Still Life with Cat and Pickles

"Still Life with Cat and Pickles"
Watercolor and gouache
4" x 6"

This started out as the color study for yesterday's sketch, but I had so much fun playing in the paint pan I just finished it out and signed it.

No self-depreciating critical commentary today. Just a happy little woot - woot!

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A little background on this painting...

I *love* the TV show Hoarders on A&E. There is an on-line forum about the show at Television Without Pity (TWoP). The tagline there is "Spare the Snark, Spoil the Networks."

One snarker, posting as lorax523, wrote about a Season 1 episode, "There was one shot early in the show that was just so surreal, it was like a Magritte painting. The Siamese cat, placidly sitting next to a giant jar of pickles from Sam's Club. Still Life with Cat and Pickles."

The cat and pickles have now become a running joke on the boards. Even though I have seen every Season 1 episode at least twice, I have yet to see this particular shot. My active little imagination concocted one to paint.

Thanks to lorax523 for the title and all the snarkers on the TWoP board for the inspiration.

Happy Little Trees

Watched an episode of Bob Ross painting happy little trees on PBS and decided to give it a shot. I had some student grade paints I was replacing with Winsor & Newton paints, so I wanted to use up the cheap stuff.

Used Gamboge, Permanent Orange and Payne's Grey wet from the tube. Applied it wet-in-wet with a 1" sable brush and a 1.5" crappy splayed bristle brush. Did a lot of pouncing, not appropriate watercolor technique at all.

It's just starting to dawn on me that yellow and black make delightful greens. That doesn't seem logical at all, but it's a fact of life in the paint world.

Showed this painting and the Unholy one to Hubby. He liked the happy trees better. Curses!

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Process notes: OMG this thing needs help. There are so many things wrong with it I don't know where to start. I was using oil painting techniques with watercolor and that's the main problem.

What went right: Lovely sky colors and beautiful greens.

Poached Egg Gone Bad

Finally got around to prying out the yucky pan paints from the travel palette and replacing them with good tube paints. The less used and high intensity (a little dab will do ya) colors got a tiny blob in the mixing wells in the lid.

Now I can have just one palette on the desk when I paint instead of three. Yay!

When I squished all the fresh paint into the wells I just had to paint something, anything. Didn't want to think about it, just wanted to cream paint on paper. That's how I ended up with the Poached Egg Gone Bad masterpiece above. I guess it could also be titled Toasty Cheese Danish, or simply Breakfast.

It's painted on a scrap piece of paper with a partial Escoffier recipe on the back, so a food title would be appropriate.

Chicago River from the Wabash St. Bridge

Because I am old and married and have no life, I have nothing better to do on Friday night than to sit at home and play Doodlypaint Urban Sketcher from 800 miles away.

I've noticed the watercolor paintings that make me purr have strong, dark, almost black elements. Somehow that gives the painting a more realistic feel rather than an illustration look. That's true even if the painting is flowy and "watercolory". It has something to do with "value" but I need to study that concept a bit more. The old brain cells aren't computing.

Thought I would give the black element thingy a shot. I like it.

Process notes:
Need to pratice painting clouds. These clouds are so cartoony I expect to see the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote running across the bridge. The building on the right, Marina Towers, looks a bit unstable. It's supposed to be a round building with balconies that bloop out like flower petals.

Need to work on water too. This is the first time I've attempted to paint water. Granted there's not a lot of wave action going on in the Chicago River but there needs to be a ripple or two here and there.

Decided to quit doing experiments in The Fail Book and do them in the big new sketchbook. It's pages are 8.5" x 11" but I ended up painting tiny because I was tense and the finished size of this (paint edge to paint edge) is 4.5" x 6.5".

Oh well, at least the paper didn't crinkle up like a Ruffles potato chip.

Photo courtesy of blogger bud Uncle Buck; taken on his morning walk to work.

Powwow Dancers

Was playing in the Fail Book with my big paintbrush today, trying to capture the movement of some kids dancing at the Odawa Powwow in Emmet County, Michigan. Reference photos courtesy of fellow Flickrite June Hymas.

No great works of art here, but a few things went right.



This little guy had a least a hundred bright orange streamers on his outfit. I felt sorry for his momma having to sew all those on.

I got the proportions right! Yay! Except for the head. Sigh. I am very pleased that I was able to capture the movement of his legs and feet. The raised leg and pointed toe came out great. The foot still on the ground looks perfect too. Yay! And the feathers and fur of the headdress are excellent if I do say so myself.

There is good movement in this piece and that's something that is sorely lacking in my artwork.

All-in-all, this little guy gets a big Woot!

Now the girl. Oy. Some major fails here, but there are some accidents that came out right and I want to Remember These Things.



First of all, the poor girl was not the color of a beet. Too much paint on the brush and I couldn't get it thinned down to pink before it set. Oh well. I actually like the color, it's just not very lifelike. I smashed her nose in trying to get it to look right. She looks like a retired boxer with respiratory problems.

Her legs are way out of proportion to the rest of her body. Actually her feet may be right but her head is too big. One way or the other it looks like she may tip over at any moment.

Her face was too fat on the left side, so I painted the dark blue/black across it...a painterly facelift. I continued the blue black halo around her head as if it was a night scene. I very much like how that turned out.

The vest -


I like the watery mix of the different colors and how the yellowy orange pops next to the black and brown.

The fringe -


The fringe came very close to what I've been attempting to do. The colors have all run together so the separate strands are no longer discernible, but the eye "fills in" where each strand lives. Super wicked cool. Love that. Very painterly.

The leggings -



I like the richness of the mix of colors. I've been working and working and working on trying to get the paint to mix like this and every attempt has been a big fail. I managed it here because, duh, I didn't clean the brush out when switching colors. Now how simple was that solution. MUST. REMEMBER. THAT.

Being Painterly

Tried painting watercolors in a painterly way today using a couple of methods I had seen or read about. Got out the paintbrush and went after it without any preliminary sketches. Below are my shamefaced attempts.

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A VIEW INTO DOWNTOWN LOOKING EAST

Tried the method of "Just Paint the Shapes." This is a view into downtown looking east. The setting sun was glowing on the face of the tall white buildings in the distance and that's what caught my eye.


I made the white buildings tooooo small. They were actually supposed to be the focus. Those blue blobs with the black lines that look like transformers on the utility pole are actually the windows to the white building. The big blue blob at the bottom is the roof of a house.

I liked the tangle of utility lines in the photo, but I probably should have drawn the wires in with a pen instead of painting them. I also don't like the four color palette. If I had do-over, I would change the red brick color of the building on the left to the warm yellow of the building on the right.

Must remember these things.

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BANK BUILDING

I found a lady in NYC who had the most amazing watercolors that were vivid and "loose" I guess you would say. There was a lot of white space between the brushstrokes which made the painting sharp and crisp. Very un-watercolor-like compared to most, but there was a dreamy watercoloryness to it still.

I liked 'em real much and tried to emulate the style. Oy. Big Fail.


At least Hubby recognized the building. I like the little bit under the yellow tree. That came closest to what I was aiming for. I also like the odd pink color in the sky. It kinda got away from me, but still I put red in the sky where it didn't belong.

The dark gray monolith on the right is a big fail because I got it too dark. It should have been just a little bit darker than the shadow on the side of the other building (which was perfect BTW.) I like the bit of blue dropped into the monolith. Had it been lighter gray that would have looked neat. I didn't even try on the windows of the monolith because the painting was ruined at that point anyway.

Oh well, onward through the fog.

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PATSY'S CHICKENS

A lady in north Arkansas blogs about her chickens and posts a picture of them every day. I thought I would try the sketchy whitespace method of watercolor on today's photo.


This came out OK I suppose, but it's not what I was trying to do. There is way too much detail on the big chicken. He should have been more liquidy watercolory. The other too are close to right, but are too hard edged. I should have scootched the bottom chicken over to the right a bit and given him a head. Composition, composition, composition. When will I ever learn???? I painted it just as it was in the photo. Must learn to edit in my head.

I rather like the 1950's retro kitchen wallpaper look to this though.

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PATSY'S ANTIQUE CHICKENS

Thought I would give the chicken pic another shot. Messed it up horribly and washed over the whole thing with Raw Sienna in frustration. Turned it into mud.

After it dried it started growing on me. I kinda like it.

Moro Bay Ferry

Hubby agreed to take me out sketching today. He let me sketch in peace for about an hour before the heat and the skeeters got to him. I wasn't quite through with all the shading, so I had to take photos and finish up the details and color at home. But hey, an hour is a *huge* sacrifice for him considering the five minutes I have been getting.

This ferry was part of Arkansas Highway 63 until October 27, 1992 when a bridge was built across the Ouachita River. After 164 years of providing an easy and wonderful way to cross the river, the Moro Bay Ferry had become obsolete. It now sits on the bank of the river as a state park attraction.

Mansion House 1 & 2

These are the first sketches in the new Hand*Book Journal. I was horrified to find that the watercolors bled through. Argghhhh! That doesn't happen with my cheapo daily journal.

These are details from a historic house here in Our Town. The fruit swag is one of a matching pair of plaques on the western wall. "Plaque" is probably not the correct architectural term for it, but it's the best I can do.

Next is a leadfree sketch of the western entrance. I'm having trouble finding the correct watercolor formula for the side of the building in the shade. Mine keep coming out waaaay too violet. Any suggestions?

Giraffe

It was a giraffe kinda day I guess.

Drama Queen

Vicksburg National Military Park
Vicksburg, Mississippi

Statue of Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, C.S.A. - Commanding First Brigade of Loring's Division - Killed May 16, 1863 near the close of the Battle of Champion's Hill, Mississippi.

I was drawn to this statue because of the sweeping gesture and the wild horse. The gesture is a bit melodramatic, don't you think?

There's probably a special place in hell for southerners who make fun of Confederate war heroes, but meh, there it is.

This was another attempt at watercolors without ink lines. I caved at the finish and added the ink details to the two faces and a bit around the cuffs.

Green Horse Statue

More watercolor practice. Experimenting with watercolors *without* laying down black ink lines. It feels so strange.

I painted just the shadows in purple and was going to leave it at that. Then I got the bright idea to wash it over with patina green. It looked too cold, so then I washed it over with Raw Sienna. Thought it looked pretty good. Well maybe it looks OK. Finally darkened up the deepest shadows a bit to make them pop.

Meh, the jury's still out.

Hubby says it looks like a braying donkey.

Sigh.

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Photo credits:
Charmaine Swart, photographer
Morguefile.com

Plein Air

Pink Hydrangea

(click on drawings to embiggen)

Riverboat - Tight vs. Loose - Two Sketches

First sketch - Tight - Fail


Worked on this first sketch for about 45 minutes and wasn't pleased with it. The proportions were wonky (drawing lead-free) and there was too much dead space on the top deck. The only thing I liked was the contour line of the trees. I did however enjoy the zen of all that crosshatching.

What drew me to this scene was the bright red smokestacks. That's all I really wanted to capture, but two red sticks and nothing else would look funny.

Found a quote by Andrew Wyeth

"If you clean it up, get analytical, all the subtle joy and emotion you felt in the first place goes flying out the window."

Exactly! I had analyzed all the joy out of this.

Started over just trying to capture the smokestacks and the essence of the rest. The second sketch took 2-3 minutes, tops. The proportions are still wonky, but they are joyfully wonky.

Second sketch - Loose - Joy! LOL!


I can see an improvement in my watercolor sky and clouds. I didn't fight with it so much this time. Practice, practice, practice! I like the way the distant riverbank came out gray and hazy. That's just lucky happenstance.

Watercolor Practice

Painting with abandon, smearing paint around to see how it mixes, flows and dries.




The little bird below started life as a pear. I showed the freshly painted pear to Hubby and he guessed it was a parakeet. I'll admit it looked more like a bird than a fruit, so I just went with it. Painted in some feetsies and a branch and Viola! a bird!

Pears of the Sahara

Inside the Green Bridge

Drawing this was like drawing a plateful of agitated spaghetti worms. I kept losing my place. I was ending up with the dreaded "beams to nowhere" but that's how they are from this perspective.

After finishing I noticed it had kind of a Tommy Kane-ish flavor to it. That was entirely unintentional but I was secretly pleased because I adore Tommy's artwork.

I have two more views of these bridges I would like to draw, but not for a while. My drawing pen is all bridged out. Phew!

Lead free.

Bridges at Vicksburg

I'm a bridge geek, I admit it, and when I first glimpsed this bridge rising over the Mississippi I was enchanted. It was a beautiful, soft patina green and looked like something from a storybook fantasy. Adding to my joy was the old bridge next door which looked like a Victorian roller coaster. Squeeeee! Bridge heaven!


Process notes:

I struggled with painting the sky due to a yucky brush with too-soft bristles. (Going in the trash, that one.) When it was dry I realized I had left a margin of white around the green bridge. Rather than trying to fix it and ending up with bloom, I opted to just paint the green bridge color to the edge of the sky.


Bridge notes:

The old bridge (the black one) was built in 1930 and closed in 1998 to vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but is still used by the Kansas City Southern Railroad.

The new bridge (the green one) was build in 1973, is 60 feet wide and 13,000 feet long. It carries four lanes of traffic on I-20 and rises 116 feet from the river. It has been repainted white. What a shame.

Claiborne Parish Courthouse

Leaving Arkansas headed south we arrive at the Claiborne Parish Courthouse in Homer, Louisiana.

This is another beautiful public building I'll probably never get inside because I always seem to arrive on Sunday. I thought this courthouse was neat because the columns go all the way around. Makes me want to pull up a chair on the porch and drink a mint julep. As the day wears on I could just keep moving around the building and stay in the shade.

The little dab of history:

The present day brick courthouse, built in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is one of only four pre-civil war courthouses in the State of Louisiana still in use today. The building, completed in 1860, was accepted by the Claiborne Parish Police Jury July 20, 1861 at a cost of $12,304.36, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Source: Claiborne Chamber of Commerce

A State Historical Marker on the courthouse square reads: "Built in 1860, this antebellum building was point of departure for Confederate troops during the War Between the States. It is one of the finest examples of Southern expression of Greek architectural style."

I took my reference photo in 1998. While researching the history of the building I found a more recent photo where the tree had been removed. There's a huge cupola on top of this courthouse! Gak! I couldn't see it for the tree! I opted not to try to add it in. Let's just call it artistic license. I think the proportions of the cupola are too large for the structure anyway. It looks odd.

I was amused to find that after 10 years the red plastic flowers are still in the pots at each corner of the building.

Barkman House

Continuing with a travelogue of the Deep South, today's stop is Barkman House in Arkadelphia, Clark County, Arkansas. It faces Hwy 67 which runs through Arkadelphia and separates Henderson State University from Ouachita Baptist University.

The house has a deep, wide second-story porch and I've often thought it would be heavenly to sleep out there on cool fall nights. I'd like to take a peek inside but when we pass by it's either in the evening or on Sunday. Pfft.

I didn't find much on the history of the house but these few details:

The Barkman House was built for James E.M. Barkman, son of early Clark County settler Jacob Barkman who arrived in Arkadelphia around 1811. The house was not completely finished when the Civil War began, and local legend reports that piles of lumber were taken from the front yard to build Confederate fortifications.

The house is architecturally significant because of its unusual combination of Greek and Gothic Revival styles. A transitional design between antebellum and Victorian architecture, the Barkman House is a frame house. It has a hip roof with chimneys at both ends, a two-story gallery across the main façade, and two one-story wings at the rear. Its ornamentation is known as "Steamboat" or "Carpenter's Gothic."

Now owned by Henderson State University and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oops, excuse me. That's a *gallery,* not a porch.