Twisted Pine - Day 7

Working one-handed is getting old! Although I don't dual-wield pastels (now that's an amusing mental picture), I am accustomed to accumulating a selection of "currently-in-use" pastels in my left hand, which I can switch between with my right hand. At the moment, I have to set those pastels down on a table, where I quickly lose track of them, because apparently I lack the capacity to put pastels back from the place where I picked them up. It goes something like this:

"Oh, I picked this pastel stick up from that side of the table? Let me just set that down right here for a second, in the middle of a bunch of pastels I haven't used lately, which are all so covered in the pastel dust of other pastels that they all look the same color. Wait, where did I put that one I just set down? *cleans pastels and examines several before finding the correct one* Ah! Great. Now I'll use this, and then I'll set it down right here..."

You get the idea.

Anyway, I'll see an orthopedic specialist on Wednesday morning. Hopefully there is nothing seriously wrong with that wrist.

1.4 hours on this today, and over 6 hours on art-related stuff in general. Not bad.

Twisted Pine - Day 6

I sprained my wrist on Sunday. Fortunately it was my left wrist, but I didn't really feel like moving earlier this week! I'm doing a bit better now, so I worked on this for another hour today.

Twisted Pine - Day 5

I can't believe I haven't worked on this for almost a week! I spent this week sketching and beginning to educate myself more about Photoshop instead of working on this painting. In any case, I worked on this for another hour and fifteen minutes today. I should probably wrap this one up soon.

Twisted Pine - Day 2

It has been awhile! I've been sketching, but between working on the comic, cleaning my house, finishing A Song of Ice and Fire (well, finishing all that has been published to date), and various other things, I haven't had a chance to work on my current painting. I started to lay in some finer details in the pine branches. I spent an hour on this today.

Twisted Pine - Day 1

After I finished working on the Rose piece, I decided I needed to play around and be a little more expansive and experiment with new techniques. So I broke out some cheap Canson watercolor board (which I had never used before -- after I bought them, I read somewhere that they tend to buckle...and I now have first hand experience of this!), dug out our bottle of rubbing alcohol from the cabinet beneath the sink, and got to work. First I blocked out some basic shapes to get the value pattern down:

Then I took a large-ish brush and made a wash out of it with rubbing alcohol:

Then, after that dried (and after I tried in vain to eliminate the slight buckling of the paper), I started to lay down some pastel on top of the underpainting. Now it looks a bit more like the woods, and less like deep red blobs:

I spent about an hour and fifteen minutes on this in total today, not including research and setup. I'm looking forward to playing around with this piece some more!

Rose - Finished

Another hour, and I think I am done. Might not be the best painting in the world, but it was good practice.

Rose - Day 7

An hour and 45 minutes today. This one is getting close. I aim to finish it before the week is out -- and as long as the weather holds, I'd really like to get out for another plein air session this week, too. We'll see! I don't know what was going on yesterday -- I have no idea why it was so difficult to focus. (Hmm. Come to think of it, yesterday I didn't have any caffeine...maybe that's what was going on.) Today I was able to focus without a problem, and I still have energy after I'm done. Which is good, since I still have to work on the comic, meditate, go for a walk, sweep, put away my clean clothes, practice the mandolin or the fiddle, and make dinner. And maybe relax a little bit, too.

In any case, have a close-to-finished rose!

Rose - Day 4

Another hour (and a bit) today. So much time just to work on a few petals! But that's the way it goes. For this piece, I am using hard pastels almost exclusively; soft pastels would saturate the tooth of this paper much too quickly.

Rose - Day 1, 2, and 3

I have neglected to update this blog for far too long. I just added two posts (backdated to 6/13) that show the before/after shots of two more resurrected paintings. I've also started a new painting. Rather than attempt to remember which day I did these iterations, I'll just post all three here. It's not done yet -- more to come soon. Day 1 (1 hour):

Day 2 (just shy of half an hour):

Day 3 (2 hours):

Ok, now I'm all caught up! Now to get caught up on dishes...

Resurrected Painting Number 3: Rising Tide

You might remember this one from back in March. I didn't do much to this one -- just cleaned up the clouds a little bit and made some minor revisions. The largest change is in the photo quality! The first was taken with an iPhone -- the second with my DSLR. Here's the previous version:

And here's the revised version:

Resurrected Painting Number 2: Connemara Lake

Here's the first version:

And here's the revised version:

This is one of the paintings that is now hanging at my local wine shop, Vinifera.

Resurrected Painting Number 1: Sunrise

I went through a bunch of my old portfolios and exhumed some of my old pieces. What better way to get over my fear of making mistakes than to work on paintings that are already mistakes? Here's the original:

A few days ago I starting work on it and completely scrapped the mood:

And today, I finished it off:

I am definitely happier with it now than I was when I started, and I think it might just be frame-worthy. Probably not juried-show-worthy, though, unfortunately. I realized this morning that I have an entry deadline next Monday...so I need to decide whether I want to actually enter that show or not, and if I do, I need to scramble to get something done for it!

Sea and Sky - Finished

I've decided that I need to be done now. I spent a half hour today cleaning things up, and it's time to move on.

Sea and Sky - Day 9

I think I am somewhat happier with the figure now. I think. Might be a bit dark, although this photo is definitely not the greatest.

1.8 hours on it today.

Sea and Sky - Day 8

Still more agonizing about the figure. 1.4 hours.

Sea and Sky - Day 7

Just a quick little session today. Trying to adjust the figure so it looks less stiff.

Sea and Sky - Day 6

At long last, more work on this piece. I'm honestly not sure if I want to do much more to it or not. I added more detail in the water, and added more layers to the sand...and then I decided I didn't like it, and smoothed out a lot of the detail work. What's left is something simple and elegant. I think I like the way the sea melts into the sand without a clear delineation.

I need to sleep on it. In any case, 1.2 hours today. Sorry for the slightly grainy photo.

Sea and Sky - Day 5

Ok, just 0.9 hours today...did some more work on the ocean and the beach. I think I can finish this before the end of the week.

Sea and Sky - Day 4

Just 1.3 hours today...I spent much of my day designing business cards (finally). However, in those 1.3 hours I made the major decision to include a person in the landscape. I actually don't think I've ever done that for any of my longer pieces. Sketches, sure. But time-intensive stuff? Nope. This photo came out a little dark. Ah well.

Sea and Sky - Day 3

Man, I like painting clouds. I think that part of the painting is pretty much done now. 2.1 hours today. Next up: the ocean! And sand. And a major decision: whether to put a person in there or not.