Grandchildren A-Z WIP 5

I am thinking I am crazy for even showing anyone this version. At this point I have so very much to do to make this better that I should be ashamed. But, here is where I stopped yesterday. Poor little Zane is just not right, I misread the reference photo and gave him too skinny of a neck and misplaced his left eye, too high.

Aubrey is doing better, but I still need to sculpt her face better. I notice a lot just by posting a painting on this blog, forces me to look at it from afar and see what my eyes missed in person. Grrrr.

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 4

I worked on this during today's Thursday afternoon watercolor painting session. I still have much to go, but due to spot-on critiques during my efforts I see where I still have to soften some edges, soften some darks, and continue to make Aubrey look more like a 5-year-old instead of older than that. Zane's features  will suffice when I make the hard lines softer and define his little features better, as well as the shadows, but it will all come in time. I have truly loved working on this one and will continue on....either to the scrap pile or to a framed painting!

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 2

I couldn't leave this alone, so did a few more shadow washes here and there and started defining their faces. I now have to force myself to leave it alone for awhile as I am starting to go for too much detail, too soon, and will mess it up if I continue.

That dark shape to the upper right corner of the painting is a shadow from a twig when I took the photo outside. I completely missed seeing that in the photo and am too lazy go out back and retake it. Please just pretend it isn't there?

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 1

This has been  a bad week for creativity for me, so I just got back to this painting this morning.

I have done the initial skin washes for both Aubrey and Zane, and have started laying in some of the shadows. Since the negatively-painted shadows will form the shapes of their bodies, I am trying to remember that shadows are my friend! Right now, I am scared of 'em and just trying to control my values. I will mainly work on painting the GK's and then do the furniture and background since if I flub those, it won't matter what the rest of it looks like. Lots to go on the shadows, though....

Grandchildren A-Z - Drawing

In my Artbuddies group, another artist (sue Drennan) and I have challenged ourselves to paint our grandchildren's portraits from more challenging photos.

The reference photo for this is definitely more challenging since it was shot in the shade and showed little more than fuzzy details of their anatomies in most places. I ended up tracing the outline where I could and drawing in the rest. At best, I can only hope my negative painting and shadows depict Aubrey's hands more like her delicate ones than a cave man's hands! I also hope to make poor little Zane's head look less like ET as it is now. Stick with me on this one, it is going to be a kick/challenge/frustration/joy to paint!

I snapped this photo right after stretching it so the wrinkles should be gone when it is dry. I will take it to art with me tomorrow to start painting (shaking in my booties with both excitement and trepidation here!).

Wordless Memorial

Captain Smith's Cabin - Final?

Well, I could not just leave this alone, so this afternoon I played with it some more, adding some more refined darks here and there as well as lifting more highlights out of the shingles, etc. It feels great to have finished another one, if it is indeed finished.

Capatin Smith's Cabin - WIP 5

 

This is where I finished for today. I made the foreground much more lush than in the reference photo, more like after a rainy Spring? I have some ponderin' to do with this, as I want to refine it a bit more and add some more shadows on the bare ground of the foreground and do a better job with the middle ground sage brush. this is enough for today, anyway. Another fun afternoon painting with my art buds.

Captain Smith's Cabin - WIP 4

I took this to the watercolor group this afternoon and enjoyed working on it some more. Here, I have defined the huge boulder on the side and started adding color to the cabin stones and shingles.

I keep saying I am going to stop using masking fluid as I hate the hard lines it leaves, but then I use it again, anyway. I am running low on it and will resolve to buy no more until I see if I can do better without it.

Commercial Break

I am taking a short break from my own art to share what my son, Patrick, just sent of Aubrey's newest art medium...Dry Erase Markers. I can see that being in kindergarten for just one week has made her paintings more sophisticated!

Aubrey is my pot of gold under my rainbow!

Next stages of Captain Smith's Cabin

 After the purple acrylic ink was dry, I did a wash with warm quin gold as an underpainting to start the sky and set the warm tones for this painting. I sometimes like having a warm yellow sky to show that it is a sunny, warm day.

This is the third stage where I stopped. I need to study this background a bit more after it completely dries and see what needs to be lifted, what needs to have the edges softened, etc. I want to completely finish the background, though, before starting the middle and foreground.

I wish I had made the quin gold glaze a bit darker, so will probably take care of that before I start anything else.

Captain Smith's Cabin

Our WcW project for September is to paint something abandoned. While looking through PMP (Paint My Photo), I came across this and decided to use this reference photo instead of one of the many hundreds of abandoned buildings I have taken photos of but not used.

I decided to use the grisaille method of underpainting, but use my fav purple for the underpainting. The gray you see is the Pebeo Drawing gum I used for the resist where I wanted the lightest lights to be.

I'll keep posting as I go along, or until I give up on this...whichever comes first!

PS...In neglected to say the reference photo was courtesy of  Cindy Blevins and she said it was in Escalante Canyon in Colorado. Looks like many in Utah I have seen, though.