Susan, Painting: January 2018

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

José: Finished?

This might be done! I'm not crazy about the visible brush marks and might sand them off, but the painting is basically finished.

Worked on the contrast on Jeff's t-shirt and shorts, but the faces still need a lot of attention:

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Something More

A little more work this afternoon and evening; both of these are nearing completion.

(click on image for larger view)

Slow Drying Time, Slow Painting

The background on The Hand Of The Artist is still tacky after a week. I've heard that Titanium White dries slowly, and there's a lot of it in the background, so I guess that's what's going on... I did work on a few places yesterday anyway, but it just needs to sit for a while.

Today I wanted to cover some of those white spaces in Brooklyn; it took quite a while. The buildings in the distance are very small, in some cases, and it's hard to figure out where they begin and end. I'm also trying to limit the number of colors I use in an effort to keep it unified.

Monday, January 29, 2018

Night Work

Here's the latest on Evening Star; I worked on a few different areas, including the front door and mat, the brickwork and the foreground shadows.

Plumber Guys Here

The weekend was a nice respite from work, and I got to breathe easily and take care of a few things on the domestic "to do" list. This morning we had two plumbers in to take care of a small problem with the upstairs bath, so I went down to the basement studio. The only painting that wasn't tacky or sticky anywhere was this one; I mostly worked on the lower front panel below the window and some of the architectural reflections on the right side.

Friday, January 26, 2018

End Game

It looks like I've got 7 paintings that are getting close to the finish line. I'm talking about weeks to finish, not months, but still— it's good to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here's one of them:

And another— there's a lot of small embroidered patterns on the tunic to paint, and that will be time consuming, though:

In the meantime, I worked on this last night. One of the things I like best about it is the brownstones in the foreground. Some of them have green trim, some have black or grey. I love the way the light changes the color of the bricks on the different planes of the buildings:

And this morning I did some of the shadowy parts of the inside of the case:

And, to fill out the week, I tried to get a better sense of the way the light falls on the faces at the table. Did not succeed.

All in all, a good week. I was able to work on 15 of the 16 paintings that are currently works in progress; the background on The Hand Of The Artist is taking a long time to dry. I'll pick up on that one next week.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Three More

The energy of the woman striding up the street inspires me to work on this painting more than the others.

I brushed in some of the background wall and trim colors on this one; we'll see how much adjustment needs to be made. It's always a hit-or-miss process in the beginning. The tan color in the reference photo seems to have a lot of the blue light from the window in it. And I have to make a decision about whether to include the edge of a wall on the right side or not.

Also:

This should look a lot better in the coming weeks.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Four Projects

It took a while to get started again today, but this morning I began with Learned Pond; it just doesn't seem to be holding together for me, so I've put it across the room and am trying to figure out what's wrong. I think the angles that the cloud groups are on need to be better defined. The ripples left by the ducks (not yet painted) change some of the angles, but still; I need to sort things out better.

Then I moved on to the shirt and pants on José:

Then, continuing in the America series:

Speaking of which, I need to find more models for this series.

Last one for the evening:

It's moving along faster than I'd thought it would. I'm trying to amplify the look of the cut glass, and also refined some of the flower petals. So all in all, it was a decent day's work.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Evening Star

I'm reasonably happy with the way this is coming along. Maybe two more months of work on it? Maybe less? Still need to add some customers and do a little more on the interior; do the brick work; finish the bench on the left and place some highlights on the window glass. Oh, and finish the front door.

And of course, the signage!

Small Paintings Still Take A While

Someone once said to me, "It takes just as long to do a small painting than a large one; you do just as many strokes, just with a smaller brush." I think he was right. Spent the last hour on this; doubt you can see much difference from the last sitting.

(click on image for larger view)

Paining Under The Radar

I've actually been working on this little watercolor for several weeks, but mostly just looking at it across the room and fretting about my lack of skill with watercolor paint. Anyway, it's done! It's for a show that's coming up at the end of the month, and it features an actor playing the role of Elwood P. Dowd in the play, "Harvey." Happy to have finished it without making any major mistakes, but watercolor is not my friend.

Monday, January 22, 2018

A Slow Start To The Week

Stayed up late to watch "The Martian" on TV, then couldn't get to sleep for another hour or so. Woke up to feed the birds, then crashed back into bed, so I got a very late start to painting today. True; the day's not over yet... We'll see how it unfolds... Meanwhile, I took advantage of the cat's nap to sneak down to the basement studio and draw in the grid and basic lines for this new piece:

I'm doing it on one of the newly arrived panels from Ampersand. It's a strange size— 19-1/2" x 30-1/4"; my gallery owner gave me a very nice frame in that size, so I had to have a custom panel made to fit it.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Wrapping It Up For The Weekend

Last one for the day. All of the paintings are in various states of drying, and Monday will be soon enough to get back to them.

Obsessed

My usual plan for the work week is to spend some time on each of the works in progress, and today I was supposed to get back to In Case Of Emergency and The Chair. But every time I look at The Gauntlet, I find something else that I want to paint, right away! I feel like a woman obsessed.

Today I really wanted to apply color to the first mannequin on the left, and then that led to delineating the reflections of the building across the street and lightening up the color of the window frame.

The order of new panels from Ampersand arrived yesterday, and once again I am greatly impressed with the way they package their products for shipping. It's a work of art in itself. I have three more new paintings planned; had better finish something soon... But mostly I want to knock out the distracting white areas on this one, and bring a sense of unity to it.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Painting Makes Me Happy

Painting does make me happy; I watched a segment of a series on MPT yesterday named "Creativity in America," and one of the artists said pretty much the same thing. It's a joy to bring beauty into the world. Of course, having said that, I must admit that right now Somerville Roses is nothing more than a sloppy mess, since I got the original measurements on the picket fence wrong and had to paint over some areas. But once I brush in some of the greenery and the roses, it'll be fine.

Meanwhile, The Gauntlet makes me really happy. It's going well.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

More Rose

This is actually a peony, though it looks like a rose; the title comes from the cut glass bowl it floats in. This is another painting I started years ago, and ran out of steam on. The flower is complex enough, but the facets in the glass eventually drove me crazy. I'm planning to work on it bit by bit, inch by inch, in the evenings.

The fun thing about it is, it's on a round wooden panel.

Somerville Roses and Tiny Dabs

Years ago I was wandering the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts when I passed a lovely street corner display. I've always wanted to paint it, but it had to wait until I got other things out of the way. It's a rambling rose bush, spilling over an antique picket fence. Over the next couple of weeks it'll start to take shape.

Modeling the face on the image below requires tiny, tiny strokes, because this is only a 6" square painting. The colors and tones slide into each other very gradually. I never realized the young woman is wearing earrings! At least, not until I blew up the reference and saw the two white spheres near her neck.

Last but not least, some work on Jeff's shirt. I think the shadow areas aren't dark enough yet.

Foreground

I did get to work on this last night; painted in the shadows on the ground area below the building.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

An Interim Shot

Later tonight I plan to do some more work on this, but here's this afternoon's work, mostly taking care of details on the left side:

Tuesday

Moving along; I was waiting for a chance to just focus on this one for a couple of hours of strong daylight. The way the colors blend into each other is magical in the reference photo, and it's taken a while and several layers of paint to get to this point, but it feels like it's coming together. There's more to do, of course. (Including ducks.)

And last night I did put in some time on this one.

Monday, January 15, 2018

Floundering

I just can't seem to get it together today. It's really difficult to draw in the architectural details on the Brooklyn piece, even with the aid of a grid. And the hand painting's background wall, which changes color subtlely from a warm white to cool, had to be gone over numerous times with a fan brush to even out the strokes. And even then, every time I wiped it off,I ended up transferring cat hair and dust from the paper towel to the paint layer.

I might work on something else tonight, but today was pretty much a wash as far as getting something accomplished.

A Frigid Monday Morning

It's 29 degrees outside. Supposedly we're due for snow flurries tomorrow afternoon; I welcome a dusting of the white stuff. Actually, I'd be happier with two or three inches, but that's another story. Here's this morning's work: it's a federal holiday today honoring the Reverend Martin Luther King, but I thought it would be best not to take the day off from painting, as time slips away and there is much ground to cover this year.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Sink and Tiles

I realize it looks like I never get anything new done on this one, but I did add a few grout lines and actually did a lot on the sink on the right.

And I took this one a little further:

New Year, Old Work

I started this one years ago, but as you can see it's very complicated and quite tedious to work on. There's an absurd level of detail. The title refers to the fact that the reference photo was taken from the rooftop restaurant of a hotel I stayed in for a wedding; the young couple who were married the day before now have two kids, so you can see how long it's been... Nonetheless, I'd like to finish it sometime this year.

I'm going to start penciling in a couple of other pieces that have been on hold for a while, too, over the next week.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Ieva

It's hard to do a good job of painting when you're listening to the news. And especially when the news is so disturbing and appalling. But I did a reasonably decent job on Ieva this evening.

Filling In More Color

This morning's work:

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

All About Red

It's been pointed out to me that years ago, the dominant color in many of my paintings was blue. This is true. Then, for reasons I should probably look into, I switched to red. Anyway, here's this morning's work:

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Highlights

The Evening Star Café apparently was founded in 1997, according to its sign, and last night I attempted to paint in that reference. White and yellow have almost no contrast when placed next to each other, though, so I was glad the letters on the actual sign cast a shadow— otherwise, you'd never be able to read them.

They still need a lot more work, however.

I also added a lot of white highlights here and there, on the windows, above the shelves, etc., so it was mostly a white paint session.

I lightened the floor area in this one, and darkened the Big Giant Hand.

Did more work today on graduating the blue background in preparation for the clouds. It looks much darker here than it does in reality.

Monday, January 8, 2018

More Vermeer

The tablecloth was calling for attention today, so I painted a few more areas: