Author: virginiacmccoy

I found out that, after I have sprayed a pastel drawing, I can do some touch ups over it.  Pastels, at least with my pastels on the paper that I use, eventually get so many layers that it starts lifting up when I try to apply more layers.  It gets messy and very frustrating.  Well, I was so upset over the mess that I thought I would just give it a try and it worked.  I think it is much better, now.  Not perfect, but enough so that I can sleep, tonight.  LOL!  I know…  I have issues…

Please comment and let me know what you think.  Does she look better or should I have left well enough alone?  Also, the photo in the post, below, was scanned and it didn’t turn out well.  I took this photo with my camera.  I think it is a much better photo.

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

— James Thurber

 

Okay, I have been through all the usual emotions while working on this.  I spent a couple of weeks walking around the house with Anjali’s photo, printed from the computer, contemplating the portrait.  I have actually been contemplating it since before I actually took her photos in November.  Then, once I started I felt pretty good about it and the sketch came together fairly easily.  I started with the eyes and immediately started with the anxiety.  Then the skin was a little stressful.  I always start skin by putting on a layer of green, then I build the skin tone on top of that.  The green always throws my mind for a loop, but I know that it will make a good base for all the reds, browns, yellows, etc., that I will use to make the skin.  So, I grind my teeth, try to keep from crying, sometimes remember to pray, and continue.  When I finally come up with a good skin tone, I am relieved and start on the eyes.  I was complimented on my ability to do eyes and was feeling good, but then, of course, I was unable to make eyes that satisfied me.  Stress…  Took a photo (which I posted in the last post) and cheerful, again, because when I take a photo I seem to see it with new eyes.  It works like that when I walk away and come back later, too.  Sometimes I am shocked at how good it looks when I had just a little while ago felt sure it was trash and I would have to throw it away and start over.  LOL!  So, I worked on it for several more hours, trying to get something good with clothes, but especially hair.  I was so relieved when I felt like I was done and signed it.  I was happy.  I took a photo and put it in the computer and started getting it ready to post.  Then, I started seeing ugliness and bad things.  I touched it up some more.  I worried and tried to overcome my anxiety.  Now, I am feeling like it is trash and I am embarrassed to show it.  But, I can’t do it again.  This is it.

This is almost my usual struggle.  I have been trying to sound cheerful and positive with every post, but reality is that I am continuously struggling with a love/hate relationship with my art.  Even within just one piece of artwork.  Sometimes, I don’t think it is worth the pain…  But, then after I have recovered from it and not looked at it, maybe moving on to another project, I usually end up loving it in spite of it’s flaws.

I’m sorry if this is not what you wanted to read.  This portrait was subject to many of my mood swings and I am exhausted.

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

— Psalm 94:19 (ESV)

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

— Emile Zola

 

This mug was a gift from the portrait subjects mother.  I have no idea how it started, but I have been calling almost everyone “darling” for many years, now.  If I don’t call you darling, just be thankful and move on.  LOL!

Here is a couple of WIP photos of my latest portrait.  If anyone recognizes her, please let me know in the comment section.  Do not worry about colors until it is completely finished.  Her skin is pretty much done, although I always touch up until the very end.  However, her hair and clothing are just underpaintings right now.  The background is in flux.  I am looking forward to seeing what happens with that.  LOL!

I tried to do my pastel drawing the proper way and I just can’t do it.  I need it to be at an angle away from me on my drawing table.  I am really struggling to stop blowing the dust.  Sigh…

I love the colors of the pastels.

The weather is so beautiful!  Yesterday, Mr. Beloved, Toby, and I went for a walk at Foundation Park.  It was very nice and lots of people were fishing.  We need to get our fishing gear in order and get going on that.

There’s fishing and then there’s catching.

— Mr. Beloved

 

 

Okay, I am working on a couple of oil paintings at the same time and even thinking of starting a third one.  That way, while paint is drying on one, I can work on something else.  I am not used to this kind of thing, but I think I need to get used to it.  I am copying paintings from a lesson book, so I decided to divide a large canvas into four and do them on that, instead of four separate canvases, because they are not my original paintings anyway, so why waste the canvases.

These photos were taken over several days with differing light levels.  I think I will start some tomatoes in that top right green spot.

I am also beginning a pastel portrait.  This is a lovely young friend who allowed me to take photos of her late last year.  I am finally getting around to using one of them.  I have two easels (one given to me by my beloved parents), so I have my oil paintings on one and my pastel drawing on the other.  I have discovered that if you have your pastel upright or even leaning toward you just a smidge, that the dust will fall and not get into the air.  I very foolishly used to do my pastels at a slight angle and blow the dust off, not thinking of the dust in the air.  Tsk, tsk…

The weather has been beautiful and I need to get out and hit the trails, again.  Toby agrees…  The following quote is SO true!!!  The fire is still going in the woodstove, but down in the studio my fingers freeze and I can only work for a little while before going upstairs to thaw for a little while.  Soon…  Soon…  I will be able to open the windows and enjoy the warm breezes…  (The photo below is not mine, I got it from http://www.pixabay.com.  Our daffodils are not blooming, yet.)

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

I am no good at naming paintings.  LOL!  Well, this is oils on a 12×16 smooth panel.  I started with brushes, thinking that I would do this painting in a certain way, but ended up wildly fingerpainting!  I used a limited palette of ultramarine blue, hansa yellow, burnt umber, and titanium white, mixing what I needed.  What do you think?

I am taking a break from my commission and am planning on going wild with my oil paints.  Who knows what will come of it?  Check out the two previous posts for two other paintings.

Now on the hills I hear the thunder mutter…
Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,—
You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat….
Look! look! that livid flash!
And instantly follows the rattling thunder,
As if some cloud-crag, split asunder,
Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash,
On the Earth, which crouches in silence under;
And now a solid gray wall of rain
Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile…

— James Russell Lowell, “Summer Storm,” 1839

 

This is oils on an 8×10 canvas that I wanted to do quickly and see what I could come up with.  No reference photo, I just quickly made a mess.  LOL!  And I mostly used what was left on my palette from the last painting.

This barn is across the road from us.  I took the photo in November, but had to make the painting look spring-like as well as I could.  It is oils on canvas.

I have been going through an artistic crisis.  In my artistic journey, which encompasses most of my life, I have tried to become an oil painter.  I have always admired the old masters and, of course, dreamed of becoming like them.  As I have gotten older I have realized that I will never get close and, because I could not create work like theirs, I drifted away from oils and became afraid of them.  I still sneakily tried them every once in a while and gave up and ran from them.  LOL!  Silly, I know.  Well, with this latest commission, my client initially asked me to do the paintings of the houses in oils and I said, “NO!  Oh, no!  Can’t do it.  No, no, no.”  So, he agreed to acrylics.  Well, for the last two weeks I have been dwelling on oils and trying to resist the drive to go to oils.  I contacted my client and we discussed it and he has agreed to allow me to try to do painting number seven with oils.  I started it with acrylics and after getting the sky in I was unable to get anything else done on it.  I tried.  It was a mess.  I started another panel and made a mess of it.  Finally, I realized that I need to use oils.  SO…  I am doing a few practice oil paintings before starting house number seven.  Here is my first practice painting:

I just need to get a feel for the paint and I need to figure out how to make the painting dry quicker.  It is possible with different mediums and solvents.  But, I also want to make it as toxin-free as possible.  Well, I am off on another adventure and challenge.  It is a bumpy road, for sure!  LOL!

Talk doesn’t cook rice. ~Chinese Proverb

Today, it is so cold that I am spending all my time keeping the fire fed and devising ways to keep warm.  LOL!  The weather has been changeable, to say the least.  While waiting for the photo for painting number seven, I decided to try watercolors, again.  Over the years, I have tried watercolors many times and can’t seem to make it work for me.  I started a watercolor course and tried these pears:

I know they are not great, but I was surprised that they turned out as well as they did.  So, I got bold and tried a landscape.  Well, it didn’t work out…

It is rather funny how difficult watercolors are for me.  Well, I got the photo and I have started painting number seven.  It is a relief to be back using acrylics.  LOL!

I am still slogging through Washington, A Life.  He as been president for a few years, now.  He is old and tired and totally devoid of teeth, but he is still doing his duty.

More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself.

— Charles Francis Adams

I believe this one is finished.  I was listening to my audio book, Washington, A Life, while finishing up the painting and it was strange.  I was painting a colonial-type house while General Washington was getting back to Mount Vernon after The War.  It was quite an experience.

And, now, even though it is cold (in the 20’s), the sun is shining here in my own little Mount Vernon and it appears that spring is imminent.  Let us hope that it is so.

I know it seems like I am always reading something new.  Well, I tend to read several books at one time.  I am also reading a collection of short stories by Dorothy Canfield, who is more famous to me for writing Understood Betsy.  You can find many of her books at Project Gutenberg, if you are interested.  She writes folksy, compassionate, lovely stories which are very funny, poignant, and interesting.  I have some analog books of hers and many kindle books, but none of her audio books, as of yet.  I must say that audio books are very handy.  I can put one of them on and carry it around with me doing all sorts of things.

Here is a nifty little quote about an old man who did not give in when everyone wanted him to move into town and be taken care of:

“…And there he stuck year after year, with the whole town plaguing at him to quit.  And he earned his own living, and chopped his own wood, and kept himself and the house just as decent, and never got queer and frowzy and half-cracked, but stayed just like anybody, as nice an old man as ever you saw — all alone, all stark alone — beholden to nobody — asking no odds of anybody — yes, sir, and died with his boots on, at ninety-three, on a kitchen floor you could have et off of, ’twas so clean.”

— Dorothy Canfield “Old Man Warner”

(I am not saying that no-one should ever “move into town and be taken care of”, this is his story…)