APRIL 30, 2010

Well here is what I've been working on this week. In one of the web sites that I'm in we are working on portraits. There was a lovely photo of an Indian boy that I loved, poor guy. So I tried him. First I had to draw. I don't draw well, my fault, I don't practice but this time I was determined. Here was my effort.






So then after a week's worth of work I was fairly pleased so I decided to put paint to paper. This was my result. Not too good. Didn't have colors right and not the right paper. I just kept changing and changing which meant stressing the paper.




Well needless to say I haven't been pleased, too purple, eyes not right but I kept on. Did I mention this is the little Indian Arapahoe that I am trying to paint.


Poor little guy I hope he forgives me. I really tried but it got to the point that I had removed the paint so many times that I had a hole in the paper. Yup that bad. I did learn a lot of things and I plan to redo this proud warrior on different paper that will take my constant changing and removing the paint. He was what I ended up with on my first try. You will see this little guy again and hopefully he will be better.

The finished Daisy

I was persistent and bound and determined to finish this. It was quite a struggle and I'm not sure if I like it. It was a foreign way for me to paint, one petal at a time and quite meticulous. I love that way, admire the work but it probably isn't the kind of painting that I do very well.

The results? Well not too bad considering, not my favorite painting of mine but it looks a lot better than it did. I know I could work a lot more on it but really I have so many things stacked up to paint I'm going to move along, take the marvelous instruction that Ruth gave me and try and incorporate some of it and see what else I can learn with the next thing I attempt.


ONWARDS to the next challenge.

April 7, 2010

Well again I have become remiss in painting. Got very very involved in a photo project for my husband's 70th birthday and that took a month to gather the photos (I have hundreds and hundreds of both slides and hard photos) This does not count all the 100 CDs I have. Really I think I just take too many photos.

Anyway project was a huge success, all six children contributed wrote stories and we now have a beautiful coffee table book of my husband's 70 years.

So even though I have other projects I'm working on I'm starting to get my brushes wet again.

First I have been working on a demo from a watercolor site that I'm on, thanks Ruth. I haven't gotten far and it may not be the best way for me to paint as I'm definitely not a meticulous painter but I love the results of a meticulous painter. I feel that one can always take away a lot of techniques by doing the different demos and thus that is what I'm trying to do. Here is the result of how far I've gotten, have a long way to go.



And I also from the same web site had a Friday Foto challenge of two men chatting but in a different setting. I put them in my own imaginary setting and this is what I got. Some things I like but many things not so much. I changed colors of clothing and that worked and the shading of the clothing worked but some of the other things not so much. Need to just paint more and really am talking to myself a lot about "taking some time for me".



So now I have a few things to do but am going to get back to my daisy petals and maybe start something in pastel as well. The above two paintings are in watercolor.