What really goes on in the studio...

So this is what I have been working on...2 portraits of my Pizza! And can I just say, he is the cutest! OK now, about the paintings... I used some pictures that I took when I was visiting this summer. In the second painting, he has a really cute look on his face, but I had such a hard time with the eyes and mouth. I think the eyes finally look like him, but the mouth might not be quite right. But overall I think you would know it was Pizza. The first one I think is right on! It didn't give me nearly the trouble as the second one. I should add that the reference photo for the first painting was of much better quality than the second, and that may have made some of the difference. Another factor might be having the mouth open vs closed. I'm not sure about this, but I don't think many portraits have open mouths (and I may have found out why!). Yes, these are gifts, but the recipients never check my blog :( so I figured it was safe to post them!

My New Studio!

Let me start by saying that we can hardly believe the transformation! Maybe we are patting ourselves on the back too much here, but see what you think. Since we moved here 6 years ago, this room has been known as "The Scary Room," as you can see in the first pictures...

Our best guess is that the room was last occupied in the early 1900s, therefore I probably don't need to mention how sick it was to wash the floor before priming... When we first moved in, this room was the least of our problems and we figured we'd just never go in there. But then, as we finished other rooms, and especially the fabulous bathroom just on the other side of the door, it became the room that we'd have to renovate, just so when we sell the house, the people don't open the door and pass out! Then we thought, wow, it could be a really cool studio! So one day while I was in CA, Ted was home alone and decided to gut the room instead of work on the bathroom project that we had going on...

He found mud wasps and other really gross stuff that I won't mention.

And he also found a cool brick chimney and some very cool accordion lathe from pre-1825!

Please note his "nest" on the floor of tools and stuff that I have been working around for 6 years.

The room had no insulation, so he ordered some spray foam insulation, completely falling for their motto: "Unleash The Beast!"

Then Ted rebuilt all of the original 6 by 6 windows. It sounds like I was just sitting on my butt!

But no, I was having fun taping and mudding the joints of the sheetrock, leaving the collar ties exposed because it would have been too easy to cover them up!

And finally, after months, we started painting!
Note the sick floor! I also did wiring for 8 outlets and 4 overhead lights with 3-way switches. Ted installed speaker wire in the walls running to the bookshelf. And we did countless other things to make it nice, but let's move on to the final photos...Ta Daa!

We built a bookshelf with wiring for a light switch and 2 outlets since this wall is the outside of the brick wall of the main house, therefore no light switch in a brick wall. I'm so proud of my bookshelf design!

And wow! Look at that amazing sheetrock job!

Now, the room is so cool, it might be too cool for a studio! To celebrate, Ted took me on an early birthday extravaganza to IKEA where we picked out some uber cool furniture. I love IKEA and we had the best time! When we get it all arranged I'll post final pictures, probably next week.

And no, we never imagined that we wound stand in that room in bare feet with clean clothes on.

2 Red Apples

6" x 8" oil on canvas panel

This is the third in my series of apple paintings! These 2 apples are from our old apple tree. The tree has had more apples this year than any other. We have been enjoying many apple pies (possibly too many). The apples are sitting on a scrap from the posts that went into the Little House restoration this summer. I needed something to elevate them for a better composition and I like the color of the wood. I am going to try to get at least one more apple painting before they are all frozen. I have not had much painting time as we have been pushing ourselves to finish the studio. We are getting close! We put up shelves on the tops of the knee walls to cap the top of the wall but leave the large beams exposed. I tested out one of the shelves with my favorite little vineyard painting!

Apple & Bottle

5" x 7" Oil

Another attempt at this apple with an old bottle that Ted found under the porch.

Russet Apple

5" x 7" Oil on Canvas

I found some beautiful apples at the orchard nearby. This one is golden with russet markings on the skin. I think they have over 40 varieties, this may have to be a series! Our ancient apple tree has wonderful apples for the first time since we've been here. I'd like to paint some of those as well.

Fall Barn

9" x 12" Watercolor

This is a quick, 1-hour plein air study of the barn across the street surrounded by fall color. I'd like to try different versions of this in the studio (when it is finished!).

Fall Hollow

9" x 12" Watercolor

The hollow has incredible color this fall. This scene shows it in the afternoon with shadows on the steep slopes and the tan fields in the foreground. This was painted en plein air just up the hill.

10" x 14" Watercolor

Fall is here and this beautiful tree sits at the edge of the field behind our house. This was painted en plein air at the peak of this tree's color.

When we moved here, there were only 2 houses on this street. In the other house live 2 brothers, Randy and Bob. Although, we call him Boob because when he first introduced himself he said "Hi, My name's Bob, but Daddy used to call me Boob." That was the kind of statement that makes you wonder if he wants to be called Boob. We've made friends with Randy and Boob which they like since I think many people in town remember them for their wild younger days. Luckily we missed those and they are now fairly mellow in their late 60s.

Randy and Boob grow pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers every summer and sell them on their picnic table out in front with a sign reading "Fuddy Duddy Ranch." The first summer, when Ted and I started growing pumpkins, Randy would come over on his 4-wheeler "Bertha" and check out our pumpkins. Naturally, this turned into a competition. Despite Randy's threats to sneak over under the cover of darkness and cut the stems, Ted won the first year with a 75 pounder.

Ted, Randy, & Bertha with the 2004 winner.

We felt a little guilty winning with access to better seeds. So since then, I buy the seeds and start them in pots, then distribute them, which might be more than fair! Since 2004, Randy has "squashed" Ted in the competition. Since he was winning, he even raised the stakes from a 6 pack of Budweiser in cans to a bottle of Black Velvet (I know you're cringing). Part of this was due to these awful bugs that ate our plants. Finally this year I sought the advice of loal organic gardening experts and we were armed with some natural powder and the book on growing giant pumpkins from my dad. Success! That combined with moving our patch yielded a 155 pounder, even with the rains that basically wiped out Randy's patch. Ted is thrilled and Randy paid up with some Michelob Light! (Is that a step above or below Budweiser?)

The 2008 competition winner on display.

Randy doesn't look as good as he did in 2004. He had a stroke earlier this year and has slowed down significantly. Our parents are only a few years younger than Randy and Boob, but have not led such hard lives. It is interesting to see the differences, especially with smoking. Both Randy and Boob have tried to quit but have been smoking since they were 11 years old. They have both been married and divorced twice and now live in the house where they grew up. Randy did not come over on Bertha this summer nearly as much as in previous years.

11" x 14" Oil on Canvas

I finally finished this painting started in a summer workshop. It was "finished" for a while, but I wasn't quite happy. I added some lemon yellow highlights to the vine leaves and also some fallen leaves on the ground. I think that helped tone down all of the green grass in the foreground. I want to do more paintings with these trees as I think they are so beautiful. This was painted on a violet ground and the violet peeks through and helps unify the painting.

9" x 12" Watercolor

Sorry for the long absence from blogging. I have been painting though, just working, traveling, etc as well. This is one of my favorite spots, looking west from the top of the Santa Cruz mountains. I am going to do some more studies of this over the next few months, testing colors and levels of detail as an exercise.

4" x 6" watercolor

My sister and aunt started a succulent fabulousness craze that has spread to me and my friends as well. I don't know what this one is called, but it has blue-green leaves with a more yellow-green stem and reddish tips. It was fun to paint and I think the colors came out well. I may try another darker wash over the table for more contrast. Oh, and I still need to add the shadow!

Oil Painting Still Life

9" x 12"

This was the last painting I did in my class. I had a lot of trouble with the cloth. I had painted cloth once before with the clementines and thought it was not bad. However, maybe because this panel was larger and I was painting the cloth in a larger scale, I had trouble. I like how the cherries turned out with the shadows of the stems. Finding a composition I liked was hard as well, and that may also be because I am not used to painting with oils on these larger sizes (I've been painting 5" x 7" usually. So I added the lemon to take up space! I think this painting would look good in a bright white 30s tile kitchen like in my dream bungalow! (Funny since I have a dream 1800s farmhouse with a nice kitchen, but I'm nuts). I added some grey glazing to give some distance to the cloth behind the lemon and also to contrast with the lemon.

Lake Cabin Watercolor

9" x 12" Watercolor

Ted and I went on a fishing vacation to a nearby state park with a beautiful pond. He fly fished and caught 7 trout while I painted this from the boat and scooped up the fish in the net. I finished up painting the trees while sitting on the covered porch after lunch. This weekend, I spent a day painting plein air (oils) with a friend out in front of my house. It was fun to paint with someone else, especially a friend! She is a more experienced painter and it shows! Her painting was wonderful and very lively. I feel that mine is lacking in that liveliness. I am not finished yet, but will do some more work on it and post it soon.

Oil Painting: Vineyard

9" x 12" oil on canvas panel

This is a view of a vineyard in California in the early morning. Well, it was late winter, so it wasn't too early. But the sun was highlighting the budding trees and the mustard flowers. I started this in my class then finished at home. We were working on matching colors to our photo references. I used three photos, because one had pretty accurate colors for the mountains, one looked good for the trees, and the mustard flowers were best in another. So that reminds me to take several photos of the same scene, since the camera doesn't get all the colors and lighting correct in any single photo. It was interesting to work on matching the colors for the mountains and realize just how orange the lit parts are. I had the hardest time with the greens. I have heard that other painters have trouble with greens as well. I layered some of the tree colors into the grass in the foreground, which toned it down a bit. I am planning to do some color charts of different green mixes to help in mixing greens in the future. I am happy with this painting and my instructor complimented it!

Oil Painting Portraits

THE PIZZA!
I doubt that I would have attempted portraits on my own. But in my class, we practiced various techniques inlcuding underpainting with Burnt Umber, then overpainting with transparent or opaque color.
I found it very hard to paint the faces using the awful B&W photocopies from class. So I decided to try a portrait using a photo that I have so the copy would be better and I could see more clearly. So I used this cute photo of the Pizza! I found it much easier to paint and I love the painting. I did not try any overpainting because I did not want to mess up the cute little Pizza's face. Now I am inspired to paint portraits for friends and family and maybe even start looking for commissions!

I changed the background to shades of blue and I like it better. So I think I am finished with this one. Again, I converted it to black and white to check the values...about the same. But not bad. I think the sunlight shows up well in the flowers.

Oil Painting Process

Here is a painting that I have been working on for a bit. I photographed these Iceland Poppies in Berkeley. Behind them is a chain-link fence so I am trying to come up with a more pleasing background. Some would like the juxtaposition of the chain-link with the poppies, but that is not what I am going for here...maybe later. I am looking for suggestions for how to improve the background. Thoughts I had were to make it the corner of a building, white clapboards, grey patio, more greens, sky...

I turned it into black and white on my computer to see how my values are doing...

Not bad, but not great either. I think I could use more value change in the lower left and right corners as well as in, yep, the dredded background. If I went with a sky background, I could do a darker sky at the top fading to very light toward the flowers and foliage. Or I could do lighter on the right where the light is coming from, then fading darker toward the left. Hmmmm. Please help!

Spring Watercolor

Last week the Crocus were blooming, so in the afternoon I sat outside on the lawn and painted these plein air. Now that things are blooming and not frozen, I can practice painting flowers live rather than from photos.

Painting Practice

This is another exercise from my watersoluble oils class. Again, we used portions of paintings as a base for the exercise. The point was to mix warm light and cool shadow colors with the proper values and of course, to have all the values in the final painting relate to each other properly. I think I did well with the values in the face. I tried to make the hair a different color from the face in warm light, which wasn't necessarily part of the exercise. I don't really like how the hair turned out, but since I was finishing this at home, the paint for the hat and clothing (darkest) had dried, so I couldn't use it to make shadows in the hair. Also, since I was just copying values from another painting, I was not thinking about what I would do if I were painting a similar portrait. Overall, I think she looks like a 1980s rock star, but I do think I learned the point of the exercise and will remember it.

This is a quick, 30 minute, study of water flowing over a rock in a stream. Ted went fishing and I sat by the stream and wanted to practice painting flowing water. A friend of mine and I are going to do some painting together this summer and she said she wants to paint water, so I thought I'd better get some practice in! As we can all see here, much more practice is needed! But I thought I'd post this as a first, quick, unfinished (the fish were not biting and it was time for dinner) example for reference and to hopefully see improvement. First, I believe that a better sketch before painting would have made the water movement make a little more sense to the eye. Specifically, the rock in relation to its wave is off and that was because I was working quickly. Also, more color change in the distant water would be nice...

Class Work

I am 1/3 of the way through my watersoluble oils class. We've been using only primary colors plus white and working on mixing. We are using liquin to speed drying and thin the paint a little. I haven't tried using liquin with traditional oils so cannot compare the handling, but I will try it soon. We also did a value study and I chose to keep mine monochromatic. We are using some black and white photocopies of famous paintings as a base to do these exercises. Last night we started working on portraits using warm light and then cool shadows in the face. I didn't finish last night so will post it soon.



On the left, I mixed secondary colors green and violet to get "slate" colors. Then I mixed complimentary colors red and green to get some rusty browns. The liquin allows the white ground to show through the paint.

5X7" oil

This is one of the scenes from my recent CA trip. The tree is a little too perfectly puffy. I had some trouble mixing colors and might have to branch out from the 3 primaries that I have. But my "Painting with Watersoluble Oils" class starts on Monday, so hopefully we'll have more colors. I am practicing in preparation for that class. I am excited!

This is the sunset view from Marina's house (Lucky!). We saw some beautiful ones when we were visiting them. The sky was difficult to paint, but I am happy with how it turned out and overall I like this very much.

Watercolor

I wanted to try this flower again, while it is still in bloom. I wanted to keep the vase and background simple so as not to take away from the flower. I don't know if that is boring or not, but a yellow Cymbidium from Ted, how pretty! I haven't had the courage to try the entire spray of flowers (actually 3 sprays!) but the single flower is nice.