What's on the Easel?

Today I worked for about 1 1/2 hours. I felt kind of foggy, so I had lunch, then went for a walk. My 45-minute walk cleared my head, so afterwards I went back to my painting. I think I worked about another hour and a half. I realized that my drawing was a little off, so I moved things around. I had put the flowers in first and then had to paint the background around them, not easy when the paint is wet! I used a lot of paint and pushed it sloppily around. This painting is feeling freer than usual. I ran out of steam before I ran out of blank canvas, so I stopped before everything was covered. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to put the rest in. Click the picture for a larger view

I finally really zeroed in and concentrated on my "N" setup. I was kind of dissatisfied with it, so I dismantled what I had and completely redid it. Then I rearranged it again. And again. I decided to lose the Nesting Ninjas. I also took the Nutmeg out and added Nerve Plant and a Nutcracker (even their shadows will be important.) Also a color picture of a Nimbus cloud on the wall. I took all three Nancy Drew novels that I got at the Goodwill and stacked them up. I took pictures of each new arrangement. I was getting feedback from my daughter, husband, and painting friend, but finally I just decided that "composing by committee" wasn't going to work for me, and I said "Good enough!" and starting getting the drawing committed to the canvas. First I gridded out my blank canvas into quarters, and quarters again. I have this nifty viewfinder that I recently made, so I looked through it to make sure my painting included all the objects with their correct dis...

After getting some good feedback from my husband and a painter friend, I decided to remove the nook, necktie and the necklace hanging from the nail. I loved all the wordplay, but it was just too busy back there with all the nesting ninjas, and was very dark and heavy in that corner, so I thought I'd see if it would be better if I simplified it. I did like this arrangement better, but it needed something in the upper right corner, against the wall. On my walk this afternoon, I stopped in at the Goodwill store and was thrilled to find some Nancy Drew books! I bought three, since I didn't know which cover would look the best. I think I've landed on this one. I like the way her flashlight beam is pointing up into the plant, bringing your eye around. I may tweak it a bit more, but I think it's getting close. I want to rearrange the ninjas so that the one on the notebook is the one that has nunchucks tucked in his belt. I'm going to replace that plastic orange with a real...

Well, after finishing "M", I took a nice long break from painting and mainly did jigsaw puzzles while we were snowed in, then I stretched a canvas for "N" and for my new copy at the National Gallery (read about that here ). I've been thinking about and collecting the N objects for weeks, and have set them all on the table. Today I started to seriously look at them and arrange them into a possible composition. I have collected Necco wafers, nutmeg, a Neanthe Bella palm (there aren't many plants that start with N! I wanted Narcissus, but the garden center said they wouldn't be selling them until April. They helped me find this pretty little Neanthe Bella palm, also known as a parlor palm), an Alice Neel book, Ninja nesting dolls, a napkin, a Nacre (mother-of-pearl) necklace, a notebook, a nine ball, a navel orange (I'm using a plastic orange as a stand-in but I will buy a real navel orange when I'm ready to start the painting), a necktie, and a nav...

I let the painting sit for a few days and showed it to some people. One artist friend recommended that I darken the area around the maple syrup bottle, because your eye entered the painting and moved back, but didn't have anything to settle on back there. So today I worked a little on the maple syrup bottle, darkening some of the darks and the shadow beside it, and brightening the lights.  I also tackled fixing the eyes of the mask. I felt that the eye on the right was a little higher than the other eye. Another artist friend said she thought I needed to add some darks around the eyes, because that area looked a little flat. So I worked on the eyes. But then they called too much attention to themselves, so I lightened the pupils and tried to make sure the eyes weren't looking directly at the viewer, but a tiny bit to the side. I hope it comes across. I also worked on the nose and mouth and brightened the cheeks a little. I scumbled a little color over the mask's reflection ...

Today the Loudoun Sketch Club hired a model and invited us to draw him in a library meeting room in Leesburg. The model started with some short poses to warm us up (30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes), then longer, culminating in two 45-minute poses. He brought a couple of costumes for the long poses.  I love to draw people, and seize the chance whenever I can. Today I used charcoal. For the short poses, I used one sheet of paper (gray Canson pastel paper, the smoother side) and vine charcoal, and wiped the drawing out after each pose with a chamois cloth. For the first 45-minute pose, the model wore a top hat and formal coat. I did a portrait study. (I took photos so you can see his costume.) I drew on the original piece of paper with multiple drawings wiped out on it. This gave a nice base of mid-tone charcoal to work on. I used the chamois and a kneaded eraser to pull lighter areas out of the darks and mid-tones. I enjoyed "carving" out the drawing this...