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| Snow on Halloween October 31, 2011 |
Wordless on Wednesday
Coffee And Paint Drips Blog
Painting is Electric Energy
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| Another day, another painting start |
What is it about painting that gets the electricity going? If I could feel like I did after starting this latest watercolor, I would bottle it and drink it every day to keep that momentum going. It is so weird.
After pulling the peach at the beach painting off the watercolor block, I hunted around for the next subject. It could take forever if I didn’t start something new immediately, and then I’d be arguing with Mr. Resistance again. You know he’d win, too, right?
Remembering the vacation we took a couple of summers ago out on the east end of Long Island, and some of the great photos I took there, I hunted them up yesterday. Of course, I had a different computer then, which crashed. The photos are in it. No worries, I looked for them here on the blog and started in.
It’s a nice, calm scene at Cooper’s Farm. I like the tractor. Okay. Something about painting just gave me a jolt that lasted into the evening. I kept thinking about it, and planning my next session wishing I could paint again at around 11PM last night. I mean, I could, but people are around and the painting is sitting in the dining room, not the studio.
Whatever. The feeling is still with me now as I write this. Today is an outside, running around day, so painting will have to wait until I return.
Funny how I decided I needed to try to work from photos rather than life, and now that’s all I’m doing. Is it like I’m on a kick or what? Also funny that I have a couple of different gourds from the vegetable share and I completely forgot about painting them. Totally out of my head.
Maybe I will have to also break with my tradition of working on one painting at a time to go ahead and paint those gourds on another block of paper? Ya think? Gee, what a concept!
Sometimes I knock myself out. Whack.
Don’t Prolong the Process
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| Peach at the Beach with Two Shells, 14×20 Watercolor ©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis |
If I continue painting on this work I am going to trash it! I am done, done, done! Finished! Telios! C’est Finis! This was the end of the road for the peach at the beach.
I worked on this for the allotted twenty minutes today, let it dry, then started to dig in with some details. What a mistake that was. There is just so much I could do to show these items were sitting on the sand. How do you really make sand look like sand? It isn’t easy, and things could get dicey. Again.
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| I am done with this! Yeah! |
Using a really small brush, I began to paint in some dark shadows in the sand and that’s where the trouble started. I had to stop myself before ruining this painting.
Overall, the result of the process came off as I wanted it to. The peach pops, as well as the shells. Eh, the sand shadows are passable. It just had to be over. I didn’t want to prolong the torture any longer.
As soon as this is completely dry I am going to free it from the watercolor block and put it away. #37 in the 100 paintings challenge is finished.
Next!
Photos for Friday
The fun begins here:
…and where the fun ends, nobody knows!
Thought for Thursday
“I’ve been doing alot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas. I just think about it.” ~ Stephen Wright
Getting Over the Hump
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| New work begins |
Wednesday is hump day. As in the day in the week that gets us over the hump and into the weekend stretch. Not my favorite day. It only means the quiet will be ending and the hubbub, noisy weekend stuff begins.
My favorite day, as I’ve said many times already you’re probably bored of it, is Monday. Sweet Monday. The day everyone returns to normal.
Anyway, don’t pay any attention to me. I am just trying to distract myself from the to-do’s and painting with idle chatter from my brain. It’s noisy up in there.
After finishing the last painting, I had to find a subject for the next one. The 100 Paintings Challenge is waiting. There were a few more photos of my peach at the beach and I decided to just plow in with one of them. And yeah, it’s Wednesday. I lost a few days fooling around with a stomach bug and I need to make up time.
And right now I don’t have a lot of that. Painting #37 is waiting.
Photo for Friday and More
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| Afternoon Sunflowers, 14×20 Watercolor ©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis |
The latest watercolor painting is finished. Twenty minutes of painting time has it’s merits, and it’s detractions.
On the one hand, painting for twenty minutes keeps me in line. I can’t get too busy in the details to end up trashing my work. It helps that I must step away from the painting to see it better and decide where to work next. And then there’s the drying time. All good things so far.
On the other hand I could walk away after twenty minutes of painting and quite possibly never go back. That could last a couple days and I’ll never finish the work so I could start another. I’m not the type of person to have a couple of paintings working at the same time, so that’s not helpful. I turn to jewelry or knitting if I’m not painting the latest piece. Kind of not good.
All in all the time limit thing has been positive. Ok so, I’m not cranking out painting after painting on a regular basis, or enough to paint the 100 paintings in the year. I’m working toward that goal, but anything could derail that plan.
I made a commitment, and I’d like to see it through, but the larger I paint the less work that gets done. Rather than paint little paintings, which are fine, I want to open up and work larger. Packing a lot of painting on a small surface sometimes doesn’t do justice to the work. Little by little I’m working it up in size.
Can twenty minutes translate on a larger surface? With the right brushes, subject, and mindset, maybe it’s a Yes. Could I push myself to work every day for the twenty minutes? Or, work all day on one work twenty minutes at a time? I just don’t know about that, Artist A.D.D. and all.
Thought for Thursday
“A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.” ~Hedy Lamar, actress
Every Day I’m Shuffling
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| Day #2 |
There’s a wild song on the radio that I get a kick out of every time I hear it and one of the lines is the title of this post. I don’t listen to the radio in the car, or in the house, all day either. I need my quiet. I do enjoy some Frank Sinatra and I have favorite classical pieces, but mostly my brain is too noisy for it.
Now and then I listen to the music the kids like, and some of it is hot. Some people like to listen to the old stuff they liked as a teen. I can’t. Some of that was great, some horrible, but I just can’t go back there. Did it, done with it. Give me the new stuff.
So I’ve been “shuffling” until I got it going with this new piece. Another twenty minutes of working around the composition and it’s starting to feel good. When one area is wet I work on a dry area, keeping the whole painting in motion. Trying to see the piece develop as a whole and not surprise myself by not-so-happy accidents.
From what I can tell by this photo the piece is moving where I want it to go. Brush strokes, paint placement, dark and light, with details to come at the end of it. Maybe I will take one more day and finish up. So far, so good.
Twenty Minutes or What?
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| Twenty minutes to start something new |
As I was saying..yes, twenty minutes to something new on the table, easel, whatever. It’s been a quiet Sunday and I had time to paint, having danced around the paints all week.
I played with beads twice, coming up with two different bracelet designs, and successfully by-passed painting. What’s with that?
Today there was that split second decision to put water in the plastic bucket and just do it.
Isn’t it funny, though, that I can go to my studio where the beading stuff is, sit there to come up with jewelry designs and finished products, but I ignore the watercolor paints sitting on the dining room table? I think it’s funny. It’s really not funny, it’s annoying behavior, and it has to stop.
To be totally honest, I don’t even think I worked on this new piece for twenty minutes. Maybe it was more like ten minutes. Just enough time to sketch the composition and throw down some color, that’s all. You can see the paper is still rolling with water and hasn’t dried when I took the photograph. Quick and done.
Tomorrow I can move this along and get a feel for where I want to go with it.
Just to let you in on a little secret, I am planning to paint bigger. Don’t tell Mr. Resistance. He might throw a roadblock in my way. Just saying.