Starting Again

I was recently helping a friend with a blog design, and I needed a way to test her blog formatting without testing on my usual blog (I didn't want to mess that one up!).  I used this little blog to test her design, since I haven't written on here in years.  As I poked around, making sure her formatting would be right, I clicked on posts, read a few of my pages.  It made me reminisce.

I remember when I started this blog, when I was a young newlywed.  I had just watched Julie and Julia, and was fascinated by the idea of taking on a massive project and blogging about it.  I was itching to do the same, and since I've always had a tablespoon of artistic talent in my fingers, I decided painting would be a fun project.  I gave myself five years to become an expert painter.

Spoiler alert:  I did not become an expert painter in 5 years.

Instead I jumped on the baby train, and have been happily riding it for the last 8 years.  If you follow my main blog, you know my kids are a big deal, and a huge part of my life!  When I have free time, which happens on the rare afternoon when they are all napping, I usually spend the time to blog or read.

But every now and then, I also paint.

I don't do it nearly often enough or consistently enough, but there is still a part down inside of me that wants to learn to paint.  That feels like it would bring some relief for that itch to create something colorful and beautiful.  So I dabble a little.

And the other day, as I read my high hopes from all those years ago, I thought maybe it was time to give this blog another go.  Why not?  Just a place to post my dabbles in watercolor and digital media (aka. Apple pencil), a place to play and toy around with it, without being too serious.  A place to share some of my painting fun, even if I'm the only one who ever looks at it.

So I spruced up my very old blog design, and maybe I'll share on here every now and then.  Don't expect perfect gorgeous paintings, but don't laugh.  Every artist has to start somewhere.  I might as well start here.

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(Stock photo via The Influence Network, way back in the day.  Are they even around anymore? I usually take my own, but sometimes you just have to start something and slap a stock photo on it.)

Slacking

I know I've been slacking terribly with posting on this blog. That is mainly due to the fact that I just haven't had much time to paint in the past few months. I've been working alot more than usual, and I just don't have as many days off.

I think I need to get out of the mindset that I have to finish a painting the same day that I start it. It's okay if it takes me a few weeks to finish it.

I did start a winter scene painting, but it's not finished yet, and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. I'm having some trouble with the color in the painting - something just doesn't seem right, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I'm going to try to work on it more, and I'll post pictures soon.

A Seascape

SO this time I basically just tried to paint from a photograph on my calendar that I liked. The photo was taken of The Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell National Park, Victoria, Australia. I just thought it was really pretty, and it's a place I wouldn't mind seeing someday. So here's my version of it:

This is my painting with the original picture above it.



And by itself . . .





I've decided I really like painting water. It's kind of easy for me to paint water for some reason - I just get the colors right, swirl them around a little on the canvas, and somehow I always like the way it turns out. I'm actually pretty happy with this painting.

What I really want to paint though is mountains. I think they are a little harder to get right, so I need to practice them more. I'm going to try to do a mountainous landscape for the next one I think.

Attempting a Landscape

I decided to try to paint a landscape this time, because that is more the type of thing that I would enjoy painting. I love the outdoors and the mountains, so I want to get good at painting landscapes.

For this painting I just copied a picture of a painting in one of my painting books, Alwyn Crawshaw's Oil Painting Course by Alwyn Crawshaw. And the painting I tried to imitate was one of Alwyn Crawshaw's paintings.
Here's my finished attempt:





I feel like the colors aren't quite right for the foothills on the far edge of the lake. They need more of a greenish tint or something. I like how the sand turned out on the edge of the water, but I feel like there should be something in the foreground - I really don't know what to add though. What do you guys think? I also feel like the painting as a whole should either be more detailed or more vague than it is - it's stuck in the uncomfortable middle, and I'm not sure what to do about it.

One thing I learned with this painting is that it is fun to paint water. You basically just swirl around a bunch of colors, add a few shadowy reflections, and it just looks great! And if you mess it up you just do a few blending brushstrokes and no one would ever know. Yes, I had fun with that.

I really do like painting landscapes - I think my future paintings will be limited to that. I might add buildings or fences to my landscapes sometime, but I like paintings of the outdoors. Indoor things just don't inspire me the same way.

The colors of the leaves are so gorgeous where I live right now that I'm tinkering with the idea of trying an Autumn painting. I want it to turn out really well if I do that though, because Autumn scenes are near and dear to my heart. I'm a little scared to try painting the leaves - I want to capture the feeling of Autumn just right, and I'm not very good at this yet. I may or may not do an Autumn painting this year - we'll see. I might want to be a better artist before I try that.

Flowers . . .

A couple of the painting books I'm reading suggested painting some flowers next. So I did. I'm not really loving it. Here's my painting, which is finished until I decide that something needs a better highlight or something. Try to ignore the glare from the flash on my camera.





Not really crazy about how this turned out. It's alot harder to keep all the tone and value stuff straight when you throw color into the mix. I feel like the tonal values just aren't right, but it's really hard to just fix it.

The background was initially plain, but it needed something, so I tried adding a window. Not the best window, in my opinion, but it needed something.

The vase is a little crooked too, but I'll get better at keeping things straight the more I paint.

I do like how the water in the vase turned out. I decided to be adventurous, challenge myself a little bit, and make the vase clear with water in it - and I think it was worth the risk. I liked having the freedom to try different colors and brush strokes in an effort to paint the stems and leaf and rocks and such through the distortion of glass and liquid. It was the funnest part of the painting, and it's the part that turned out the best, I think.

Overall I guess it's not too shabby for my first color painting, but I'm a big fan of this one right now. However, I did learn some important things while painting this:

1. Try to mix my own colors more. I caught myself just using paint straight out of the tube a few times during this painting, and that's a no-no. If you use colors straight out of the tube, then all the greens in your painting will look like variations of the same shade, or all your blues, or whatever. It takes life out of your painting if you use it straight out of the tube, so I need to try to mix different colors for different objects - because honestly, nothing is exactly the same color as anything else in real life, unless it's manufactured to be the same color.

2. I need more practice at tone and value. The colors throw everything off for me. I think it might not be a bad idea to do another monochrome painting, just for more practice. So my next painting may be another black and white. Or maybe I'll go for sepia this time, just for some variety. I guess you'll see soon!

3. I do not like painting flowers. Or fruit. Which is what the books seem to want me to do before I move to landscapes. But flowers and fruit just aren't me. I don't think they are my painting style.
As far as painting goes, I'm not inspired by flowers unless they're on a hillside, and I'm not inspired by fruit unless it's on the tree. And in order to paint something well, I think you need to be inspired by it, inspired in such a way that you want to just pick up a brush and paint.

Landscapes inspire me. Fresh air inspires me. Mountains inspire me. Anything outdoors inspires me. I'm just not inspired by indoor subjects. So I've decided it's time to take this act to the great outdoors! Expect a landscape painting in the near future.

Light and Shadow and No Color

I did my first real painting exercise last week. I've been reading the painting books that I got, and they have been talking alot about the tone or value of different colors, and how the tones of different objects in a painting are the same, even though they may be different colors.

I was totally confused, but basically I figured out the lightness or darkness of a color is it's tone or value.
I was also getting really intimidated by the whole light and shadow thing - but that's pretty important i you're going to do good paintings. The light and shadow is what makes an object appear three dimensional on a flat canvas.

I was starting to wonder if I would ever be able to understand the light and shadow thing, but I figured the only way to figure it out was to do it. So I did one of the painting exercises in "First Steps Series: Painting Oils" by Louise DeMore, which is one of the books from the library that I'm currently reading. Here is what I came up with.





The exercise suggested I paint different objects in black and white to help me figure out tone and value. I think it did help - certain parts of objects had similar shades of grey, so if this painting was in color, the tone of the different colors would be the same in those areas. Now we'll just have to see if I can transfer that concept into a color painting! Stay tuned - I think I'm going to try a simple subject, like a flower or something, in color next.

Playing With My Paint

So as many of you know, I've rented a few library books on oil painting to help me get started. A couple of the books I have (Books 1 and 3 - see Books page) recommended just fiddling around with the paint for a while - trying different strokes, mixing colors, and just playing with it. So that's what I did. I thought you might find my fiddling painting amusing:



I know, I know, it looks like a first grader did it! Feel free to chuckle if you want to, but I had alot of fun playing with my paints, and when I was holding my palette it made me feel like a real artist! That's the way the book wanted me to feel before I attempted a real painting, so I guess it was a successful experiment.

Getting Started, Thanks To My Wonderful Husband!

I'm pretty sure I have the sweetest husband in the world. When I told him I decided I wanted to try painting again he took me to town and we bought some paints, a palette, canvas paper, and turpentine for me! It's so exciting to have all my new equipment! Plus I have some old paints from when I used to paint in elementary school that are still good. So that's Reason Number One why he's so great. Reason Number Two: the next night he did this for me:



He painted this corner of our basement and set up all my painting stuff, and put up that shelf with my stuffed animals on it (yes, I still have stuffed animals - and what's wrong with that, I ask you?). He also got our stereo system all set up so I can listen to music or talk radio when I work (I'm a big talk radio fan). He wanted me to have a nice place to paint - he thought if I had to go down there with everything a mess I wouldn't paint as much, so he set this up so that I would want to paint down there! He's so great - I'm so blessed to have such a supportive husband! Just thought I'd brag on him a bit . . . and those are only two of the many things he does for me! Thanks Babe, you're the best! And I'm looking forward to doing many paintings in my wonderful corner of the basement!