Showing posts with label Subconscious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Subconscious. Show all posts
6/17/2010
imitation
is the highest form of flattery, I sometimes think. Here's two drawings my five-year-old made, copying my Chicken Lady painting which hangs on the wall. The first one she did all by herself, to surprise me.
The second one my husband drew the face, to show her how to make it in profile. She did the rest.
I think she did pretty good!
11/18/2008
11/16/2008
10/25/2008
10/16/2008
10/15/2008
9/20/2008
9/10/2008
9/07/2008
11/25/2006
11/16/2006
Mother Nature 2
More painting work.
All the colors blocked in now except
somebody's foot near her shoulder.
It's about halfway there now.
11/15/2006
Mother Nature 1
The first hour of work. With a two year old in attendance, mind! That means for every five minutes of painting I put the brushes down and spent four to twelve minutes helping her, answering a question, etc.
Another hour or two, later in the evening. It's quiet, the child is dreaming, and I am painting. Time forgets about me...
I'm using Artisan water mixable oil colours. It is quite a shift going from months and months of pastel painting back to oils. Felt a bit unfamiliar at first, but now that I've got the colors going on smooth and creamy, I feel like singing! I don't want to touch the leaves much again here, they feel just about perfect.
11/14/2006
Chicken Lady Scribble
The original scribble of my daughter's that I drew the Chicken Lady from. I had thought it lost but found it.
Just so you can see again, here's the sketch I made out of this drawing. The original post about the Chicken Lady is here.
11/13/2006
Mother Nature Sketches
The beginnings of my next painting, Mother Nature. This sketch came from images I saw in another scrawl done by my daughter.
After doing the value study I realized her toes were backwards and I wanted to make her foot on the left side larger.
Here is a quick idea of the colors that I hashed out with my two-year-old's colored pencils. They're not good quality, and I don't think I'll use them again for this purpose. But it gives me some idea of what colors I want where, and I did fix the foot-size and am now considering making her dress white.
11/09/2006
11/05/2006
11/02/2006
11/01/2006
Bell Jar Lizard 2
Last night after everyone was asleep, I pulled out my easel again, cracked open boxes of new art supplies, and got silly giddy happy over painting once more. I didn't even linger over the new materials, but just dived right in. Trying out new papers, this first one a Fabriano Ingres, Italian made. Also a packet of finger cots, rubber-glove tiny pieces that just cover your fingertips. Only I found I'd ordered a size too small, so they were cutting off my circulation. Not good. I snipped the rolled edges off with scissors and just stuck the remaining short film over the three fingers I use the most. It got soiled fast, but kept my fingers cleaner than usual. I just can't keep them out of my work! I've bought chamois, stumps and tortillons before, but they end up sitting forgotten while my fingers do all the rubbing, smudging and blending. I did pick up a new pastel brush, but all it did was remove pigment from the paper, not blend it. Maybe it will be better for later layers. I set it aside again.
I'm probably going to get ill someday from being so literally hands-on in my painting process. There was a story passed around in art school that an instructor of mine had a small wound on his thumb that never healed for seven years, because he always got oil paint on it. I was horrified by the idea! Hopefully these finger cots will postpone some of the possibility of contamination for me. They certainly let me work the whole hour at a strech without running to the sink every ten minutes to wash the dust off my hands.
I remembered this time to pad underneath my paper, so that the pastel strokes would go on smooth and soft. It's fortunate that I had ordered some interleaving paper too. I replaced all the tracing paper sheets that were separating my paintings in flat storage with interleaving, then put all the dirty tracing sheets under my new paper for padding. It worked great, and I got one more use out of those old tracing sheets. I never liked using clean papers meant for new drawings or paintings for padding, even if they're not going to get smudged. I'd rather use something I know I don't care much about, so this was perfect.
So here's a few hours' work into the Bell Jar Lizard, starting again. I tried to be more true to the sketch this time, but already see some things that need adjusting. The bell jar flares too much at the bottom, has too much of an hourglass shape. In the oil study it was too straight, but now it's too curved. I'll correct that next session.
To see the sketches and previous work on the Bell Jar Lizard, go here.
10/30/2006
Sky Trees
Sky Trees is unique among my paintings because it is one where the idea came straight to my mind, and wasn't derived from a subconscious scribble or remembered dream. I noticed one day while waiting at a stoplight how pretty the blue sky was in the trees, and had the thought: what would it look like if the sky became trees, if the blue of the sky grew up the trunks of the trees, and made another world upside down? As soon as I got home I quickly sketched out the idea.
As you can see, the original sketch had rabbits running through the upside down leaves which doubled as grass, but that idea didn't make it through to the final painting stages. At first I had no more plans for the space between the sky/tree trunks than to make them black shadows, or poles.
The painting went pretty quickly, in about three days, since I already had the idea solid in mind and didn't want to deviate much from it. Here's the first few hours' work, in several layers of pastel:
I struggled a while to make brown blend into blue evenly and clean. I decided to stop fighting it and make the trees white, like birches or aspens. It was really fun to watch it progress and take on different aspects as I worked. For a while, before I built the leaves much, it looked as if the sky were growing roots.
When I gave the shadows/poles between the sky/tree trunks some form and shape, they began to have personality, and so at that point I decided to add faces to them. I pulled out a handful of subconscious drawing sketches, of faces I saw in patterns of wood grain on doors, and had quickly caught on paper.
(I have further plans for this fish with a face)
With the addition of the faces, the painting felt complete. Continually while working on it I would turn it around and paint with the tress right-side up, or vice versa. I feel that there's no permanent orientation for this painting. My daughter certainly didn't agree with me, if she saw it one way she'd get all upset: "mommy picture upside down!" But I like the fact that it can be turned around when you're ready for a fresh look at it.
To view this painting the other way, or see the details visit this page and click on "flip image" or "zoom."
As you can see, the original sketch had rabbits running through the upside down leaves which doubled as grass, but that idea didn't make it through to the final painting stages. At first I had no more plans for the space between the sky/tree trunks than to make them black shadows, or poles.
The painting went pretty quickly, in about three days, since I already had the idea solid in mind and didn't want to deviate much from it. Here's the first few hours' work, in several layers of pastel:
I struggled a while to make brown blend into blue evenly and clean. I decided to stop fighting it and make the trees white, like birches or aspens. It was really fun to watch it progress and take on different aspects as I worked. For a while, before I built the leaves much, it looked as if the sky were growing roots.
When I gave the shadows/poles between the sky/tree trunks some form and shape, they began to have personality, and so at that point I decided to add faces to them. I pulled out a handful of subconscious drawing sketches, of faces I saw in patterns of wood grain on doors, and had quickly caught on paper.
(I have further plans for this fish with a face)
With the addition of the faces, the painting felt complete. Continually while working on it I would turn it around and paint with the tress right-side up, or vice versa. I feel that there's no permanent orientation for this painting. My daughter certainly didn't agree with me, if she saw it one way she'd get all upset: "mommy picture upside down!" But I like the fact that it can be turned around when you're ready for a fresh look at it.
To view this painting the other way, or see the details visit this page and click on "flip image" or "zoom."
10/13/2006
Bell Jar Lizard
This new painting I'm working on came into thought a long time ago. Here is one of several small drawings from an old sketchbook.
More details added a year later.
And two more I did yesterday, working out exactly how I wanted it to look.
At first it was just a commentary on the feeling of those times when whatever you do only seems make your own situation worse: you know, the kind of "open mouth insert foot" incidents, or ones of more serious nature refered to as "digging your own grave". Thus the lizard is being strangled by his own tail. But then something compelled me to add the bell jar, a suffocation from things beyond your control. I suppose this painting reflects the ultimate helpless feeling.
It was only later, an hour into painting the rough that I realized this also ties in nicely to Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar.
My two-year-old saw the last sketch. She said "open! open, let him out!" She knew exactly what was going on with that poor lizard, he was trapped. I flipped back to the earlier sketch where it's not so obvious to her that he's enclosed and she looked relieved: "he out!" But then she pointed to the last drawing again: "now open dis one!" It made me laugh! Not too much, though, because she was fairly concerned at the lizard's predicament.
For the moment, I am working in oils again. This is a smaller painting (for me), being only 12 x 16". It feels quite different to have the pervasive smell of oil paint and linseed in our small rooms instead of constantly sneezing pastel dust! I really ought to open some windows, but the weather has taken a sudden plunge into winter's cold.
See the next stage here.
More details added a year later.
And two more I did yesterday, working out exactly how I wanted it to look.
At first it was just a commentary on the feeling of those times when whatever you do only seems make your own situation worse: you know, the kind of "open mouth insert foot" incidents, or ones of more serious nature refered to as "digging your own grave". Thus the lizard is being strangled by his own tail. But then something compelled me to add the bell jar, a suffocation from things beyond your control. I suppose this painting reflects the ultimate helpless feeling.
It was only later, an hour into painting the rough that I realized this also ties in nicely to Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar.
My two-year-old saw the last sketch. She said "open! open, let him out!" She knew exactly what was going on with that poor lizard, he was trapped. I flipped back to the earlier sketch where it's not so obvious to her that he's enclosed and she looked relieved: "he out!" But then she pointed to the last drawing again: "now open dis one!" It made me laugh! Not too much, though, because she was fairly concerned at the lizard's predicament.
For the moment, I am working in oils again. This is a smaller painting (for me), being only 12 x 16". It feels quite different to have the pervasive smell of oil paint and linseed in our small rooms instead of constantly sneezing pastel dust! I really ought to open some windows, but the weather has taken a sudden plunge into winter's cold.
See the next stage here.
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