Paying Respects - SOLD

I am alive!  I had a nasty cold last week that left me with just enough energy to get to work and that was about it!  It is interesting how when I don't paint for a while, I start to question whether or not I will still be able to paint!  These little cherries are paying their respects to the Power of the Purple.

Swim Charlie Swim! - SOLD

Has anyone out there seen JAWS as many times as I have?  When I set up this little still life, a scene from JAWS popped in my head.  Two guys are trying to catch the shark for the reward and one of them gets pulled into the water with a piece of the pier.  When he starts swimming back to the pier, the guy in the "safety zone" sees the ominous fin behind him and yells "Swim, Charlie, Swim!"  That's what I thought of when I positioned the one cherry so that the "pier" (or boat) is just a knuckle away from safety.

Barbershop Forkette -- SOLD

I was still having fun with forks yesterday, and found four very different types of forks in my silverware drawer. This painting is one of the ones that I have liked the most.  I like the composition and the highlights in blue.

My Fifth Day at Carol Marine's Workshop

This day was business business business!  I don't have a painting for this day, but  here is a photo of all the paintings that Carol painted for the week.  Drool ... 


We covered everything from how to photograph our wet paintings, getting started with your blog (at least I have a head start there), selling tools, a few things about Photoshop, and more!


I enjoyed this workshop immensely and learned so incredibly much!  Carol is extremely organized and is an excellent teacher.  I loved every minute of it, and it was so sad to say goodbye to my 17 new friends, but I am certain that we will see each other again!

My Fourth Day at Carol Marine's Workshop

I had a ceramic bell, so that's what I went for.

Here are the paintings that I worked on.  I had a hard time with the bell initially, but worked on it again and was finally happy with the bell.  The problems were a couple of things.  First, I had bought some Galkyd to use as a medium which dries incredibly fast.  Not a good idea in the dry Sedona climate, and not a good idea when paintings need to be adjusted.  So I had to start over on a whole new panel!  Second, my drawing was way off.  

WONKY BELL

The second time around, I got the drawing of the bell right.  Carol had spoken about the ellipse.  She continued her drawing right off the panel, and this really helped with my 2nd bell.  Frustration wasn't the word because I was almost in tears with frustration with that bell!  

BETTER BELL

The bell painting isn't isn't finished, but I will finish it.  I also photographed my set-up.

Carol's set-up

Beginning of Carol's demo

Carol painted such a lovely demo when demonstrating the glass! In my previous post, I included a picture of the painting that Carol did after the workshop that wasn't a "demo" per se since the entire class was not there, so the morning of the 4th day at the workshop, her demo was glass. 


What I loved about the demo was the restraint used.  Just a little pop of yellow in the middle of the daisy.


In the past, I have painted with tons of color.  My understanding is that this is common for beginners.  This little painting was just darling.  Form the flower by painting the negative space around the petals instead of seeing all the different petals.  Suggest them.  Don't define them.  Strangely, today we fixated on comfortable bras.  This probably wouldn't have happened if there had been any men in the class.  LOL.  Such a fun group.

Finished product

My Third Day at Carol Marine's Workshop

The third day we focused on brushstrokes and composition.  Our exercise was the "no fussing" exercise.  It was one of the few paintings that I actually finished.  Every stroke was a different color even if it was slightly different:  altered with white or grayed down.  It's a great exercise for getting your brain out of the habit of "fussing".  The painting should end up looking like a mosaic.  I had actually tried this exercise from one of the Dailypaintworks Challenges and named my blog Mosaic Hippo as a result since it was the first painting on my blog!

Upon Carol's recommendation, a bunch of us visited the Windrush Gallery in Sedona.  What a visual feast!  Afterwards, a few of us returned to the Sedona Arts Center for some after the workshop painting and a glass of wine.

Carol was gracious enough to paint some glass for us and produced this beautiful morsel.

Fork it Over -- SOLD

Yesterday, I went on another "Still Life Item Quest".  Initially, I only intended to visit what was an awesome Flea Market in Santa Monica.  At some point, the Flea Market changed locations, and can now be perused in less than five minutes!  Since that wasn't satisfying, I continued my quest to Out of the Closet thrift store, 99 Cent Store, and CVS looking for items to paint.  I found a vase, a few cups and plates at Out of the Closet, made my way home and painted this.  I'm pretty happy with it even though I fussed too much with the pear.

Time Constraints - Orange Cup

Sorry for the boring title.  I will do better next time.  Time constraints (for instance, a lunch break) when you are painting cause some interesting results.
There is no time to fuss or you won't finish.  Yesterday, I walked down to Goodwill and another thrift store on my lunch hour and bought some colorful dishes.  I ended up with some awful blisters on the bottoms of my feet because I had on bad shoes, but I was NOT going to be a weenie because I had made a poor choice in the shoes I wore.  

Today, I decided to paint the orange cup from my Goodwill purchases.  Next week, I will stock our work refrigerator with a few fruit and vegetables and grab them when I want to paint them (or eat them).


I'm pretty happy with the looseness of Orange Cup which is a direct result of the time constraint.