purple.

9x3 inches

5x5 inches

Both of these started with a red canvas, can you tell???

#277 and #278 Two Cats, an Unknown and Randall, 1/25/2020

With the pie painting completed, I was feeling good about myself.  Whenever I complete something that I've been putting off, I feel great.  Part of me wonders if I subconsciously put things off, so that I will have that sweet little high when I finally get to it.  Thinking, thinking.

Nah, I'm just lazy.

On the Daily Painting website I'm currently a big fan of two particular painters, J.Dunster for his (or her) cat paintings, and Ans Debije for her (or his) glassware paintings.  J.Dunster referred to a particular book he had growing up by Foster, How to Paint Cats.....I also had a book growing up called "How to Draw Cats" and I wondered if it were the same book.  I found it on a google search, and it was a different book than I had had.  I thought perhaps I could find some inspiration with this old book, found one on Amazon relatively cheap and bought it.  When it arrived the package was damaged and the book was missing.  Rats!  The PO stamped it "damaged, contents missing".  The seller on Amazon refunded me.  I found another copy then on eBay, and bought it - and it arrived in good shape yesterday.  Today I attempted one of the cats in the book.  He ended up looking really scruffy, and I re-worked him several times over the course of the day.  He still looks scruffy.  He was supposed to be an extra-fluffy kitten, but he looks like a grizzled old cat.  I thought if I gave him a collar, he might look better.  Eh.

5x5 canvas board, painted red to start

Then I started in on another kitty, this time a picture of Randall.  Randall was Matt and Eva's 2nd cat who sadly got very sick with a virus when he was only about a year old and he died.  He's buried in our backyard right next to Charlie (our beloved cat who died of old-age).  Eva said she'd like it if I painted Randall, so here he is as a kitten.  He's on a little 3x3 canvas so it can sit on the tiny easel.  He turned out perfect.  Why did this guy turn out the way I wanted but the other one didn't?  It is one of the great mysteries of art.

#276 Pie Cooling on the Table 1/25/20

I inherited a bunch of old rolling pins when Bev passed last year.  Nobody wanted them....so I took them.  I was going to give one to each of my kids, that would leave 2 for me.  That's 5 rolling pins Bev kept....she was a bit worse of a hoarder than me.  One of the pins was from Germany, and was worth a little bit of money on eBay.  She likely got that one when her (then) husband Jack was in the Army and she was pregnant and flew over and lived there, delivered a baby there (Dave), and by her own admission ate a ton of sauerkraut there.  She claims the reason Dave is so smart is because of her German diet.  I couldn't give these pins away, my kids wouldn't want them, would they?  I decided they would make an interesting display on the wall, line them all up.  I toyed with how to do this for several months.  Then one day I was set up at the Farmer's Market, and the man across the way from me who makes bird houses had some new projects set up for sale.  It was a board that you hang on the wall and railroad spikes were placed in such a way that you could store your wine glasses (upside down) between the spikes.  For hours I gazed at it, then in an instant I knew that those railroad spikes could also hold rolling pins.  He agreed to make my display board...Dave was summoned to bring the 5 rolling pins so the woodworker could have them for measurement purposes.  His daughter suggested some open space at the top of the board for some "balance".  I agreed, with the thought I would paint something at the top of the board.  So, for months now the board and the pins have been displayed in my kitchen.  But nothing has been painted in the open spot at the top.  I didn't actually like the idea of painting directly on that board, so instead I thought I'd hang a painting in that open spot....so I could swap it in and out of that spot on a whim.  For a while I thought I should paint a sign that said "The cook is armed!  Use caution if criticizing the meal!"  Or something to that effect.  But no, that might not seem as funny to others as it did to me.  It needed to be a pie.  And it need to be long but not tall, because of the open space dimensions.

Today I ended the procrastination on this project.  I had previously done a search of "pie paintings" to see if it might work.  There is NOT a lot out there!  I found two, one with potential.  I shamelessly copied the still life, but free-hand (so it would fit on my 4x12 inch canvas).  And I altered a few details here and there.  It's been some time since I attempted anything this complex and I felt it best to jump in with both feet.  After a simple sketch on the pre-painted (red) canvas, the first thing I painted was the rolling pin, I liked it.  Then the pie edges, because I feared they would not look like the crimped edge of a pie unless I used some painstaking precision.  Uggh, this pie might take all day with painstaking precision and I haven't got the time!  The sketch of my pie was just an oval, I had to figure out the crimping on my own.  I dabbed some dark brown, then some light brown, then some yellowing brown, then some whitish brown....and by some miracle it looked like a crimped edge.  That gave me the confidence to keep going.  It's not a great painting, it's kind of "primitive", but it's the effect I was looking for - the primitive wood board with the old railroad spikes and ancient rolling pins...it had to look like an old painting.

Found this with a google image search "Pie Painting"

My Rolling Pin Display board

My 4x12 Painting