Random Things

"Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself."
                                                                                                                                  - Daisaku Ikeda

Finished or not finished? That is the question!

A friend recently complained that my blog posts have become rather sporadic. She's got a point, for sure. I've been painting a lot, but I don't seem to end up with anything interesting to share.

Work on the flamingo painting continues sporadically as well. I can't decide if it's done or not. I hope to enter it into a show in May, so getting it finished sometime in the near future would be a good thing. I don't want to end up overworking it. Somebody please make me put the paintbrush down!

Speaking of paintbrushes, you may remember my bout with tendonitis last year. I'm doing fine now, but if I hold my paintbrush or pencil too tightly for too long, I get little warning signs in my wrist. I noticed that the thicker the handle of the paintbrush, the less I have this problem, so I wrapped the handles of my smaller brushes and my pencils with sports tape to build up the grip area and it seems to help. I got the idea from the artist Andrew Denman. He has a series of videos on YouTube documenting his impressive work on a special commission. I noticed in one of the videos that his paintbrush handles were wrapped. I thought it was a great idea. Even if you don't already have wrist issues, it's probably a good move to wrap your paintbrush handles if you paint a lot to prevent repetitive motion problems in the future.

The birds are starting to return to our area from their winter vacation, so hopefully I'll have more frequent and interesting posts soon. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Another Landscape Attempt

Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.

                                                                                                    - Henri Rousseau

Starting a new landscape painting in acrylic

In between all the birds I love to paint, I continue to dabble with landscape painting. The reason I like the idea of painting landscapes is the same reason I like to paint birds - I see something so beautiful that I feel compelled to paint it. When it comes to landscapes, this has been very frustrating since what I see and what comes out on the canvas are usually two very different things. The only way to overcome this problem is to keep painting and slowly, slowly, I am figuring out how landscape painting works. Someday I hope to be able to combine my two favorite subjects so that the birds in my paintings can be in attractive habitats! 

Pelican WIP Continues

American white pelican WIP. I haven't ruined it yet.

I crossed my fingers and toes and continued on with the pelican watercolor. So far so good. I tackled the eye, which to me is always the scariest part of a painting because if you mess up the eye, it tends to ruin the entire piece. There's still a bit more work I need to do to the eye, but it is getting there. 

One thing I discovered during this painting is that American white pelicans have pale blue eyes. I'd never noticed that before.

Old Blue Eyes?

Another interesting fact about the American white pelican is that unlike the brown pelican, it does not dive from the air into the water to catch its food but instead gracefully dips its bill into the water while swimming. When a group of them are feeding, it looks rather like a ballet.

I think I'm on the home stretch with this painting, so hopefully I'll have time to finish it up and post the final piece soon. I think this is the biggest watercolor painting I've worked on to date - nearly 13" x 11". I've really been enjoying the process!

Nail-Biter

Yup, it's a pelican. And a white pelican at that. Like me, it is happy in both the ocean and the mountains. 

I hate this stage in a painting. I can see the potential in the piece; I like where the painting is going, it looks fresh and not over-worked, but my very next brush-stroke could go either way. It's a real nail-biter. 

New WIP

WIP very early on.

In between working on two commissions, I'm trying to squeeze in a little time to continue painting some of my own stuff. I've started a new piece; this one's a watercolor on 300 lb. paper. Can you guess what the subject is from this rather messy beginning?

Background Adventure

Experienced model available. Will work for worms and crickets.

I'm starting on another painting. This one is a 16" x 12", so fairly sizable for me. It will feature a long-billed curlew. It probably comes as no surprise that I'm doing another birding painting. I just can't help it. I mean, check out my model. He's just screaming to be painted. This dapper fellow lives at the Seattle Aquarium and has been my model for other pieces.

Very loose watercolor sketch of my idea for the painting.

Since I am a fan of the Pacific coast and long-billed curlews winter there, this seemed like a good subject to paint.

Background so far, painted in acrylic. Not exactly what I had originally envisioned, but...

I wanted to continue working on abstract backgrounds that just suggest a habitat, but this one got away from me a little. I was just having so much fun with the pallet knife and all the colors in the sand that I got detailed without even realizing it. I'm still on the fence about the sky color (among other things). I think it needs to be more gray, more wintery. We'll see how it all comes together.

Blackbird Painting Finished

"Who Ya Callin' Yella?"  7" x 5" acrylic on canvas board

It's done! And on time, too. I hope to post some pictures of the exhibit soon. My husband came up with the name for this piece, playing off the bird's brilliant colors and their territorial nature. He also found this frame. What a great guy!

Butterfly WIP

I think I might be starting to get the hang of this loosening up thing! Although I used a larger brush and dabbed on the paint fairly recklessly (recklessly for me, anyway), I'm pleased to see that the flowers read as flowers and the butterfly reads as a butterfly. I'm still finding abstract background creation a little awkward, but after many attempts I'm no longer hating what I've done. Maybe, just maybe, I can actually be a painterly painter!

Although I am trying to paint much more loosely I still want my subjects to be recognizable, so here's the ultimate test: if there are any butterfly aficionados out there, can you identify this species?

Stay tuned - I add the antennae next week...

More Works in Progress

The spoonbill painting continues to develop. I'm starting to block in the leaves, but still deciding if I'm happy with the sky. The blue seems wrong somehow. The sky in the photo this painting is based on is a deeper blue which certainly makes the bird stand out but somehow it feels like a stereotypical and boring blue, if that makes sense. Any suggestions?

I've also started another painting. I'm painting it for our living room and I wanted it to be more loose; less realistic. This is the first painting I've ever done specifically to hang in our own home. I switched to a canvas panel and I want to allow some of the canvas texture to show through. My main complaint about canvas panels is that the panels have a tendency to bow a little. I am hoping that once the painting is finished I can flatten it out somehow.

My models for the painting are from the Seattle Aquarium. The camera's flash really brought out the brown in their feathers, but I'm trying to paint the bird as you'd see it in the wild, where the natural light brings out more of the grays, blues and blacks in the feathers. These birds are called black oystercatchers, but their main diet is actually more along the lines of mussels and limpets that they find along the tideline in the Pacific. We love the Oregon coast, and look forward to spotting oystercatchers amongst the rocks on our visits so it is an appropriate subject for us. I'm still developing the background, obviously still painting the mussels, and still fussing over the bird's bill. Oystercatcher's bills are a bit unusual in shape and it is throwing me off a little. Overall I'm really enjoying the project though.

Keeping Myself Accountable

Please finish me. I'm a nice spoonbill.

Everyone seems to have stories of moving and not unpacking things for months, even years afterwards. I'm certainly no stranger to the phenomenon. I am rather ashamed to have just discovered this unfinished painting amongst my still-packed stuff, though. I started this waaaay back last spring and it got put on hold and then forgotten when we moved over the summer. What a shame! I see so much potential in this piece. My subject is from Myakka River State Park in Sarasota, Florida. It was sunning itself up in a tree in beautiful morning light. (I found it amazing to see a whole flock of spoonbills perched in the trees!) So I am posting this piece here to keep myself accountable. You all are my witnesses that I am making a commitment to finish this poor forgotten painting, agreed?

In other art news, for years I've wanted to have cards of my paintings available at my shows, or to send as thank you notes to anyone who buys my art, but the price and large inventory involved kept me from doing it. With the advent of online printing-on-demand, getting cards has now become quite manageable so I got a few made of some of my best work. I just ordered another two sets from Zazzle.com, being very pleased with the price and quality of the first two. There are a couple of shops here in town that carry local artists' cards, so I may approach them with my new cards. I've toyed with the idea of selling on Etsy or someplace like that, but I have to admit to being a little intimidated by internet selling. (Cue chicken noises in the background.)

The beginning of my note card collection

I guess this will be my last post in 2011. Thanks for following my blog thus far. Happy New Year to you all!