I nestled into my bolster and adjusted my shorts to get a comfortable seat. My mind was tired yet focused as I looked at the clock. 11pm. A little late to start a painting… But I was all in. This needed to happen today.
My dad mentioned his love of reflections on glass and wondered if I’d ever painted a bottle or glass of wine; I hadn’t but luckily I had an unfinished open bottle that wasn’t getting much attention. Even if I don’t drink this wine, it will be appreciated for years to come now, immortalized in a painting.
My setup was on the floor again, kneeling and looking carefully through my viewfinder. This composition came together a little messily because my main light source was also my viewfinder mount which means the cast shadows are positioned unfortunately behind the bottle and glass.
Composition planning
Regardless of a sub-par composition, I really enjoyed painting the reflections and mixing these complex colors. SO much grey! It might seem like I would be using mostly red and green… But it was about 90% mixing greys for this little 6x6in daily painting.
In the future, I’m ready to move toward warmer backgrounds… Maybe I need to get a cream color for the backdrop! I’ll keep my eyes open at the thrift stores.
Helping Hand, Oil on aluminum composite panel, 6x6in; painted in my kitchen on a warm March afternoon listening to Tara Brach’s podcast “Cultivating Loving Kindness”
When an appointment calls, one must paint expediently. I nearly left every mark in place after I put it down on this one because I was getting myself out the door and I wouldn’t be late!
When I sat down to paint, literally this time (usually I stand), I had about two hours to work. I mixed quickly and put paint down where it would lay.
Setting up the composition for this painting was an ordeal. I had spent about a half-hour in the morning reading “Daily Painting,” the inspiration for this blog, and stumbled upon a gorgeous full-frame flower vase she had painted. I wanted to emulate it but with the full subject in the frame, I couldn’t come up with a composition that I was excited about.
The end result: I sat on my bolster for this painting and enjoyed pausing for each of Tara’s reflections. I think the extra time tuning in and getting a fresh look at my painting helped me to paint more efficiently. This was counterproductive when I knew I had less time than usual… But in the words of my boss, Timothy Waterman, from HOIST Fitness Systems: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
The palette to start, expediently mixed!A peek at my composition through the viewfinderMy floor bound set up. It grew as the composition was found.
What is a painter to do when she wants to travel light? Pack her watercolors!
Natalie invited me along on a skiing trip to Terry Peak, SD with her husband, two brother in-laws, sister, and her five kiddos. I planned to keep up the daily painting tradition (I only ended up painting one of the two days there) and so I packed along my handy-dandy water color kit.
Natalie and I split my little watercolor paper in two and both painted a nice long rectangle of a still life that took me a painstakingly long time to set up. It’s incredible what having good lighting will do to your subject. Let’s just say, if the lighting is poor, it’s almost not worth the effort. Almost.
All packed up! This watercolor kit has seen MANY places in my bag or backpackContents expanded. Cat for scale. Watercolor pencils, plastic palette, watercolor paper and viewfinder, paintbrushes, sharpie, mechanical pencil, and white gel pen, and most important… Paints!
Nurture Vs. Nature – 6x7in, Watercolor on Cold Pressed Paper, painted from life in Taylor and Isaac’s Farmington kitchen on the morning of February 20th
Taylor and Isaac, you are dearly missed.
Thankfully when your best friends move to another state, you can go visit them!
Ryan and utilized his two weeks off to drive on icy interstates and mountain roads all the way from Watford City, North Dakota to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a trek well worth the effort because our friends waited for us at the end with delicious food, skiing, and board games.
On the morning Taylor made us her famous ricotta lemon pancakes, the best pancakes I’ve ever had, I sat at the bar in their kitchen looking for inspiration. It struck as I saw her beautiful little sprite of a houseplant and her shaded robin egg bowls nestled into the dish drainer behind the plant.
Taylor and I had just made a trip to Hobby Lobby where my art supplies purchase left my stomach turning over a bit at the cost. I needed to utilize these new supplies to reassure my frugal spirit that I was indeed in need of them and it wasn’t just an emotional splurge that drove my credit card into the reader at checkout.
Watercolors are portable and quick.
I spent a good hour or two refining these leaves and bowls, carefully wrestling along the way with values, forms, and gradual shading. It took me a few minutes after completion of the work for my admiration to grow and fill the pit of determination that my heart had been digging over the course of the painting. I loved it.
This painting enlightened me to take a few watercolor characteristics that I have taken forward with me.
I need to cover the shaded areas carefully and in one fell swoop. Going back to add color will most likely ruin the smooth gradient that is GORGEOUS if you get the implementation right
It’s worth the extra money to pay for blues that support a palette capable of mixing greens. The green on this painting is the most vivid I’ve ever been able to coerce from mixing my paints.
Read painting books. Thanks to a quick flip through of Making Color Sing that I stumbled into at Barnes and Nobel in Destin, FL, I had a guide for stocking my palette.
The paper is worth the price. The Cold Pressed paper I bought at Hobby Lobby was $20 a sheet. I divided it up into much smaller portions. Its ability to retain water and hold its integrity is critical to a beautiful painting. It’s also incredibly sturdy and lends itself to a refined and professional hand feel.
My watercolor palette is now armed with: Alizarin Crimson, Rose Genuine, Cadmium Red, Aureoun Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, French Ultramarine Blue, and Winsor Blue.
This painting is not for sale, it’s in its happy hope with our friends as a thank you for loving us so well.
That big fluffy pink flower. Wow. It wasn’t a short journey to get it to where it is. SO many little variations in value and saturation as it moves from left to right. The bulk of my time was spent blocking in general values and hues, then slowly chipping away at little details. It’s interesting to move your eye around a flower and learn its petals and folds. I’m not sure how time will develop my ability to be efficient in painting these, but I sure hope it is kind to me because I don’t want to spend an hour every time I get to paint a beautiful frilly flower.
Dear future Morgan, if you are capable of whipping these flowers out, please give yourself a generous pat on the back and let you anxieties about life go because you are truly succeeding.
From start to finish, this painting took about three hours which includes set up, mixing paints, and tear down. The actual painting time was about an hour.
A note on oil painting progress: I have developed a better sense of chipping away at the background through leaves! This is my favorite of the flowers I’ve been working on the past few days as far as keeping the background IN the background and creating nice sharp edges for my leaves and stems. Let’s keep up the good work, Morgie!
My palette at the end. Lots of big puddles of pink! Entropy is at work on my palette as I poured love and order into my painting.
Bubble Petals, 6”x6”, Oil on gessoed chipboard; painted from life at Natalie’s dining room table next to her and Sarah on a cold, snowy March afternoon.
Okay… I know what I’ve learned… Keep the edges intentional, watch my values, dull those receding colors down! Let’s implement.
Sarah, Natalie, and I took a trip to Syndey, Montana’s MonDak Heritage Center today to see Onesti Krieger’s exhibit. We learned a lot: dull colors down, clean up and refine edges thoughtfully, and do your painting RESEARCH. It’s worth the work to read a recipe and the fundamentals of tasty food when you are trying to cook a delicious meal. It’s worth the work to read about the principles and elements of art and design and how to implement them in your chosen medium before you set out to paint a picture.
Time with friends critiquing artwork is more valuable than the maximum-monetization-of-time spirit inside of me would like to recognize. I think I understand painting a few percentage points more than I did at the beginning of the day after looking carefully at other artists’ work for an hour or so.
The flowers from Monday are back and they are still gorgeous.
Lined up side-by-side at Natalies dining room table, Natalie, Sarah, and I set to work on these pretty little pink flowers. We pulled this bunch from the rest of the bouquet to help simplify the details of what we were aiming to paint and it helped us all zone in on the important aspects of our work. Less color variety meant we had more time to practice within a hue. This painting was ripe for the opportunity to play with shade, tint, and saturation in order to create a sense of depth in the flowers and petals.
Painting with friends is a treat and it’s always fun to compare our work at the end. I am impressed by Sarah and Natalie’s willingness to paint by my side and to challenge themselves with this picky medium that is oil paint. It’s a daring feat to create a painting and today we all succeeded!
Compostion drawing and blocking out shapesNatalie and Sarah!!! I love them! Go painters go!Our final pieces. Each with their own personality. Sarah’s top left, Natalie’s top right, mine bottom.Painting today with friends
Ahhhh, Monday, the start of another “work week.” What do I paint today?
Working as an artist/contractor, I am given ample rope to play with in terms of my schedule… You know what they say about enough rope… It’s a daily point of discomfort trying to plan my workday out and balance conflicting desires/responsiblities. It’s also something I don’t think I can ever go back on; the responsibility to choose my own work is worth the ever-present feeling that I am not doing things quite as honorably I should be. Maybe someday, I won’t feel that anymore. In the meantime, I keep my chin up and I WORK!
Today my painting time came after a morning of meandering and following the pace of the day. A necessary trip to the grocery store brought me past the flower section where I found my muse and the justification for spending money on decoration. I would be painting those flowers. It’s an investment. Into the cart.
My heart was fuller than normal today and my presence acute. This gift of a combination led me to rest in overflowing gratitude for the beauty of the flowers as I carefully pulled myself out of the busy trance I was in to cut and thoughtfully arrange my bouquet. I was certainly Arranging Fragrant Feelings.
With only an hour and a half window to focus, I began my floral painting with my viewfinder and spent about a half-hour setting my composition (Which at one point was knocked over by Kit! It was hilarious to see the reaction of the kitties to such a splash and sound as the vase fell to the ground. Not hilarious to have to take a break to clean up the mess… Thank you, serenity prayer, for coming in hot!).
I salvaged all of the paints from my previous work to start my new palette. Fully stocked with a squeeze from some of the tubes, I mixed with a new efficiency. This daily practice is paying off!
What did I learn today?
The composition set up takes a chunk of time that can’t be ignored. I’ll plan to budget at least 30 min to really get the set up and lighting how I like it.
Permanent Rose does have a place on my palette! It was perfect for the vivid, highly saturated purple/pink flowers.
Breaks are wonderful. I was “interrupted” from my flow by three dear friends for phone calls. I sat aside to talk to them so that I could be a good listener, and when I returned, each time my eyes caught new details I could add in with a refreshed sense of certainty.
Black doesn’t go well over any white. It just sucks the white right up. You can see this in the little playful leaf jetting out to the right. There is a smidge of white in the paint beneath it, couresy of the color blocking I expected to mask over.
I am improving! The order of events is coming much more naturally to me.
My habits of setting up and tearing down are leaving me with more time to PAINT.
What a beautiful way to end my day. I painted from around 4:30pm-8:30pm with around an hour and 45 minutes of breaks to talk on the phone. Music was a great companion for this work.
Drawing, I used some color to help differentiate shapesBlocking in the focal point firstJust the backgorund left!Fin
Living in Western North Dakota, our produce selection is generally like a balding, grumpy, middle-aged man… The raging snowy arctic winds and 1,000s of road miles the produce has to travel to reach us usually leaves somewhat of a mark on both the quality and quantity available. When good produce arrives, it’s a treat, and much to my delight, lately our citrus has been the highlight of the produce department, dishing out remarkably delicious morsels despite the trek they have to endure to end up in my northern pantry.
Ryan has been working long days in the freezing weather so I like to cook him dinner to help him forget all about the discomfort the prior 15 hours have subjected him to. Grapefruit is always a favorite of his. Today I married his love for the sour citrus fruit with my joy of painting and cooking. VOILA! Citrus salad.
Shout out to my little thrift store lamp which was functional and beautiful in this composition
Around 7 am this morning I began setting up my still life composition… come 10:45 am I was packing up my painting kit and rushing out the door to get my day rolling with plans.
Now here’s the good part, the sandwich filling to my 7:00-10:45 am painting adventure:
This little 6x6in painting was done on one of my aluminum squares that has a dark maroon underpainting. It was interesting to paint on such a dark surface! A few things I learned:
The red panel instantly made my paints appear greenish as I put them down so I added a lot of red to my palette as I went.It helped my painting end up a little warmer than I think it would have otherwise.
My yellow paint is very thin! It took intentional laying down to fully cover the dark underpainting Drawing my composition with a very dark value wasn’t much of an issue when trying to keep paints clean and pure.
I would do it again!
Premixing my colors in generous quantities was a definite win today. I didn’t run out of anything important.
In all, this was an enjoyable and gratifying painting to make. I finished feeling hungry for more studio time and proud of what I created. Here are some progress pictures.
Composition in my viewfinder and initial drawingBlocking in grapefruit in foregroundblocking in oranges and lampnearly there! Final touches and adding in lamp shade
Voila!
Thank you to Tim Ferris and his guests Cal Newport and Michael Gervais for keeping me in good company as I worked!
This is actually more like daily painting number 15… but it’s the first I am posting so it’s the first to get a number!
I’m starting this blog today, because today I failed at my painting. It might not look like a failure, but after six hours of tedious work, the final product is just not up to par with my expectations… And that’s okay! I need a place to organize and share my thoughts in order to turn this failure into future success! Here goes:
I just spent around 6 hours on this small painting. I did it in a dark space, crammed into my poorly lit bathroom doorway, and learned some important things:
Don’t paint in the dark. If you can’t see your palette clearly, if you can’t see your canvas clearly, you will mix colors that don’t vibe well together and put down messy, incomplete marks
Mix your palette, then paint. I began this painting as a value study so I didn’t mix my paints. It evolved into a color painting and I never mixed the paints to begin. This lead to me spending way too much time mixing, recreating small quantities of color over and over, and having my palette turn into an unorganized mess. A little spontaneous mixing is okay, but you will ideally have big pools of color to pull from.
I need to gesso the aluminum composite tiles I’m using. They’re too slick and the paint just slides right off the surface. This also could be avoided by premixing my colors and putting down more paint on the surface. I think I’ll try that next time before I gesso, just to be clear on the biggest issue here: too thin of paint due to not mixing my palette first, or too slick of a painting surface.
My painting fell short of where I hoped it would be, and that is a success. It’s painful. Really uncomfortable. I spent six hours on a tiny painting and it’s embarrassing me to look at my work. The details are not as delicate or graceful as I’d like and the colors around the eye in particular are not as harmonious as I prefer. I know what it could have been… but I learned to mix my palette first, gesso the surface I was using, and to light my work station better. I have left with more knowledge of how to make a successful painting. That deserves a pat on the back.
Some quotes on failure, courtesy of Google. Thank you google!
