Three Pink Roses

Here's the finished painting of pink roses from the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, in front of the Auld House. The Auld house is a historic farm house built in the 1880's that was donated to the San Antonio Botanical Garden, it was moved from the original location and rebuilt in the garden. 

Three Pink Roses, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, detail, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, detail, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, progression, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

For sale here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/224530506/three-pink-roses-original-oil-painting?

Preparing Paper for a Drawing

I used to just start drawing and not worry about keeping the edges even and clean, but now I'm much more particular. I really like the crisp look of sharp edges, and the picture can be framed without being covered by a mat. Deckled edges on nice paper can be shown off too, and generally I think it looks more professional.

An example of clean edges on a charcoal drawing, and deckled paper.

For most drawings I buy big papers, usually 22x30 inch, and cut them to be exactly the size I want. This way I'm can make unusual sizes and aspect ratios.

Laying out the big paper and measuring for cutting.

First I measure out and mark the cut lines with pencil. Then I double-check the measurements and look at it from a distance to make sure the corners are square and the lines are straight.

Drawing piece cut out from the big piece.

Some kind of straight edge to cut against is essential, and a fresh razor blade. I try to keep the metal of the straight edge over the drawing side of the cut, so if the blade slips it won't cut into the picture piece. Sometimes I've had to put newsprint under the straight edge to keep it from scratching soft paper.

Artist tape placed around the drawing edges.

After the paper is cut I measure the outlines for the drawing and add light pencil lines. Then I put down  artist's tape outside the lines, this tape has nice soft adhesive that won't tear paper when it gets removed. It seals well enough to keep out charcoal and pencil dust, and has peeled off easily even months later.

Newsprint cut to fit around the back and edges of the drawing paper.

Sealing the back and sides of the paper with newsprint keeps off stray charcoal dust and keeps corners from getting bent from handling.

Bottom side labelled.

Since I usually leave extra space at the bottom for a signature, and try to put the deckles on the bottom, I make sure to mark which side is the bottom. One time I accidentally drew a picture upside down, and only realized when it was finished and unwrapped. So I now label the top and bottom before closing up the newsprint.

Newsprint taped down and sealed with masking tape.

Then I use regular masking tape and seal the newsprint to the artist's tape, being super careful not to  touch it to the drawing paper.

Artist tape and masking tape.

After shredding too many papers pulling the tape off of finishing drawings, I don't use masking tape any more. Even the painter's grade tape can stick unpredictably. Masking tape also has a bad habit of getting gooey and gross after a few months too.

Working on This Weekend-2/7/2015

 Here's some of the stuff I've been working on this last month. A charcoal drawing and a few paintings: 

Dry Wash, charcoal on paper, 12x16 inches, unfinished.

This drawing is based on a picture my mom took a few years ago. It's patterns left in the desert sand after a rain. Only on the second layer, so the darks haven't really been built up yet, and I'll probably add the brightest white highlights with acrylic paint after I get done blending the charcoal layers. I don't like using white pastel because it mostly disappears when sprayed with fixative, and I like my drawing to be sealed and safe to handle.

Toxic Beach Foam, oil on canvas panel, 5x7 inches, unfinished.

This little thing is just an experiment, playing with sand mixed in the paint, and combining a few colors I had in mind.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, 16x20 inches, unfinished.

Still working on the deer skull, kind of forgot about it for a few weeks, added a few things on the background this week.

Dam on West, oil on canvas panel, 5x7 inches, unfinished.

This is the first session for this painting, about an hour, and I really like the colors on it so far.

Three Pink Roses, oil on panel, 8x10inches, unfinished.

Almost finished with the roses, I worked on the shadows and the stems today, probably need one more sitting to fill in some of the pinks and whites. Some of the colors on the flowers look grey in the photo, so I tried that and it looked dead and wrong, so I wiped it off and tried a light blue, but that looked funny too. Then I tried a light purple instead, and that really popped.  It's funny how colors can be so tricky. Sometimes if I get really stuck figuring out a color I'll open the picture in Paint and use the eyedropper tool to see exactly what it is.

Working on This Weekend-12/21/2014

Mainly worked on two paintings this weekend, Three Pink Roses and the Winter Deer Skull.

Winter Deer Skull, oil paint on panel, 16x20 inches, unfinished.

 I went back to the shadow areas of the skull and
 added a light blue layer, with some texture. Then I redrew the fence wires and the cracks in the skull with Raw Umber, too.

I originally wanted to do only glazes of pure colors on this painting, but that isn't giving me the results I want, so today I tried working wet in wet on the background grasses. It worked really well, but it will be tedious to get all the background area covered. Galkyd tends to get sticky and messy very quickly, within an hour, so that means I can only cover small areas at a time, with small batches of mixed colors.

Three Pink Roses, oil paint on panel, 8x10 inches, unfinished.
 Mostly got the background out of the way here, now I can work on the fun part, the flowers! I swear painting backgrounds is like eating your veggies before the good parts of dinner. The first layer had already been done on the background, so this layer was easier to apply and adjust. I made three shades of grey, using a dark Torrit Grey from a few years ago, plus pure white and the grey for the darks; and added color all over, working from lightest to darkest with the same little filbert brush, and then blended it all with a soft brush. After the blending I cleaned up the stems and flowers with a clean brush dipped in mineral spirits.

Geraniaceae Seeds

I have a hard time deciding whether to call these pictures drawings or paintings, but it was an fun experiment, no matter the name. I transferred pencil drawings from photos that I took, painted in the background, shaded in the pencils drawings, painted over the drawings with thin washes of acrylic inks, and then scratched out highlights with a knife. I worked back and forth between the pencil and ink and scratching out whites, Claybord* is great for that because the surface is smooth and deep enough that it can be scratched off a few times without scratching through.

Geranium Seed #1,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013.

On two of the pictures (#1 and#3) I used multiple layers of acrylic ink to fill in the background, which worked pretty well, it just took a few layers to get even coverage. For #2 I tried acrylic paint, and it wasn't as easy to work with as the ink, it chipped in places when I scratched out the details. The paint also left lines that had to be smoothed carefully, so I'll probably stick with ink in the future.

Geranium Seed #2,  pencil with acrylic ink and paint on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013

The shine of the pictures made them hard to photograph, I tried several times and had no luck, even going all out and building a black light box didn't help.  Then I realized that I could scan anything small enough to fit on the scanner bed, so I tried it and had great luck.

Geranium Seed #3,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches,  4/2014.

The seeds are something in the Geraniaceae family, I'm not sure exactly what species because I didn't take pictures of the plants themselves. The seeds were stuck in my socks after hiking at one of the local parks, so I brought them home and took some pictures to work from. They're common Texas wildflowers found near San Antonio, Texas.  The seeds in this family spring out as they dry, launch away, and stab into to things to get themselves dispersed. The amazing thing that I found out when trying to identify them is that the coil changes with the humidity, getting longer when wet and shorter as it dries, and will screw the seed into the ground.

  

I did a little experiment by tracing a dry seed on a piece of paper, soaking it on water and seeing if it expanded any. Turns out that it did expand, after a few minutes, and within half an hour it was back to the original shape. 

Geranium Seed #1,  detail.

Geranium Seed #3, detail. 

Geranium Seed #3, detail.

For more information on the way the seeds explode out and bury themselves, see this paper:
Evangelista D; Hotton S; Dumais J. 2011. The mechanics of explosive dispersal and self-burial in the seeds of the filaree, Erodium cicutarium (Geraniaceae). Journal of Experimental Biology. 214: 521-529. 

*I am not compensated in any way by Ampersand, I just love their products. 

Toy I

Toy I, with the model.

I wanted to try some still lifes based on my favorite colors, Prussian Blue and Alizarin Crimson, with little toys and items from around the house. This is the first finished picture in that series, it features one of my favorite model horses that I've had since I was little.
This painting was done on canvas, but I wanted the bottom white part smooth, so I built it up with many layers of gesso and sanded it smooth. After that was smooth I poured on Prussian Blue mixed with Galkyd and let it form the drips.

Toy I, oil painting on canvas, 12x24inches, finished, 2013.

GIF of Toy I, showing some of the layers that went into the horse.

GIF of Toy I, showing the layers that went into the whole painting.

Toy I, with the model.

Working on This Weekend-Thanksgiving 2014

  A painting that I started a few months ago and then forgot about got most of my attention this weekend. This is the first layer, on top of a pencil drawing. The photo is of roses at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, in front of the Auld House, a beautiful historic Texas farmhouse that was donated and relocated to the gardens. I think it already looks pretty great, should only take a few more layers to get right.

Three Pink Roses, 8x10, oil on panel, unfinished.

Three Pink Roses, 8x10, oil on panel, unfinished.

Color Sketch for Winter Deer Skull, 5x7, finished.

This was a little color sketch I  did to check the colors I picked out for the big winter deer skull painting.

Stormy Clouds, 5x7, oil on canvas panel, unfinished.

A little landscape I've had in mind for a while, storm clouds from a few weeks ago. I love the colors of storm clouds, this is my first try at painting them. This will need at least one more layer, once it's dry in a few days.