can't leave well enough alone

It's been a while since I've painted, with the holidays and all. Very difficult to get going again. To make matters worse, instead of just easing back into things, like maybe starting a couple of loosening up exercises, I just decided to slap on a bunch of paint on the green painting, as if by some miracle, that would produce a finished work.

Well, it's all a process, isn't it.

I mixed up a bunch of "white" (actually it had a lot of ochre and gloss medium and some pthalo blue). I didn't like the reddish brown color I had put on the last time. There was too much of that color on the upper left corner and it started to look very much like a Christmas painting-- lots of green and red. So I decided I would basically cover up most of that reddish brown color.


The glossiness and translucency of the white came out pretty well. So it wasn't a completely failed experiment. (Plus, I erased that distracting image which I kept seeing in the center of the painting.)








In fact, I liked it quite a lot, so I rather impulsively painted on the "finished" blue and orange painting which is hanging above the mantel in our living room!
I actually think it is improved. (the one on the right)

What the F***!

So I tried to paint on the green painting again. For some reason, that four letter word kept re-appearing. When I stepped back from the painting, there it was. Am I imagining this?

Not so green, but plenty hairy

I added more layers to the green painting, but for some reason, it's looking less green. And kind of a mess. But at least the four letter word is gone. Or is it.

Green Painting

So I was pretty happy with the blue painting, but since I am not really in the habit of starting from a sketch, I figured I had to start somewhere and so I decided the next painting would be green. In color, not in environmental impact.

I'm sure this is not the most orthodox way to paint, certainly not the most efficient, but that seems to be my M.O.

Is it just me or do you see a four letter word beginning with F right smack in the middle of the painting?

What a difference a day makes.

I had just finished reading "Elaine and Bill" by Lee Hall about Willem and Elaine de Kooning. Earlier, I had been studying books on de Kooning and Joan Mitchell's incredible abstract expressionist works. They really spoke to me. Something about the rage, the energy with which their paint attacked the canvas. That's me, painting fiend, especially when on caffeine-- impatient, agitated, exhilarated, restless.

I turned on the iPod and went crazy. Maybe it was the music (LSJUMB playing Rolling Stones) but the brushstrokes hit the canvas in a frenzy, as though I was possessed. I wasn't thinking too much, just reacting, putting down paint where the painting needed it. "Where the painting needed it"? I've heard people say that, that the painting takes over. But I never thought I'd experience it.

I don't really know what came over me but I wish it would happen more often.

Anyway, here's the painting. For the time being, I'm calling it "Looking for Bill and Joan." Although I may also title it "Bundle of nerves."

BTW, this was originally the "blue" painting. Amazing how it changed from day to day!

Give us this day our daily blog.

Here is a summary of the progression as I added layers on the "blue" and "red" painting.

Fear factor

We had our 3rd class. Shiloh talked about taping off parts of our paintings that we wanted to "save". Of course, we might paint over it eventually, but it's a way to have bits of under painting show through the work later on.

I didn't get it. I mean, I taped up my work in random places, but after I painted over it and removed the tape, my painting was still not a masterpiece!

So, more layers, more paint. I tried to execute the "push/pull" concept Shiloh talked about: bringing back colors that had been partially painted over, trying to get a weaving effect going. Again, I obviously need more practice here!

We had critique at the end of class and that was quite helpful. It was very interesting to see how everyone's work evolved during the 2 hour class. There are 4 students, including myself, and we are all very different in our styles and level of experience. None of us had ever done abstract painting before and most of us felt we didn't know what we were doing. But the one thing I observed about other 3 is that they have NO FEAR.

Not me. Fear is a bad, bad thing. And I have lots of it.

I have known this for a while. I don't mean fear of things one should be afraid about. I mean fear of screwing up my paintings. "It's only paint." Duh, I know that!

Fear. And impatience. That's my other problem. So I am working very hard at "walking away", "looking at it with fresh eyes", all that stuff. Then, if it's not "good" I can scrape it off, or leave it and look at it again later, paint over it, whatever.

Painting is hard work. But I already knew that.

As they say, "It's only paint."

So it's Friday afternoon. Class is in a couple of hours. I was going to leave the red and blue abstracts that I did in class last week, and see what instruction Shilo gives us tonight. But, as usual, I couldn't help myself, even though I was nervous I'd go too far and mess it up. Oh, well, it's only paint.

So here are the red (autumn) and blue (rowing in Santa Cruz) with more layers.

Abstract Expressionist?

I'm working in acrylics for the Friday night Abstract class, but I really want to work in oils, so I tried to use the "layering" idea and started an oil.

Here's the first stab at it. I'm sure it will look very different as it progresses.

Taking a stab at action painting

Started an Abstract Painting class a couple of weeks ago at the Pacific Art League. First class was about value--we did a couple of small black and white studies, just to experiment with brush sizes and trying different strokes.

Second week, we started using color, and Shilo (our teacher) told us that "it's all about layers." Start with 10% paint and 90% water (we're using acrylic in class) and build up from there, leaving traces of underpainting. So these are the 2 paintings I started in class (above).

One more brush stroke

Now she has hair (and a smaller head.)
Done.
Leaving for 3 week trip.

Surprising Discoveries

So I futzed with the painting AGAIN and surprise, surprise....I didn't kill it.... yet.

I added an orange "blanket" under the Tori figure so that hopefully it now looks like the she is sitting behind the dog and not levitating on top of it. (It would have been nice if I had a "before photo" so you could see the amazing levitating figure.)

Not sure I like what the vertical edge of the blanket is doing to the composition, though.

Another discovery...Liquin added to the oil paint makes it all dry quicker. Much quicker. That was pretty thick paint yesterday and I'm very surprised that it's all dried today. Learn something new every day...

So now I'm looking at the painting and I think I need to add hair to the figure so it looks more like Tori, and not so androgynous. Also need to work on that blanket edge.

Dang. I'm asking for trouble. Living dangerously.

Packing it up.....maybe

I leave tonight for a 3 week trip to Asia. I reluctantly packed away all my paints yesterday. Wiped my palette clean. This is a difficult thing to do--I don't mean because it's messy dealing with oil paints, but that too.

Hard to get on a roll and then have to put stuff away. I'm in the middle of an "almost good" painting. Hate to stop now. I worked on 3 different paintings yesterday. I'll call two of them "warm-ups" since they didn't turn out to be anything, but that's okay. Experimented with Liquin and had fun mixing it with the paint to a finger-paint consistency. One painting was a de Kooning experiment, but alas, a FAILURE! Learned that I sometimes need to WAIT between brush strokes. Ended up with yet another muddy mess.

Third painting ended up being "successful". Started "doodling" a very loose figure (Tori seated with legs crossed). Then JW said "that thing (at the bottom) could be a dog." So that's what I made it. Anyway, it's "almost good" except that Tori looks like she's levitating on top of Docious. So I have to futz with that. Probably will screw it up if I try to do it now before my trip. I should leave it, but then I'll have to work on in when the paint is dry and that's not good either.

Maybe I'll just do a LITTLE today before I leave. Can't leave it alone. I hope I don't kill it!

I'm on a roll.

Just finished a painting workshop with Melinda Cootsona. It was abstract figuration, how to paint figures from photographs, without looking like it. I did a couple of small paintings from the same photograph (from an Anthropologie catalog.) The paintings are so-so, but it really got me loosened up.

So I was inspired and decided to do a painting of the Stanford Band (it's beginning of football season, after all!)

I painted over a still life from the previous class I took from Melinda. (It was a pretty bad still life of vegetables from my garden.) Some of the light green still shows through.