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Hard Times As you know I don't do landscapes, I really suck at them as a matter of fact.  I used have big issues with backgrounds too.  Then I found collage.   It seems to have addressed some of my background issues with portraits.   So, I was curious, could it help me with the quest to do landscapes?   So is this experimentation gone wrong? I have, after seeing a program on Yellowstone buffalo herds in the winter, painted buffaloes before.  Hence the idea of a buffalo in a snowstorm was born.  I wanted to see if I could take the techniques I have been working on in my course on faces and see if I could bring them into something else. This was done in 3 stages, background/middle ground/foreground.  I put down some charcoal to give me tree shapes, then wet it, added some home made collage paper and several layers of really liquid gesso over it.   (for this painting I made soft blues/grays special paper, trying to give me shapes that ...

The Daydreamer  This is the second attempt at this week's lesson by Juna Biagioni.  She does all kinds of wild things to get texture, I still don't have some of her techniques down, but am using some of them and taking off on my own. Again I started with a collage.   I hand make the papers and then chose the parts that kind of made a similar pattern on the kimono to what the black/white reference photo showed..  The top is part of Paul's used coffee filter and I put a couple of strips of handmade paper on the side so that she appears to be either in a doorway or window.  I had actually torn some of the greenish paper to make leaves at the bottom, but felt I didn't need anything else, so left it pretty open. Then I went forth with water and brush and took wet charcoal and slopped it on for the darker background and parts of the hair.  I tried really hard this time to be sure I didn't get it on the skin area of the face and chest.    ...

The Gaze Still working in charcoal this week.  The Gaze is all about trying to get really dark and trying to be looser and rougher texture skin tones, not polite blended glazes. Many thanks to Deborah Shapiro, https://www.deborahshapiroart.com, a phenomenal collage artist, be sure to check out her website.  Anyway, she did water using strips of collage papers and I thought it was so cool I knew I wanted to try it behind a portrait.  Also used some Artagain paper on the left-hand side, a drawing sacrificed its life for the cause.  But you can see it really took the matte medium in an unusual way, but I think it offer lots of texture and the illusion of braided hair. Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.

Cowboy Don't know about you but I think this dude could look pretty good on the cover of a romance novel.  He is this weeks charcoal lesson.   I had to fancy him up a bit and did a bit of collage work before I tackled working in various hardness of black and white charcoal.   I used the second part of my Artagain paper and while I kind of like it with pastels I wasn't super happy with it for the charcoal as it really doesn't hold enough layers to get the darkest darks.   Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.

Apparition Ok, had a total mind meltdown, so have been gone for a few days.   Apologies, I will catch up with you in FB and IG.   I think that I have been watching so many things that are so mew and different that it was just taxing my poor old brain.  Have to say that I have so many things pounding to come out.   But I have done a few things in the last so many days that I absolutely hate.   I have seen so many folks working on "word prompts".   Thought it sounded pretty neat, but well, just came up with blanks.   So have found someone now who does both prompt and then a suggested photo.   So will start with photos and try to graduate to just working off word.    There is kind of a whole structure around the group and hoping that I will learn lots more, coupled with my year-long course and make it a year of good growth - forward - fingers crossed. Anyway, this was a realistic portrait reference, but I wanted to go more abstra...

Homeless Getting ready for many days of rain - been 21 days since it rained here, so a little precipitation and cooler weather will be much appreciated.   I also finished top dressing my yard, hoping it gives it a kick to fill in as it really didn't do well over the winter. I had to do blood work yesterday so was reading several small articles about returning veterans.   So many just can't readjust, so much guilt and fear.  So many are homeless and the suicide rate is at an alarming daily amount.  I had pulled this reference because I loved that face, all the lines tell such a story.  I had my starting point. I wanted to try an experiment, actually several, in this piece.   First this is a very large head - 14"x17" on Bristol paper.  Knew I wanted to work with graphite, so wanted that smooth surface.  I started with yellow and blue underpainting of highlighter markers.  Didn't work too well, way too bright and graphite couldn't tone...

Abandon Well as you can see I am still processing my last several weeks lessons and had also watched some portrait videos - a British TV production where they look for portrait and landscape painters of the year.  The winning several artists get commissions with the winner get a really big commission and a painting that hangs in some national gallery or library.  I have found it quite fascinating as it shows a lot of the judging process - how they think.    It is on YouTube under Art Lovers. I looked again to super saturating a photo to come up with striking color combinations.  Lucky for me similar colors were already waiting to make the background as they were left overs still on the palette.  I wanted to try to do something with nonconventional colors and with more of a loose approach.   Since this is painted on that canvas paper which  has a non-absorbent film-like finish the paint really tends to slide around on it.  Was easy t...