Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Painting progress

I finally worked on the darn thing today. I thought I would show some pictures that highlight the steps up to this point.



This is a pencil sketch that is in my sketch book. Nothing more than a doodle, but a lot of fun to do.


This is the sketch that was done on canvas. First with pencil, then black thinned with turpentine.



This is a quick wash of color on the canvas. The oil paint is thinned with turpentine and dried fairly quick.


And this is where I left off a little while ago. Basically, the canvas is covered with paint. Some things I like how they are working out. And some things don't look so good.

First thing, I don't like the blue - it is going to go away. The bottom left corner fails miserably. Then there is the round blob centered near the bottom. BLECH! There are some other things that bug me - those are the ones bothering me the most. Well, I'm going to go take my brush and "draw" some corrections I know I want to make, and then think about it a bit.

Friday, January 16, 2009

My Order Arrived!

I received my order from Dick Blick! It was waiting on the front porch shivering in its little box when we got home from the doggie doctor. It was 29 degrees and trying to snow!

I ordered burn sienna, burn umber, sap green, yellow ocher, cadmium yellow, cadmium red and ultramarine blue. All that and all I really needed was yellow, lol. There was a special if you order so much, and 6 bucks for shipping no matter how much your order, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Ok, Micheal's had cadmium yellow for about $34.00 for a 37 ML tube and I had a 40% off coupon which would have made it about $20.00. But, at Dick Blick a 200ML is 36.43. Same brand - Windsor Newton Artist Oils. If I went to Micheal's 5 times with a 40% off coupon and bought a 37 ML tube of cadmium yellow each time, I would spend $100.00 for a total 185 ML (that doesn't include sales tax). Blah. So much for Micheal's and their stupid coupons.

I'm still waiting for the paint on the bottom of the painting to dry so I can turn it right side up and work on it! I checked it earlier (oh, about 20 times when I moved it looking for my garden notebook) and some of it's dry and some of it's wet.

I could start another one, but I really would like to work on this one.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Painting again

Well, I'm finally back to working on the painting I started almost a year ago. Unfortunately, I'm at a bit of an impasse at the moment. Its on a gallery wrap type canvas and I painted the bottom and it needs to dry so I can turn it right side up.

The other thing, is I order some more oils from Dick Blick which should be here tomorrow. I'm running out of yellow and won't be able to finish with out more. The only place around here with any type of art supplies is Micheal's ( blech). Every time I go there to by art supplies it just fails.

And oils are so expensive! It's downright painful. I probably get my little paint tubes and just stare at them 'cause they cost so much. *Sigh*

Friday, January 9, 2009

I'm a Project Finishing Machine!

Finished 3 projects in 3 days! So nice to get these thing done so I can start to move forward.

I finished this necklace I started in maybe October? Ah well. The pendant and button are polymer clay. Love playing with polymer clay - it is so versatile! And I love doing free form with the beads.

This scarf started out as another panel for my afghan, but now it's a scarf. Why? Because I'm the Mom and I say so.

And the third project (not pictured) was a simple green scarf for my daughter.

I have a painting to finish I started nearly a year ago. Gads, I don't know what my problem is. It's an abstract piece and maybe there is a part of me that still thinks I should be paint "realistically". Well BLAH to that! If I want to paint abstract, that's what I'm gonna do!

Friday, January 2, 2009

The Project that Wouldn't Die

I thought I was done with this afgan. It was a fun project. The inspiration came from Jane Thornley's knitwear. Her work is absolutely wonderful!

Anyway, I got the thing sewed together and put on the bed and it is too short! (Please ignore plaid pillow cases). So I guess I'll knit a couple of panels to make it longer and see how that works. If not, I'll have to get some pillows and make some pillow shams.

Instead of weaving all the loose ends in, I turned them into fringe. Also, where there are some dropped stitches I patched them (normally I would rip it out and fix it "properly"). But that's what I like about this method ("free range") - anything goes.














Dang, I have plenty of other projects I need to finish - painting, polymer clay, jewelry, more knitting. Guess I better quit blogging and get to it!