#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

#274 and #275 Square Abstracts 8 and 9 to complete the Grid, 1/18/20

The completed Grid (still needs 9 frames, yikes)

Tonight I worked on the last two abstracts to complete the grid of 9 that I had planned.  These came together with a little more pleasure than I experienced with the middle event (numbers 2-7).  I think if I do more of these, I will be more experimental in the textures of the colors and the shapes of the black lines.  Number 9 I added additional black lines as I went and was happy with the outcome.  Also, number 8 I decided to make the tiniest space have the bright red....read that somewhere, it's an old-master's trick to keep all the colors bland, but allow just a few tiny bold colors and that makes them special.

I must say that I'm disappointed with the cerulean blue paint I've had.  Have I already complained about this?  Let me complain again.  When I bought my first round of oil paints for the class I took in the fall of 2018, cerulean blue was on the list of what to bring.  I was at Michael's, they were having a big sale (when aren't they having a big sale?) it was buy 2 tubes of paint get the 3rd free.  The class list had 8 colors listed, so of course I got 9, duh!  But the cerulean blue was 3 times more expensive than all the other colors, what the heck!?  So being the frugal person that I am, I found a cerulean blue "hue" that was a "water mixable oil colour" and it was the same price as the other regular oil paints I was buying, problem solved.  Whenever I would use this particular paint it seemed to behave "weird".  It didn't cover territory the same way as the other paints, and it seemed to have a different texture.  So, a few months ago I spent the money and bought regular oil cerulean blue (no hue in the name, and not water mixable).  But it's the same deal - it doesn't cover, so you load more paint on the brush and then it just kind of looks like you put a thin layer of concrete down.  It does blend with the other blues, so that's how I've been using it.  But on number 9, you can see the pretty pale turquoisey blue corner - that is the cerulean blue by itself (with the white canvas coming through).

Square Abstract #8

Square Abstract #9