Missed a few

I have been wanting to paint everything and have tons of pics saves to my To Paint directory. Here are the last few I did before the holidays.

Deb's Place. 

Doodling.  

I started a pottery class in September, so once I take some pics, I will start posting pottery pics!

More tutorials and copies

Hopefully learning from mistakes here.

Instagram

Frank Clarke demo

Explore.org Orca cam

Rubbing Beach Lookout

Instagram acrylic inspired

Matthew Palmer book

Doodles

New Paper and Anniversary

I used new 300 series paper from Strathmore for the above landscape. Seemed to stay wet longer. Was able to lift clouds a bit better. I think this needs a bit of pale green showing in the far away valley lower left.

I masked the sun above and the heart below below with masking tape. I added a bit of yellow orange across the bottom of the sun.

Need to try different brushes for stippling and lifting paint.

Also would like to try more interesting landscapes but feel that I should spend more time with techniques than product.

The heart was my first shot at a masking tape resist shape. Taped masking tape onto wax paper, drew the form, cut it out, peeled and transferred to paper. Worked perfectly. Also first try at splattering. This is the back of an anniversary card I made.

More painting and identifying problems

I think I might actually be limited by my choice of paper at this point. All of the tutorials are using cotton watercolor paper, which seems to be able to retain water and stay workable much better than what I am using. It simply does not stay wet and I am having a hard time with wet on wet technique.

I was able to do some lifting of color with the mountains. I was not successful with the clouds because they dried too fast. I played around with adding cloud shadows today, and tested out the Japanese White paint that came in my watercolor kit. It is suprisingly somewhat opaque, but not to the extent of gouache. Still, it did brighten up my cloud tops.

Not happy with the sky colors at all, but wanted to replicate the colors used in my beginning watercolor book (reference photo below).  I added the clouds because I definitely need the practice. Poor gradient plus unfortunate placement of clouds = lesson learned. Will stick to dry brush until I can figure out the paper situation.

Reference

Old Barn Window

I had this old window stored in the garage for about 20 years before I figured out what to do with it. Problem was that it was covered in lead paint.

I tried stripping it. It was very messy, but got most of the paint off. Decided to just cover up what was still there and seal it in. Not like I will be eating off it or anything.

I reglazed the panes, got it all nice and painted, and set to work on removing the bottoms of my collection of glass bottles. Pretty easy work once you get the hang of using the glass scoring tool. Alternate boiling water and ice water and they pop right off where you scored it. I also saved some glass fragments from green and blue bottles and purchased some decorative glass pebbles from the craft store.

I laid out the bottle bottoms and glass shards on some pieces of paper that were cut to the same size as the window panes.

Once I had a good test layout completed, I began to transfer the glass pieces to the panes. I applied clear silicone window sealant to the glass in small sections with a caulk gun, stippled it with a toothbrush for a mottled effect, and then set glass pieces into it while it was still wet. This part took a very long time, and I wound up storing it for about a year before I felt like finishing it. But I finally finished it this past spring. Added some hooks and hung it up on my porch.

I love it! And it is nice to finally have a finished project.

Beginning watercolor

Borrowed some chalky watercolors from my daughter and started watching tutorials and practicing. Doing a little every day. Also finding inspiration from others so also trying to copy their work as part of my practice.  Quickly got frustrated with the paints, so bought some nicer ones. Immediate improvement! All of these are done with the new paints. Phone cam put a bit of an orange cast on them.

Still here

Got into bleaching t shirts.

Boo

Source photo

Cumberhatching

My scanner is adding those "smudges" going off to the right! Pages are getting warpy after spraying fixative.
Source photo:

Rembrandt copy - ink pen. Trying to loosen up

Love his expression.  Sorry 'bout the wonky eye there, bud!

Ok, Maybe I Have a Thing for Bowie

I'm gonna just draw him until I get him right.  Source photo

BACK!

That was entirely too long a hiatus.  No construction responsibilities currently hanging over my head, so going to resurrect the bloggie.

Got back into the swing when I was photoshopping my face.  I decided to try a sketch.  My eye. Click for big pic:

I actually overlayed the image onto the photoshop photo so I could see where I made mistakes.  This is a "fixed" version.  The original had my cheekbone about 1/2" farther away and had a bit of my other eye showing.  So, erased the other eye corner, moved the hair in (I think it's still farther out than it should be), and re-positioned my old lady middle brow crease. Measuring is important!

Fast one of a shadowy Benedict Cumberbatch from a web pic. I'd link to it but I can't find again! It was high contrast.  No measuring again, nose is too short: Just wanted to play with shadows more.

Bald eagle from the interwebz.  I thought I could make those eyes look recessed, and I think I did pretty well.  I like this one!

Shading practice based on lessons from drawspace.com.  Lines, hatching, squirkles, gradations. 

Rather than grab random scraps of paper from the kitchen table, I should (I will!) do this in my sketchbook from now on.

Another Crack at Bowie

Used what I learned studying heads yesterday while doodling today.  This is a doodle, done during lunch, about 2" tall.  Though shading still leaves much to be desired, I think it is better than my earlier attempt in proportion and symmetry.  It was so much easier to place the features with the Loomis framework in place.  

Loomis heads

Finally brave enough to start drawing in a sketchbook.  Why was that so hard?  ;)

I took a look at Andrew Loomis's book, Drawing the Head and Hands but hadn't jumped into it until I watched some videos that showed an easier way to do it.  

Following along with the videos and taking notes

Practicing different positions from the book:  Once you do it a lot of times, it is easy to remember the method.

Art Class - Third and Last Project: Acrylic on Canvas 16x20

I won't be going back to this class.  I like some of the things I did in the class, but I'm not sure that I was "taught" anything by the teacher.  She basically allowed us the use of her studio and used negativity as her method to try to teach us something.  Three classes after my daughter did something wrong, the teacher was still yammering on about how she ruined her drawing due to doing it wrong. Would not let up. It was my daughter's first freaking art class.  The teacher should show the proper technique before turning a beginner student loose to do something wrong.  I had my own issues with her as well.  But enough ranting.  Here is the last thing I worked on:

I'd like to remove about 60% of the flowers and add more greenery to look more like the reference picture.

Might also remove the stupid birds that the teacher added "for me."  Maybe some day.  

The art teacher thought that the composition was terrible. AFTER I showed her the picture I wanted to work from, and after I was finished.  The flowers are too distracting, drawing the eye away from the beautiful distant seascape.  Well, being that the inspiration was a picture of flowers close-up with a distant seascape, it was the exact composition that I wanted.  I just wanted to learn to paint.  Guess I'll try it solo for awhile.

This picture was the inspiration:

Painting Course Lesson 7 - Line Variation

Lessons / activities here:  http://painting-course.com/the-painting-and-drawing-classes/

Doodling with the brush pen

Drawing #13:  Shoes

Drawing #14:  Abstract  (and more doodling - perspective practice)

Sketching / gesture

Pause the TV during the Olympics for tons of poses.

Family sits still long enough to sketch while playing Skyrim.