#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???