What are you working on?

[john]

Cool Brian. Tough working that small with a knife but you did a good job. I like using the knife also. Almost insures an impressionistic painting. And the texture one can get is fun. I assume that you have seen Richard Musgrave Evans in the Youtube.

 

[brianvds]

Cool Brian. Tough working that small with a knife but you did a good job. I like using the knife also. Almost insures an impressionistic painting. And the texture one can get is fun. I assume that you have seen Richard Musgrave Evans in the Youtube.

Never heard of him, but of course, now I'm going to look him up.

 

[Artyczar]

That is simply amazing, Ayin!!

Thank you very much sno.

 

[stlukesguild]

Monday is the start of the teaching year… the first day with students… as well as a full moon. Our principal also wrangled the district CEO into showing up on day one so we must be on our toes and dressed for the day. In spite of this I’ve spent most of today working on my recent painting. It looks done… but I usually keep the most recent work up for weeks… even months… while working out ideas for the next piece. During this time I often make numerous slight adjustments… a few marks here or there that likely no one but me would notice. In this instance I find myself still uncertain as to the subject matter. Is she Flora? Or is she Eve? She could go either way. For a while I was thinking of making her Isabella from Keats’ and Boccaccio’s tale of Isabella and the Pot of Basil… but I decided instead of Basil to go with reddish flowers down below to mirror those above.

Formally, the painting is constructed from a pair of complimentary colors: Orange & Blue and Red & Green. Now I’m pondering what I will do next. Ideas that I am mulling around in my head include Alice in Wonderland, Scheherazade, Isabella, etc… all from books I am currently reading. In theory, this school year should be less stressful as I don’t need to worry about observations thanks to my evaluations from last year… so I might be able to get some work done during the school year. I might also note that I lost a lot of potential work time last year as a result of my wife spending almost 2 weeks in the hospital due to pneumonia.

Tomorrow I’ll be spending all my time making posters for school: Art Elements, Principles of Design, Procedures, etc… as well as seating charts. I’ll likely not spend much time at all thinking about… let alone working on my Art. But after months on a piece I’ve always had several weeks of down time when I usually spend my free time cleaning and organizing my work space.

For those who might be interested, this painting/drawing measures 55” Tall by 33” Wide (not including the 1 1/2” border taped all around).
It is mixed media on heavy weight primed paper.
The media includes: pastel, acrylic paint, pastel pencils, colored pencils, and gold leaf.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well, it’s gorgeous! Congratulations on getting this one work done. I hope your wife is feeling a whole lot better. Last year we were really throwing by me being in the hospital for months. In and out. Some local hospitals and some bigger hospitals.
Good luck with your classes. I’m glad you don’t have the stress of being evaluated.
I look forward to what you do next.
May I dare offer you one little critique of this gorgeous piece?

 

[stlukesguild]

Christine; thanks

Yes… it took months for my wife to fully recover but she’s fine now… she just knows not to play around with a cold of infection if it hangs on.

Critiques are fine… hopefully nothing that will require a major overhaul.

 

[PaintBoss]

My mother almost died from pneumonia when I was three years old. We lived out on a farm and the winters were really heavy back in the early 70s. We had one car and my dad used it for work. She is a tough cookie. But I think hers started out as walking pneumonia and she kept putting off going to the doctor thinking she’ll shake it off, but it got worse over weeks. And one day she lay down on the couch and couldn’t get up. The family doctor actually drove out, which was not typical. He said if he tried to move her, she would drown. So they started treating her there. She recovered, although she always said she felt things in her lungs a little more than before. But that’s how she learned her lesson too. You know, we get busy and just try to push through. Assume we will be ok. Cousin who is in his 50s just managed to get himself to the hospital and he was absolutely purple and it was pneumonia and they had to put him into a coma for several months. They didn’t think he was going to make it and he was a big healthy guy. He recovered as well. But it was a near thing -he didn’t anticipate turning bad like that.
No, it does not require any major overhaul and listen, I hesitate when someone’s worked so hard and it’s already so beautiful. But I would want someone to tell me. Her nose. It’s just off slightly and I see it every time I look at the painting. I think one side looks like it wants to be a narrow nose and the other side looks like it wants to be a wider nose. I want to take the outside nostrils and move them slightly to the left. Also, the way it is now the left outside nostril mark looks like a long ( instead of curly up back towards the nose. It’s a little extended.
The remaining areas I could remark on describing the beauty of this piece. I absolutely adore your sensitivity to line outlining the figure. I can tell you love female form. Chef’s kiss!

 

[stlukesguild]

My wife first same down with a nasty case of Influenza A. She spent about 4 days in the hospital with that and was sent home with oxygen if she needed it and a pulse-ox monitor to check the oxygen level in her blood stream. After one day the level dropped far too low and the case nurse told me to run her back to the hospital. This time the discovered pneumonia in one lower lobe of her lungs. They had her on broad spectrum antibiotics while running tests and growing bacterial samples in order to use an antibiotic specially aimed at the infection that she had. It took her about 3 or 4 days to begin to pull out of it and they kept her about 10 days. She then had nurses visit for about a month and a half and she had a pulse ox monitor and a laptop that sent daily info to her doctors and care team.

As for Flora/Eve’s nose… I can’t disagree. I reworked the nose once today as it was far too narrow at the bridge. I won’t be making any immediate changes as I’ll be too busy for most of this week… but the painting is currently hanging in the room that serves as my office and studio as well as our bedroom… so I’ll be looking at her a good deal. Maybe next weekend I can set about to making some slight adjustments to the nose. Honestly, I have no problem making changes if I agree something is off… especially after spending so long on a work. I remember one painting from some years ago in which the face bothered me. One of my studio partners said that it was OK… but “OK” just wasn’t good enough after the rest of the painting had been brought to such a level.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well, thank you for taking my comments so graciously. It can be a tricky thing when someone has poured all their passion and ability into something and you have to point out the one little thing that keeps catching your eye. But like you if someone says something is just OK, I know it needs work somewhere. Usually I had a niggling about it already. And in your case, it’s just a small tweak. I’ve had to stare at paintings for a long time before deciding what to change or figure out what was wrong exactly. I’ve even put them away or turned them around for months, when I am so familiar I have lost a fresh eye. I’m sure you know that trick. Or using the mirror.
I’m so glad your wife was well taken care of and is recovered now.

 

[stlukesguild]

I had one painting some years back that just wasn’t working for me. At some point I was unable to get into the studio for a couple of weeks. When I came back my wife was with me. The first thing out of her mouth was “Oh my God! She looks like one of the horse-faced Habsburgs!” She was 100% on the mark. I immediately thought, “How the hell did I not see that before?!” I ended up repainting the entire face.

 

[PaintBoss]

Yep, it’s amazing how that happens!

 

[Marc]

“Oh my God! She looks like one of the horse-faced Habsburgs!” She was 100% on the mark. I immediately thought, “How the hell did I not see that before?!” I ended up repainting the entire face.

It's mostly fine to marry your cousin, but your children definitely shouldn't turn it into a tradition.

 

[OliveOyl]

Ayin, for the next time you swing by this thread…usually I don’t remember my dreams but this was the last one I had when I woke up this morning. (I’m still in bed as I write this).

So. I went into an empty room and there, on a raised platform, was one of your pieces for an upcoming show. It was lying flat, about the size of a large bathroom rug, but made to look like a giant sketch pad. It was made of paper on wood and had a little drawing of a face and was color blocked and had a logo. Above the logo it said, “THIS IS A FLOOR.” It was perfectly done and it made me smile and I loved it so much that I hugged it! But when I stood up, I saw that my hug had dented the paper and made a little smear. All kinds of thoughts ran through my head. Is there enough time to redo it? It’s not that bad, right? Can I run out of the room and pretend it wasn’t me? Are there security cameras in here? Should I tell them and let the chips fall where they may?

I was happy that I woke up right then because I didn’t have to REALLY figure out this problem. But still, I’m sorry I ruined your work…even though it was from too much love. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)

Okay. And now it’s time to get my butt outta bed and start my day and get to working on my own rumpled and crumpled, messy and crazy painting with buttons and collage and bricbrac and wooden dots and whatever.

 

[Artyczar]

I love it! I wish I was that clever to create a piece like that! But you dreamed it. (Of course!) Yoko Ono would be proud.

 

[john]

Now I know why I don't paint portraits. Everyone would look like Alfred E Neuman. I had to look very hard to see what the problem is. Gorgeous painting, again St Lukes.

I'm working on what I thought was a simple marine scape with two sandpipers. Just water and sand and two birds. I can't even get the color of the sand right. But I tell myself that no one else knows what color it's supposed to be so.....

Was all set to finish it today but overnight we got ten inches of rain and now the basement is partially flooded, again. I thought I fixed the problem but I guess not. These days storms are just dumping huge amounts.

So instead of painting I'm dragging out the shop vac and moving carpet and furniture and fans and dehumidifier. But in the scheme of things it's a minor inconvenience. Some folks lost their homes. One when a dam gave way and the duck pond drained out another when a sink hole partially swallowed their home.

As Daffy Duck says.......Yoiks and away!!

 

[brianvds]

Watched the Supermoon rise behind bare, late winter trees yesterday evening. I couldn't for the life of me work out how to switch off the camera's flash, so that I could try to take an atmopsheric photo. So instead I did what one should actually do in the first place: I just watched for a while, and then made a quick sketch from memory this morning. Way more fun this way.

 

[snoball]

Well done, Brian!

 

[Artyczar]

So sorry to hear John!

Great little painting Brian.

 

[john]

Thanks Ayin it was really a small trouble. Not like the potato crop failed or something.

Very cool painting Brian. Super moon. Sometimes those simple things from memory are best.


I finally got a proper easel today for painting larger oils. I'd like to say that assembly of it was easy and that I made no mistakes. Can't say that. Not even close.

 

[stlukesguild]

Now I know why I don't paint portraits. Everyone would look like Alfred E Neuman. I had to look very hard to see what the problem is. Gorgeous painting, again St Lukes.

Thanks for the comment. You are right about portraits. What's the old adage? A portrait is a painting where there's always something wrong with the nose? Or was it the ears? Mouth? When I look at the great portraitists (Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Sargent) I am struck by their fluid paint handling. Doing that while still capturing the appearance of an individual really blows my mind.