Category: photographs

Photo for Friday a No-Go

As you can see there is a noticeable absence of a photo for Friday today. Okay, the best I could do was the updated banner with the watercolor of the sunflowers I painted in the summer.

There are days that fly by, busy with enjoyable activities, a sunny sky, warm weather, laughs and baby hugs. Then there are those so filled to the brim with Must-Do’s it’s all a person can do to keep a head above water. Today is the latter.

Couldn’t my day be better spent in the studio setting up the next painting? I say Yes.

That is not happening today.

As I usually wake really early in the day, I’ve already had a full morning and I haven’t left the house yet. Appointments, errands, paperwork, reminders on post it notes all over my desk and calendar.

My day is punctuated with all these things I must attend to, nothing of which I am that thrilled about, but only I can do. See what happens when you say Yes?

In one of the online classes I just took, the operative work was No. I remember when I was reading The Artist’s Way, then the operative word was Yes. Now I’m confused! Yes? or No?

I guess it depends on what actions you actually say these words to. Then again, sometimes, you just have to go with it where ever either of those words lead. For me, today, it’s a Yes day. No way around it.

Planned and mapped out my day. It’s going to be a tight squeeze. Painting, or anything happening in the studio will have to wait a bit. Unless I can find twenty minutes, it’s going to be a tough go today.

Photos for Friday-Veggie Haul

Take a look at my haul from the farm share this week. Plenty of stuff that I don’t know what to do with and that I don’t even know what they are. That’s going to be fun. Ok, I’m not that dense, some things I know, but I think Google will be busy as I hunt for recipes. What do you do with kohlrabi? Oh, that’s the weird alien looking thing with the beautiful sunflowers in this last photo.

Vegetables aside, the inspiration I got from photographing these things was invaluable. I took photo after photo in hopes of future paintings coming out of it. Yes, from photographs. I am in it to win it. Wish me luck!

The Challenge of Painting from a Photograph

Summer Harvest (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
12×16 Watercolor on Arches 

I decided that I might need to challenge myself by painting from photographs. Isn’t that interesting? I know I said before that I have preferred painting from life lately. But I started to think that maybe the challenge isn’t in painting from life, it might be working from photos since I’m not great at it. What a concept!

Why not learn how to do something I seem to not do well.  Last week I took this photo of my vegetable haul and thought it would make an interesting painting. Yes, I sketched it out first. Yes I threw some color to get a general idea of where I wanted to take it. I tried to get the darks dark enough and tried not to work on it too long at each session so I don’t screw it up.

It seems that when I take a photo of the painting I can see some areas that could use something, so that’s what I did after my short sessions. Keeping it short helped me not trash everything. I am notorious at that. Besides, if I’m somewhat happy while I go along I’m more apt to paint again, anything to ward off Mr. Resistance.

I know, I know, I’m still at the dining room table even now that my babysitting is done for the summer. What can I say? I like the light from that window.

Just Not Feeling It, So I Plod

Here’s a look at the hydrangea painting as I plod along on it.  What is it about working from my own photos that just brings me down?  I seem to like the photo more than I do the painting.

Maybe that’s the trick.  My eye sees what it needs to see while composing the photograph.  Is it then not meant to be a painting afterwards?  I just see too much in the photo and my brain tries hard to replicate the details in paint.

I’m starting to get annoyed with this thing.  The colors I’m using are annoying, the way I’m applying the paint is annoying, the composition is annoying.  There’s nothing I am happy about with this piece.  That’s happened to me before so I keep plugging at it.

I did a watercolor in the spring of the daisies in my garden.  Yes, I painted it from life not a photograph.  Anyway, I wasn’t thrilled with the result, but I kept thinking in my head “It’s the process.”  I was going to ignore the result and move on to the next thing.  Well my DIL, Gorgeous, loved it and wanted it for the baby’s room.  That cemented the idea that maybe I don’t know beans about my own work.  So I plod through this watercolor too.  Push to finish it and think about what’s next.

Fighting resistance every step of the way with this painting, I plod.