rainy day - back to the studio

I thought I was going riding today - supposed to be sunny and dry. Instead I woke up to steady rain and decided it was time to go into the studio.

I've been picking away at this project for a week or two - I decided to pull the paintings off some of these panels to reuse them so that was step one. Once the canvases were off I sanded and re-sealed the panels. Now I'm working on a little experiment with my surface prep. These have some molding paste mixed with gesso and I tried brushing it on for the first coat here. Then for the one on the left I sort of troweled the mixture on with a painting knife and did a second brushed coat on the one on the right. I'll probably sand it a bit too when it's dry. I'm not sure the texture shows up that well in the photos - it was very gloomy and dark today :P

I'm hoping for a thick and smooth texture on these but with some tooth to it so I can paint like it's gesso but draw with a pencil like it's paper. I can't really draw straight onto canvas the way I would on paper so I'm hoping this will give me some more options.

painty paint

Oil on canvas on panel, 12 x 12".

I wanted to do a pink oil painting to round out the blues and greens. I think oil painting is very relaxing for me because pretty much the only thing I can do wrong is overwork it. I mean, if I were doing something more detailed or realistic there would be tons of things that could go wrong but with these, any bit of color or pencil or any stray brushstrokes can be blended away. And unlike watercolors, I've got, oh, about three hours to notice that I don't like something and change it :)

I use four or five brushes at a time - one or two for each color I'm using so I can just swap them when I want to move a color back and forth. And I don't get too worried if the colors start getting into other areas - I just let 'em go. I like the sort of scattered effect and I love the brushstrokes that show when this happens.

Another figure-related piece

Yikes, I finally have some more art to show you. Last week was a blur of head-cold blah but I can feel that the weather is starting to change so that usually means I can stop getting sick and actually have some energy again. I love watching all my plants starting to wake up and bud out in the spring and feel like I'm not in hibernation anymore :)

This is 11x14" on Fabriano hot press again. I like this paper mostly - it doesn't erase as cleanly as I would like and I've had two sheets that had a few little specks embedded in the paper. Not that it's a huge problem, but it's not the cheapest paper so I hate when it has flaws before I've even started. I'm really having fun playing with the opacity or watery-ness of the gouache in these. It has such an interesting flatness and texture.

I was trying to incorporate scissors in this without it looking too violent :) Something about those sharp objects make me think of knives which isn't really where I was trying to go here. I tried to take some photos actually cutting fabric and paper but they didn't really work out, so I thought I would try this slightly more abstract approach.

Little gouache studies

Here's a few little paintings with railroad-y diagrams in them. These three are 6x6" on Fabriano hot press (again). I'm intrigued by how much the gouache changes color and opacity as it dries, so I'm doing these small painting to sort of practice with it some more.

I hate practicing in my sketchbook - I'd rather just get started on a nice piece of paper so that if it turns out how I want, I actually have a finished piece rather than having to redo it on a better paper. I waste some nice paper that way, but I used to be afraid to touch my nice paper and would leave it to sit in the drawer and do way too much preliminary sketching. So I think it's good that I'm not so precious about paper (and canvas, etc.) anymore.

Something I like in these pieces is the tension between the precise ruler lines and the (intentionally) wobbly edge of the color. I like the effect in printmaking when two colors are out of registration and they overlap in some places and leave white gaps in others. I think these would be really flat if they were actually perfect or if I did them digitally to eliminate all the color changes and wobbles.

Next painting

This one is 8x8" so it fit on my scanner (whew). Very similar to the last one, obviously. I like things that are abstract but still reference some idea that I'm interested in.

I think you can see from these two paintings more of my process than when I continue smoothing everything out. And I think maybe you can see why I go through brushes so fast - all that scrubbing into the canvas wears them down to little stubs.

Oil painting

I made a couple more oil paintings last week and had to wait for them to dry to take pictures/scan them in. This one is 11x14" so it doesn't fit on my scanner and I had to try to take photos of it (!) I made a lightbox to try and eliminate the glare from the glossiness of the paint and I think it actually worked out pretty well. I mean, I still prefer using my scanner whenever possible, but that top photo is far and away the best picture I've ever gotten of one of my shinier oil paintings. The last photo is just to try to give an idea of the size and depth of the piece.

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I wanted to try something a little looser and sketchier - more specifically I didn't keep blending and reworking past this stage like I usually do. Most of my paintings look similar to this at some point but lately I've been making them pretty smooth and uniform. This scribbly brushstroke look is something I was doing in school and I wanted to give it another try in conjunction with a more abstract subject.

Learning to love fall.

I've always disliked fall because it means that winter is coming and winter means snow. Snow is pretty but only if you can stay indoors and not have to drive in it or push a wheelbarrow full of horse poo through it. But now we live somewhere else, and winter is going to mean rain, not snow. And it's cold, but it's never going to get down to 20 below zero (as it occasionally does where we used to live). I even went riding a couple weeks ago on a nice day. So I'm finding my irritation and anger towards the leaves for changing color and the days for getting shorter is gradually going away. I still like summer, but this year I'm actually enjoying looking at all the leaves that are falling.

They just keep falling...

Another leaf. There's so many interesting ones I can't seem to help myself. This is 11x14" on Yupo.

I'm also sketching and researching and figuring out what my next project is going to be. Once I've finished with these leaves, I think I have one more interesting plant to draw (seed pods on a witch hazel bush) and then I'm going to be shifting gears. This part of the process is always frustrating at the time but it's important that I have a good idea of where I'm going and have enough ideas to keep me working for a while.

Leaves

8x10" on Yupo.

I love having an excuse to go outside and shuffle through all the fallen leaves looking for interesting alder leaf patterns. Now that I can choose from more leaves than only the ones I could see from the ground, I'm finding quite a few really gorgeous ones. Normally I think of insects eating holes in leaves as a bad thing but according to what I was reading online when I was trying to identify this tree last spring, the alder trees are a food source for various bugs and it doesn't harm the tree.

Neutral

Similar to the last oil on panel, but no color this time.  I had intended to use color blended around the lines like the last one but for some reason it felt like it needed to just be gray.  The pencil lines are drawn into the wet paint and it's interesting the way the graphite dissolves on contact with the paint.

I love these panels so much and I think they look great on the wall, but I don't know if I can use them with paper to either draw on or collage onto the wood.  It seems like the canvas and oil paint can handle being exposed but I worry that any kind of paper would be a problem.  Maybe I should experiment with paper and draw some lines on it, then coat it with acrylic medium and see if it stands up to a little wear and tear.  I'd love to be able to mount things to the panels besides just canvas.

Finished watercoloring

Here's that drawing from last week, finally with color.  I think I'm learning to love watercolor paper again after losing interest in it for a while.  I love the unpredictable results I get on Yupo but sometimes I want the drawing to stand out a little more.

Salal some more

Look, there's finally some art here on my art blog!  8x8" and I think I'm feeling a little more comfortable with squares.  I've been kind of resistant to using a square format and I bought a few of these panels in squares to force myself to give it another try.

To finish my degree I needed just a few more credits even though I've finished all my upper division, degree-specific classes.  Of course I didn't find this out until after spring quarter had started :) so I'm taking a couple of classes online right now.  I never took an online class before and it's a little odd.  Fortunately I can do the work whenever and go do something more fun when I'm done.  Can't wait for that diploma though...

My creative space today

I've been admiring Belinda's My Creative Space posts every week so I thought I'd put one up of my studio.  I've been working at the table instead of the easel because these pieces are so small.

More creative spaces here.

Dogwood

Not maple seeds, but dogwood flowers this time.  There's a dogwood tree right outside the big window in my studio and when it started to leaf out this spring I was hoping it would be something interesting.  It didn't seem to be doing anything and then I noticed it had little green four-petaled...things.  They've gotten bigger and are slowly turning white.

This piece is 6x6" on canvas on panel and it's challenging working this small.  But they are automatically cute because they're so little.