Roses in the Snow

Valentines's day is closing in and there's snow on the ground so this seemed like a timely thing to post. If you're thinking that this isn't quite up to current standards that's because it's a good 20 years old. I was digging through the accumulated junk the other day, and found this illustration, just about the last remaining piece from my first go round in the art world. So the imagery may be timely but the posting is a bit tardy. In my defense though, when this was done there was no internet to post to. I was just waiting for technology to catch up.

So happy Valentine's Day to all the ladies out there, and for the guys, the ball's in your court, I'm covered. For once I didn't forget.

Lady of the Lake

Watercolor
30 x 22

The Lady of the Lake, a classic subject that I have stayed away from until now. So let me wade into the waters with this one. (See how I worked the water theme in there. Darn he's clever. Please pardon me, all this cold weather seems to be effecting my brain. Back to the scheduled programming.) She's usually depicted in a boat or sometimes just as an arm sticking up out of the water with a sword. Well, I think she deserves to be seen as more that just an arm besides I had this really good photo of a full body to work with. And a boat, c'mon seriously. This is magic, she don't need no stinking boat.

You may be wondering about the sword, or in this case, the lack thereof. I wasn't worthy of seeing it. Yeah, I'm going with that. It's a much better answer than it honestly never occurred to me to include it. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Anyway, now that it's been pointed out to me that the sword is missing I'm considering adding it. I don't think it is really needed though.

And let me once again thank the lovely Elandria. You may remember her from this You would have had to have been paying really good attention or have a really good memory though. Keep her in mind, she may be showing up again to reprise this role and others.

Untitled

watercolor
18 x 12.5

Well its been three months since my last post. I don't know if I'm more surprised that it's been that long or that it hasn't been longer. Untitled pretty much wraps up the last three months though.

I finished this a few days ago, at least I think it's finished, and I don't have the slightest idea what to title it. That's usually a result of not having a clear idea of what I was trying to do in the first place. Seems to be a lot of that going around these days. "Just do it." Nice bumper sticker but maybe we should give things a little thought before we jump in with both feet. But I don't really want to go down that road today. I'm not really sure what road I want to go down today. See, still untitled.

Anyway, even though this isn't exactly a Christmas image (poor thing would freeze something off wearing that around here today), I hope everyone has a good holiday season. And I'd like to thank everyone that has dropped by, especially those that have taken the time to comment. It really means a lot to me. And a special thanks to all my models (did you recognize Linda from the last silverpoint post?) Where would I be without you?

Winter Day

Silverpoint on a warm light gray toned paper
18 x 14

I may have mislead you. Unlike a politician this was not my intent. I have always said that silverpoint was good for smaller pieces, but couldn't really hold up for something bigger. It just can't produce the dark darks needed to be noticed from across the room. I may have to rethink that. After looking at some of Dennis Martin's work I noticed that many of them are pretty big, much bigger than I had expected. So I took a shot and tried something bigger myself. Now this is not a huge drawing by any means, but it's about twice what I'm used to. It seems to hold up pretty well both near and from across the room, at least the size of my rooms. So bigger may be better.

On the downside it takes forever. The earlier parts had already started to tarnish by the time the last lines were added. I started this back in May or maybe early June and just finished it up a couple weeks ago. I didn't work nonstop on this though. There were quite a few weeks that it didn't get touched at all actually so it's hard to guess exactly how long it really took to finish. It certainly felt like a long time. Then again, it was nice to have something to go back and chew on.

Enough about that. What I was trying to do here was show how nice it is to curl up with a book when the snow in laying on the fields, the warmth of the figure against the cold of the landscape. Besides I loved the light. I hope I got somewhere close to the feel of it.

Twig

Didn't mean to be gone that long guys, sorry. It's been a long and rather interesting summer. Overall not that great but there were flashes that kept me wanting to see what would happen next. It looks like that the way it will be for a while to come too. At least now I'm used to it. On to the pictures, that's what you're here for.

I've done virtually no painting or drawing at all in the last few months so this had the potential for complete disaster. I'd wanted to do this piece for quite a while, but something always seemed to come up and push this to the back burner. Instead of going right to the finished picture I thought you might like to see a couple of the studies that I do beforehand. There's a lot of stuff done that nobody will ever see, but are nevertheless important to the process. This is where all the drawing issues get worked out. Before I start the final piece I have a pretty good idea of exactly where I'm going.


pencil heightened with white
22 x 15

So here's the final drawing of the figure. If it wasn't right there would be no reason to go any further so it was pretty obvious that I needed to spend as much time here as necessary. Besides I like to draw, this was the fun part.


Watercolor
15 x 11

So now that I've got a figure I need to put her in a landscape or some kind of environment. An excuse to go for a walk in the woods, most excellent. Not the best watercolor I've ever done, but it serves the purpose. She should fit in there nicely. It's really best compositionally to do this all at once working with basically abstract shapes and then adapting the shapes to figure and surroundings. Sometimes you get lucky though and this way will work out all right. Let's put it together and see what I've got.


Watercolor
30 x 22

This is what I thought would be the final piece. I'm not so sure though so this could turn out to be another study. There's some good points but I think there are parts that I could and should do better. And this is why it is best compositionally to work on the whole piece at once instead of putting together pieces. On this particular painting there is no deadline and no one is dying to see it (as far as I know) so why not keep going and do it right.


Watercolor
22 x 15ish

This is a detail of the previous piece and makes a pretty good image on its own. Right now I'm leaning toward cropping it down and salvaging this part and later going back and repainting the whole piece, maybe an oil next time.

Edit: I've switched out the last two images with ones that are closer to actual in color at least. Images seem to come out about a step lighter here than anywhere else. Anybody else have that problem?

Intimate Landscape - Bloodrooot

Oil on Panel
12 x 13

I thought I'd already put this up, but here it sits in draft form. Yet another oversight on my part, easily corrected.

This is another of my intimate landscapes. Every so often I like to just pick a small bit of land or streambed and see if I can bring it to life. That's pretty much what I up to here with a delicate little bloodroot flower. These are about the first of the spring wildflowers. When they start blooming winter is officially over for me.

I think I'm caught up now. Everything that's worth looking at is now posted. Wonder what I'll do next.

Sheltered Cove

Oil on Panel
16 x 12

Once again I find I don't have much to say about this. Another foggy day, more water, some foreground rocks. All together I think it works fairly well though.

Daydreams

Silverpoint
11 x 8

After those last two let's cleanse the room with something a bit better. Not much to say about this. I'm thinking about cropping a little bit off the top, but that will wait until framing time, assuming I frame it at all. All for today, not feeling very talkative. I just wanted to put something half way decent up for you to see.

Changed my mind, I do have something to say here. This is actually a second version. The first wasn't that bad with one exception. I wasn't all that satisfied with the face. Considering that's the center of interest, that's really not such a small problem. But it just needed a little change so maybe I could fix it. I've said that erasing is iffy at best with silverpoint. In this case iffy turned out to be no way, won't come off. Well, it is a gouache ground so maybe I could just reground it, gouache is opaque right? Yeah, not so much here, and the toned ground proved to be impossible to match. One last try, sandpaper. Sand off that spot and do here again. Yeah good idea. This is a second version for a reason. Things just went from bad to worse to the point that the only way to save it was to start from scratch, totally new version. Should have done that to start with. The moral is with silverpoint, just don't screw up. Know what you're going to do and do it right.

Close But No Cigar

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I seem to do a lot of things that fall just short of what I'm trying to do. Today's post will be devoted to a couple of those so maybe I can put them behind me, and move on to something with more potential. Realistically I know I'll keep playing with them until they're either right or screwed up beyond all possibility of fixing. Maybe you'll have a suggestion or maybe you'll convince me that they aren't as bad as I think or maybe I'm talking to myself and this will just be a catharthic experience.


Oil on Canvas
18 x 30

Something's just not quite right. The middle building in particular is bothering me. I think it needs to be pushed back some which sounds easy enough, but in practice is proving a bit more difficult. The brick silo isn't really working with the dull red barn either. Okay, fix those things and problem solved right? We'll see.

When I first saw this barn all the paint had been scraped off and it was a lovely silvery gray like, well, barnwood. When a got back a day or two later it was already painted with a coat of primer that was this dull red. It still had a charm to it, but it wasn't the same feel. Now it's got it's final coat of bright red, and it's turned into the red barn cliche. I'm sure the farmer likes the new paint job much better, and I'll admit it is a good looking farm, but something's just gone from it. It seems to have lost it's character. Maybe that says something about me.


Night Calls a Woman
Oil on Panel
18 x 12

A couple years ago I was watching something on TV, Austin City Limits I think, and there was this band (forget the name, sorry) playing this song that kept repeating this phrase, "night calls a woman." It stuck with me, and just would not go away. So to free my mind of this one musical phrase I did this. Nocturns seem to be quite a bit more difficult than I had imagined. This is the second, maybe third, version, and it's still not quite right. The good news is, I seem to be getting closer. On the other hand that phrase still hasn't completely left my head.

So there it is. This may be a first for me. I never let anyone see anything before it's done and ready for public consumption. In my world it's either right or wrong, and if it's wrong then fix it or start over. Next time I'll find something better to post.

Back Studies

oil on canvas
10 x 8

oil on canvas
10 x 8

Just a couple quick little studies today. I always seem to end up with little odds and ends of canvas off the roll. Being incredibly cheap (I prefer to think of it as thrifty) I always keep them around and eventually get them used up. That's the case here, just bits and pieces of leftovers put to use. I haven't even bothered to stretch them. If nobody wants them they may never get stretched, but that wasn't the point though. The object was practice. If they happen to turn out half-way decent so much the better. Any thoughts, anybody want to give them a home?