What are you working on?

Thank you David and Ayin and the others for looking and liking.

An albatross around the neck…yes! I always liked working somewhere around 40”. It feels comfortable. I have some early work in the 50-60” range but they stick too far out from the storage rack in the garage. Makes it hard to pull the car in. Soon, a handyman will have to help me fix the rack so that these very old and plus size annoyances can fit into the world properly. (Hey, just like people!)

Anyway, I’ve already bought some smaller 16x20” wooden panels for the next batch, so I’ll see how that size works. Or feels. Currently, I have some vague painting idea about disgustingly ugly houses that I found on Zillow when I was doing my own home search. Out of curiosity, I had searched for the CHEAPEST houses across the country to see what they actually looked like. Whew…what doozys…the very ugliest amongst us. Some were abandoned or burned or stuffed with a hoarder’s treasure (and still for sale!). But the best ones were just simply “poor taste” which of course somebody else considered their good taste. Anyway, this idea has been “knocking on my door” for about 5-6 years now.

I STILL haven’t figured how make the idea a “redeemable” one (like what’s the angle and why am I so “enraptured”). And I think I want to continue to incorporate collage and text and mixed media and painting. Apparently, I’m “going ugly” and cramming it all in to even a smaller space.

So THAT conundrum will be THIS challenge. Better hurry and get percolating…🤯
 
Artyczar said:
Thanks for the great compliments, Olive. ♥️ You always make me blush a little, which makes me look like I'm sunburned or have a rash of sorts. :ROFLMAO:

I understand what you mean about the frustration of people not looking like the actual individuals. I have a couple of paintings where that's occurred. I have to keep messing with it and get it right as best I can. I'm never totally removed from these scenes, and definitely not "professional." LOL. I have to be connected to a point because I want an actual narrative there. The narrative has much to do with how I perceive the scene in the present moment, as an adult, or the child in me who didn't have the courage to speak about some of the aspects that weren't healthy, so there's a sense of sarcasm and humor there. That's always been how I survived everything. ;)

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot the address the yellow and brown hair. Yes, that is staying, but much of it will have some black outlines (last part of the process). The man's face will have less outline, but a few spots of "character" will be there for him.
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Thanks for your comments. As a happy hermit, I do miss talking art with artists
 
Yes, amazing art all. I love the contrast between the look of Kim's and Ayin's paintings. But they both seem to have a common element of commenting on the human drama in a wonderfully eccentric way. Good stuff.

Me, I'm cautiously emerging from a self-imposed painting exile. Staying with calming simple stuff for now. No narratives. They make me think too much. I just want to sit in nature and watch it, without any thinking.

So to that end I'm working on this puzzle. I would say it again - I'm not sure of what I'm doing - but I feel that way all the time painting. Sort of a meaningless phrase by now. :)


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Just wanted to pop by and say, lovely works, everyone! I love seeing the variety of different pieces here.

I've done absolutely no art lately. I seriously lost my motivation as far as art projects go...
I have been painting in a sense though. We're overhauling a room in the house. We realized the ugly popcorn ceiling was actually grey and not white. Explains part of why the room felt so dark. So we painted it white, which was a huge project. It made a big difference though. Then the walls were all painted (three beige/grey and one a lovely plum purple). We picked the colors out, but they were from a brand I absolutely hate. So we hunted around for someone to color match them and weren't having any luck. Then we found a young man at a smaller hardware store who was able to color match them to perfection, in my favorite brand of house paint. So we were quite happy about that. We got his name and rough schedule, so we can have him make the bathroom paints when we get to that project.
Been working on repainting the baseboards and windowsill in white the past few days (they were the original wood finish). I started painting the doors white today. Then we're debating whether to do the doorframes in white, or if we should use our leftover purple to make them into accents, as all the doors are on the beige/grey walls. After that, the final painting task is to paint a little wall shelf in the purple.
We also have a big rug coming to cover most of the old carpet in the room. Replacement was too expensive and too large a project, so we opted for an area rug that'll cover almost all of it for now.
It's looking so much better so far. Clean, refreshed, and more modern.

I have been thinking of some concepts for possible paintings though. Whenever I have time, I might sketch a few of them out. I usually do realism, but I'm thinking of trying to play with a different style to change it up a bit. I used to do more surrealism, so my ideas are a bit of a throwback to those works.
Some of my ideas are just-for-fun. Some others, are intended to touch on some darker themes, but in a more fun and whimsical way. I kind of want to explore some personal struggles, but in a way that's less obvious to the viewer, if that makes sense.

I think I may do two portraits some time soon as well. Two of my family kitties passed away just recently... Both Abysinnians. So I'm thinking of doing portraits in either charcoal or pastel.

Anyways, I'm rambling here...
 
While waiting for parts of those other two paintings to dry, I started a new one on birch wood, which should dry much faster. The only thing is that my sealing job went awry (for the first time ever). I've sealed hundreds of panels and never had this problem before. Either the shellac mixed wasn't stored well enough, or it had something to do with the clear gesso that was already on there when I purchased it. Luckily, most of those uneven spots will be covered with paint.

This is oil on 24 x 24 inches. Have a ways to go on it yet:

me-mike-baseball572.jpg
 
Hi this is my second attempt at oil and not acrylic I will go back to acrylic because to me it’s not very great, but it is still being worked on. I hope there’s something I can do, but I was never very good without practice. I am trying to read and study up on oil practice from the online library Hoopla and buying books on ThriftBooks. I also read the magazine Artforum. I have not been online in awhile, and miss you all, it will be nice to see all the new work.
IMG_6612.jpeg

Might give up on oil let’s see how it goes during next layers..
 
brianvds said:
In my case, I grew up with comics, particularly Hergé's Tintin books, and I just never could shake them off. It's partly also why I like post-impressionism so much - there is often something there of comic book art, with strong outlines and flat areas of color. :-)



I don't actually have all that much to show, because a great deal of what I do is just sketching on pieces of scrap paper, of which I accumulate heaps that eventually end up in the fire. I don't keep a record of all of it. Found a neat way to go about it: video footage of animals. Pause it at random moments, make a quick sketch, run a second or two, pause again, quick sketch, etc. That way one gets a feel for the 3D shape of the animal (or person, in the somewhat rare cases that I sketch people).

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I have now taken to illustrating my answers on Quora with quick sketches, but even there I seldom spend more than 20 minutes on a sketch. That's no way to become a great artist, but it's more fun than working on a thing for hours and days, only to end up with a stiff, amateurish and grossly out of proportion monstrosity.

And thus, even my "complete" drawings are quick sketches. :-)

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I occasionally do actual cartoons, but I seldom have ideas for any...

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And they're not always for small kids, such as this gnome in for a gnasty surprise...

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I love these! Your style is the type of art I like. They're all so charming.. cartoons and non-cartoons.
 
brianvds said:
I have been experimenting with making quick pencil sketches and then adding color digitally...

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I have ceased to take art so seriously. Getting anything to look really real has eluded me for decades, so now I cheerfully stick to my cartoonish kind of style. :)
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You're very talented. I'm just restarting my art journey and am definitely drawn to cartoon styles but there is also real talent and depth to your work.. I'm working on getting to that stage.
 
Jade said:
Sorry if it's an obvious thing, but how did you add colour digitally to pencil sketches? 🤔
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These posts you quote are from so long ago I hardly even remember posting them! :-)

Anyway, doing the digital bit, while not difficult to do, is difficult to describe here. In my case, I opened the image in Gimp, did the usual to crop and clean up the images, and then performed a function called "Color to alpha." Other image manipulation platforms like Photoshop will no doubt have the same or similar functions - what it does is to make everything except the line work transparent. Then I create a new layer below the transparent layer, and paint the color onto that. That way, you now have a colored image, but the original line work is also still there.

You'll probably find lots of tutorials on how to do it on YouTube - that's how I originally learned the trick! :-)
 
brianvds said:
These posts you quote are from so long ago I hardly even remember posting them! :-)

Anyway, doing the digital bit, while not difficult to do, is difficult to describe here. In my case, I opened the image in Gimp, did the usual to crop and clean up the images, and then performed a function called "Color to alpha." Other image manipulation platforms like Photoshop will no doubt have the same or similar functions - what it does is to make everything except the line work transparent. Then I create a new layer below the transparent layer, and paint the color onto that. That way, you now have a colored image, but the original line work is also still there.

You'll probably find lots of tutorials on how to do it on YouTube - that's how I originally learned the trick! :-)
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I realised afterwards that I'd started at old posts! 😅 That's helpful, thank you. I have used gimp before. I really liked those pieces you did, it's good to know I could do something like that but working manually to start with (rather than all ipad).
 
Jade said:
I realised afterwards that I'd started at old posts! 😅 That's helpful, thank you. I have used gimp before. I really liked those pieces you did, it's good to know I could do something like that but working manually to start with (rather than all ipad).
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I nowadays seldom do anything digitally, but I would still prefer to do the initial drawing manually, on paper. It gives better textures.:-)
 
brianvds said:
I nowadays seldom do anything digitally, but I would still prefer to do the initial drawing manually, on paper. It gives better textures.:-)
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Good to know. I like the digital finish sometimes like you got in those pictures. I was debating whether to do all my art digitally but decided against it.
 
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