Cupcakery

A "gorgeous pink cupcake" from The Cupcakery. It actually had a dollop of raspberry filling on the top with a white chocolate mint, but I wanted a cherry on top, so I exercised my artistic license on this one. The best part -- Doug shared a bite of it with me today, and it has a big dollop of the same filling IN THE CENTER of the cake. Double yum. Gorgeous outside and inside ... just like the person* I drew it for!

(*My daughter, the Duchess Cupcake, wanted a picture of one to use as her avatar on Twitter, so this is probably the first of several cupcake drawings. And of course I had to start out with pink...)

The Trouble with Tulips

... the trouble with tulips is that they open so quickly! I started a little sketch of these couple of blooms on the far right side of the first tulip bouquet of the season, and then walked away for a quick bite and to give the paint a chance to dry. When I got back, every flower was open wide and standing up straight and I couldn't even figure out which blooms I'd been working from!

TODAY'S LESSON: Photograph your subject if you're going to take a meal break.

Phooey. I'll have to play with finishing the rest by memory.

Christmas Candy

Off shopping today! Maybe I will end up at the mall after all. Sigh.

Green

Have you ever noticed how ridiculously green a good green pepper is? I'm not patient enough tonight to paint it properly. Maybe tomorrow. It won't last longer than that, as it is planned for dinner one evening, chopped up and sauteed with onion, then added to pulled roasted chicken and simmered in a few spoonfuls of Goya Sofrito to be served over yellow rice with black beans. Comfort food for cold weather.

Poor Pears

These poor beat up pears have sat too long on my drawing table. I didn't realize that the heat of the drawing light was slowly cooking them until I cut one open and found it brown and warm. Yuk. I tried some different pigments with this, and they lack the, um, clarity of some of the others I've been using. And I might be getting a little bored with fruit. Maybe.

Halloween Persimmon

Painting in stages, small washes and light sketches tonight because the trick-or-treaters having me running to the door every few minutes.

Best line of the night:
A little witch rang the bell, dressed all in black, except that she had chosen to accessorize her costume with a string of bright purple beads and giant red glitter covered sunglasses.

"Hi! Um, Trick or Treat!"

"Well, hi! Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"

"I'm pretending to be a bad witch." She leaned in and whispered, "but I'm a good girl."

She got two handfuls of candy.

Persimmon

Does anyone else see an unexpected theme developing here? I thought it was just about playing with color and availability of subject matter, but ... Paintings of Pomegranates, Pears, Paper cranes and now Persimmons...
Perhaps there will be a Parade of Petite Pumpkins next...

The Pom Also Rises

It's nearly the end of October, and we are coming closer to that special date when we will be sitting up all night, anxiously awaiting the arrival of The Great Pomegranate.
Or not.

Red Pear

Friday, before I found the photo of the three green pears, I picked up three red pears to paint (and then snack on, of course). Tonight pear number one and I had a short session where it sat very still and fearfully quiet while I maniacally pushed darks on this Aquaboard I've been playing around with. I don't know what I think about the painting right now, but am remembering that Diahn once showed me a recipe for an acrylic mix that looks like encaustic, and I'm thinking that a wash of that over it all might be veerrry interesting ...
All this crazy experimentation is an awful lot of fun.
Mwwaaaahhh-haaa-haaaa.

Virtual Pears

I've seen some of these paintings around and about lately, and tonight finally found the link to the October 2008 Virtual Sketch Date blog. Yikes! It's due TODAY! What a great photo (from Belinda Lindhardt). I did it so fast that I probably didn't do it justice, but it was fun.
:-)

(Watercolor on 5x7 Aquaboard)

Repainting

A quick re-painting of the panel that was scrubbed in the other post. When the panel dried, the surface was not entirely white -- it was slightly discolored and there were tiny flecks of something dark. I may have scrubbed a bit too vigorously, too (I used a nail brush), and the surface texture felt smoother than the original. The pigment went on differently -- I won't say better or worse, just differently -- than before scrubbing, and it took a little getting used to. I like that the panel wasn't a total waste, but won't plan on saving any "unpainted" panels for pieces that I'm really emotionally attached to.

Meanwhile, I'm still practicing my crane folding. If you're curious and want to just give it a try, you don't have to buy origami paper. Lightweight gift wrapping paper works, too -- just cut it up into (about) 6" x 6" squares to start. Good instructions to fold a bird base are here:
http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-bird-base.html
And you can continue to fold the crane following these instructions:
http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-crane.html

Or for a totally different way (which I'm going to have to try tonight ...) go here:
http://video.about.com/familycrafts/How-to-Make-an-Origami-Crane.htm

AND, I'm planning a blog re-do, so don't be surprised if it looks a little bit different sometime in the next few days. If you subscribe with bloglines, it may also show up as a bunch of new posts, since I think I should have done a label for these pomegranates and pears, don't you?

:-) See you tomorrow! Keep warm and dry!

Unpainting

I love rooftops, especially of white buildings. I realized this the other day when I took yet another photo of a rooftop with the idea that it would make a great painting. I think it would. I do. Even though I totally flubbed it up when I tried to do it...

I mean, WHAT is THIS? Where did that perspective come from? Or, more accurately, WHAT perspective??? Sheesh. And the colors -- totally off. The more I tried to correct them, the worse they got. And while I'm loving this Aquaboard -- you CANNOT get an even wash on it. At least I can't, and if any of you figure out how to, please, please, PLEASE let me know!

The nice thing about making such a major mess up? I get to test the "scrub off factor" of the board. And I filmed it. Just for you.

Untitled from Linda M on Vimeo.

An Unlikely Pear

In case you can't tell -- that's a poorly folded origami crane. See, my experimentation goes beyond painting and into classical Japanese arts. I'm a Renaissance woman, I am.

Okay, so here's the deal with this one:
1. I may have gone a bit far on this background. I love those darks, though...
2. I tried WN gold ochre for the pear. I liked it real well at first, but then it seemed to dull down more than I expected as it dried, especially when burnt sienna was washed over it. It seems to be quite a bit more opaque than it appeared at my first test.
3. Really. That poor pear has about had it, and I've got to get better at folding those cranes.

Court Cafe

This looks a little different in the scan than in real life. I used a couple of new colors which the scanner seems to really love, especially Holbein's Mineral Violet. In real life this is a bit more pink and cerulean rather than purple, but you get the general idea.

I love working with this new board, although it is a constant challenge. Working on it is a real balance of additive and subtractive processes, which can make parts of it look a bit, um, DONE, but it lets me really play. I didn't make a single pencil mark for this (or any of the other paintings on board), doing it all in just paint. Fun stuff, don't you know! It still needs some tweaking, but not too much -- I've about tweaked it to death already -- but that's it for today.

Have a wonderful weekend -- get out there and do something fun!

Another Pair

I figured something out when I bought these pomegranates. The uglier the fruit, the more interesting it is to paint. These are not the ones that you would buy if you were going to eat them. You'd think they'd give me a discount, but they don't.

This was done with watercolor on 6"x6" AquaBoard. It is TOTALLY different than paper. If you do watercolor and are looking for something a bit different, I would really recommend that you try it. The smaller boards aren't expensive (about 6.50 for a pack of 4) and the paint lifts off pretty easily. I would be interested in trying to scrub the board totally clean ... maybe on the next one.

Diahn talked the other day (in this post) about working in a series, and coincidentally, so have several other people, including Laura (who pointed us to Katherine Tyrrell's great post) . I guess I am in series mode, although I didn't really plan it that way. It's just that I'd committed to drawing every day (and painting counts), fruit is readily available, and you can position and reposition the same pieces over and over again. But I'm finding that portraying the same subject over and over helps one to begin looking past just drawing or rendering of the object in a way that makes it hopefully recognizable, and start to look at the way the surface temperature changes from warm to cool, how light reflects, how shadows behave. Plus, it kind of takes the pressure off, and that's always a good thing.

That being said, I think I'm going to play with a landscape tomorrow. Or maybe not. There are still pomegranates and pears sitting on the drawing table...

Pairs

Phooey on orchids! I went to the store this afternoon and picked up a couple of pears and a couple of pomegranates to paint and snack on. Diahn and I had also picked up a couple of packs of 6" x 6" Aquaboard this weekend on our trip to Jerry's, and tonight was my night to experiment.
Different. I'll be doing more, and reporting what I discover about this board.
Meanwhile, Artoberites out there -- keep on keeping on! :-)