Working on This Weekend- 4/19/2015

Kinishba Ruins, oil on canvas panel, 11x14inches, unfinished.

I started the sky on this painting today. It was an afternoon in the fall when this picture was taken and the sky wasn't really a rich blue, more of a hazy, dirty blue. The pure mix of blue and white was too bright looking, so I ended up adding Yellow Ochre into the mix to get the right color.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, 16x20inches, unfinished.

A little more work on the background here, I added in greys all over the background, trying to tie together all the sections I've been working on separately until now. Overall, it's kind of a mess at this point, but the end is in sight finally.

Little Pen Sketch, 6x8 inches, copic pen on bristol paper.

This is a little pen drawing, just for fun, using some pictures from Yellowstone as reference.

Here's a few photos from this weekend, the weather has been so nice, with lots of rain, and the plants and animals are growing like crazy.

Butterfly on a thistle.

Whitetail deer.

The deer here are ridiculous, this little buck was only a few feet away from me, and basically ignoring me. But it was mostly dark so the picture is a little grainy.

Guara flower, front view.

I knew there were guaras in this spot, but I couldn't find any when I walked by at first. When I went back that way later, after the sun had set, they were everywhere. Since it was too dark for pictures outside I grabbed one stem and took it home for better lighting. These flowers fall apart very quickly, I'm amazed they even manage to get pollinated.

Guara flower, back view.

April Flowers

Last week I went for a walk after work, and on a whim I decided to take a picture of every flower I could find. Unsurprisingly, I ran out of daylight before I ran out of flowers. But then again I like the tiny, barely noticed flowers too, and there are tons of those. So here are some of the flowers I found that evening,  mostly identified.

Something Labiatae

Straggler Daisy. All over the place, once you start looking for it, but not very pretty.

Pink Evening Primrose

Prairie Verbena

Oroja de Perro, maybe, tiny fuzzy white thing, and ....

Celestials... I walked by these first, and on the way back they were already wilting away.

Fluttermill

teeny, tiny flowers, less than 1 mm each.

Crow Poison

Huisache, my favorite tree.

Still not sure what this is, I had never seen it before.

Might be Greenthread.

Maybe Yellow Flax, not really sure.

Some kind of Guara, ridiculously fragile flowers

... totally ugly, but actually a flower.

Vetch

Vervain

Prickly Poppy, with one deformed petal.

Maybe a Lazy Daisy.

Maybe a Lazy Daisy... and a nice grass flower.

itty bitty flower

Blue-Eyed Grass

Snapdragon Vine, looks like the Joker smiling to me.

Bluebonnet. A rather wimpy example of the state flower, but it is growing in a pretty terrible spot.

I'm guessing "Slender Stem Bitterweed".

Working on This Weekend-3/16/15

I got a lot of painting done this weekend, and started a few new pieces too. Mostly I was trying to avoid working on the deer skull, it's at a tedious place, working on the background. So I started a few new things on Saturday and worked mostly on the deer skull on Sunday.

Horse drawing with Copic pen, 5x7 on Bristol paper, unfinished.

Little drawing of a horse I started a while ago and worked on a bit this week.

AZ Aspen, 9x12, oil on canvas panel, unfinished.

This will be a painting of an aspen with yellow leaves, from northern Arizona last fall.  The sky was such a deep blue that day, and I think I got pretty close to the right color. I tried a few colors from Williamsburg oil paints, and their Sevres Blue has been very useful, especially for skies, because it lightens dark blues without looking washed out.

Kinishba Ruins, 11x14 in, oil on canvas panel, not quite started yet.

Another picture I took on my last trip to Arizona, at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. These are the Kinishba Ruins, a Mogollon and Anasazi great house site from the 1200s, that are sadly in pretty bad shape. The ruins have been partially restored a few times, some walls propped up and such, but still need a lot of work. I just picked the colors here, and tok some notes. I need to lay out a drawing on the panel before I start painting, since there's a few things that will look wrong if I'm not careful about drawing them.

Texas Spring Flowers, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, unfinished.

This will be a little spring wildflower painting, from a picture my mom took a few years ago. I used a panel by a brand I'd never tried before and the surface was very slippery. So I just tried to get a first layer down to add some tooth, hopefully adding the next paint layer will be easier.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, unfinished.

The deer skull picture slowly continues, I'm working on the background right now. About the bottom two-thirds have a dark layer done, and I'll finish the top third, then add the highlight and bright grasses on top. I think there will be a lot of adjusting lights vs. darks once the background is closer to done, to keep it from competing with the skull too much.

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.