White Peony challenge

This is the current challenge from Rookie Painter, an art blog. It was interesting to try a white flower again. This one has a lot of blue, but I'd like to try it again in a warmer pink/ivory version. I was using the Lukas large pan watercolors. They are economically priced so I keep them handy to the dining table for when inspiration hits and I'm not in the studio. It's a little difficult to get a dark green, but Paynes gray will make black if you keep washing it on.

Follow up from yesterday (Snoopy Dance)

Legacy, Thanks Mom 4X4 acrylic

Yee-haw! (left over from my Texas life) everything and body woke up fine this morning, including the printer! I'm a cookin'!

 Ah, now I'm back from computer concerns, this weekend was a plein air paint out at the Sunol Wilderness this Saturday. Since it's in my area, I've painted there before. It's a wonderful place, but you aren't allowed to park along the road that has the great views. You are welcome to hike there. Let me think...no thanks. Sometime, when I have a lighter rig. Well, when I'm lighter too, and in better shape. It can get really HOT there in the Summer, but amazingly, after several days in the 90's and above, suddenly it cooled off to the 70's. Alas, I couldn't make it that day, so I went there after church and a visit to the Apple Store geniuses, and ended up taking lots of pictures. Results to come.

The little picture above was a Challenge from Daily Paint Works to paint the tools of the trade. My mom was a painter (violinist, singer, pianist etc) and I have some of her old paints and things. Since they are in metal tubes and are well used they are more "picturesque" than the newer ones. One even has the old, faded price sticker on it. It was an interesting challenge to get the modeling of all those folds and creases, and the lettering. Ever heard of Pictor paint? This was probably purchased in Southeast Asia. It's still viable, though. Thanks Mom!

Well, THAT was embarrassing!

Today was the first day where there was absolutely NO excuse for not going out and doing a bit of plein air. All I can say is that it's a good thing I took pictures. Today's results will not be posted, however, before I went out I did a little painting as a result of watching a National Geographic documentary last night:

Egyptian Afternoon

There was one shot in between some of the scenes, only there for a moment, but it captured the feeling of the burning heat of which the desert is capable. This is a 6X6 watercolor.

Now this one:

Mother Hubbard's veggie bin

This was done as the result of an Art Challenge last month. Somehow I managed to delete that post. Don't ask. This is an 8X10 oil. It's a yam, the pale thing is a slice of cantaloupe.

Patience and persistence with myself

While trying to get up to speed on supporting yourself with things you love to do, it seems sometimes you have to do other things too. Like housework and looking for other kinds of work that have an actual income. Never lose sight of the value of what you do. That's the first step toward others valuing it also. What we do is not just an expression of who we are, but where we come from, who created us. We reflect all those good qualities, and express them in our lives. That's our main job. Our employment.
Sometimes that takes practice, and continuing to learn and expand our expression is absolutely necessary. That's living.
Lately I've been wrestling with these ideas and trying to open my thought to the new, while keeping in practice on the familiar. Aside from looking for a paying job before the money runs out, trying new things continues. I've taken three beginning/intermediate watercolor classes with Ron Pratt and he taught us how wonderfully intense color can be in the medium. It was great! I also enjoy the Artist Challenges that are available in blogs like Rookie Painter , and Paint and Draw Together. Having a challenge set by someone entirely different from yourself makes you stretch yourself in directions you might not have taken. Not just in subject matter, but palette and style. Some results are not all you hoped they could be: see the lemons above. But you learn a LOT. It can lead you in new directions, it's worth trying it again. In this case these colors provided a challenge, especially their lighter values. This resulted in the Japanese scroll vignette (I think it's up in the right corner, I can't seem to get the pictures to go where I want them within the blog).
I didn't try to duplicate the script on the scroll, that felt too much like plagiarism, so I did an "impression" of it. In a scroll like this the calligrapher's hand is as much a part of the poetry as the words, and it wasn't my poem. The picture is 8X12 inches.
The daises are a rather European touch, a peony would have been more appropriate, but this is the way it turned out! The purpose was the paler palette, perhaps I will do it again with a more strongly colored flower later. The contrast could be very interesting.
Well, it's going to be a short day today, I have to get up about 4:30AM to get to Sacramento by 8AM for a placement test, the next step in trying to find some income.