Ivy with Zorn Palette

 

 

I have been wanting to experiment with the Zorn Palette so tonight I worked on a small 10x10 painting.  Please excuse the image quality, all were taken at night in my studio.

I started with a  drawing transfer using oil paint. I had never tried this method and had just watched David Grey's instructional video on the process. Next time I would chose to make the oil much lighter because It has been difficult to cover all of those lines.

Next I blocked in the shade side, and stated with modeling the form on the light side.

Here I am starting to work into the dark side.

My palette in Process, Colors used were Titanium White, Flake White Replacement, Cad Red light, Yellow Ocher, Ivory Black and I also added some Paynes Grey to get some blue tint in the shirt area.

Completed Painting but Under terrible light. Will post a better photo soon. I keep on finding little touches to make but will not work on it after tonight. In all it took about 3 hours. So wonderful to be able to work wet into wet on the whole project.

 

A Fairy, a princess and a fireman....

"Baby Blues" oil on Canvas 12"x12" is complete and awaiting approval by her momma.

So a Princess, a Fairy and a Fireman go to a tea party.... miraculously no dishes were harmed in the making of this picture.

 

Recently my three year old daughter and I have been having a rough time connecting. She has not been listening to me and has been... well acting three. I get so frustrated with her and some days it feels like I am always correcting her or sending her to timeouts. Then I realized we had not been having many special moments together recently. I have been busy with Christmas recovery and business growth. She would act up and I would get frustrated and that would push those connection moments even farther away. So the other night after I sent her to bed for the fourth time in one night I realized I needed to reconnect. I went in to give her an extra hug and to say a prayer together. We prayed for patience and for good listening. Then I asked her if there was anything special we could do together.  Of course a magnificent tea party was in store for the next day.

 

Maybe things have improved...and maybe they haven't but we did have one great tea party.

30 New Canvases

Today I purchased 30 new canvases!
Plaza arts has great a great sale and most of the canvases I picked up were 70% off. I am ready for many new paintings. It is so nice to have such a nice variety of canvases to choose from when I want to start something new.

I also set up a checking account dedicated to my painting business. It feels great to have dedicated funds. I am trying to keep track this year of all expenses and income and this will help.

Today's new painting is the sister to a painting I worked on two years ago. A dear friend of mine wants this one to go on the wall across from the original which I gave her as a present. It is much more responsibility to paint one that has been commissioned even though it is the same size and style. I did the first in one evening but this one will take longer, everything has to be perfect.

I worked a little more on the wedding painting but need to let the thick areas dry for a few days before I can work on it again.

 

Baby Face.

I love the sweet little baby face and love the way the paint fades into the canvas. This painting was so fun to work on the raw linen. I still have a few touch ups, on the hands mostly, to do once the paint is drier.

Airing out Linens

This painting is my first attempt to use clear primed linen. With this type of canvas the point is to allow the canvas to show thru and add to the painting. I am trying to be very careful to not over paint.

 

Lots still to go. The thing that is bothering me the most currently are the teeth. I certainly do not have them right yet.

There are no Words

Baby Shower Gifts

For My friends baby shower I made two gifts inspired by various pins on pinterest. One was a faux chenille blanket, and the other was an altered onesie.

 

 The blanket started with one layer of cotton quilt fabric and three layers of flannel. I pinned them together as I ironed them to keep them from shifting during quilting.

 Sewing diagonal lines approximately 1/2 inch apart (this took a lot longer than I thought it would)

 I cut through the three layers of flannel without cutting the top layer.

 I squared up the quilt and then added a satin blanket binding.

After the blanket was washed the edges of the flannel fray in this cool wavy pattern.

 I just added three layers of jersey cotton to this onesie to make it a sweet little dress. No one else will have this outfit.

 Blanket and Dress

And my Goose was happy to model for the picture shoot.

Painting with a baby on board

Today I had just gotten the baby fed and down for a nap, gotten the big kids fed and settled for quiet time in their rooms, pulled out my painting and gotten my paints ready to go, touched the brush to the canvas several times...

 When the baby woke up again. In order to get something done I nursed her quickly and then strapped her on my back to paint some more. This worked for a while but was difficult because she wiggles and I needed to have controlled brush strokes. Eventually she made her way to the highchair with a heap of puffs and the big kids got up and did some art at the table. I also sent the big kids outside for a while to dig in the dirt. Baby was generally unhappy today and I could not quite tell what the matter was.

Sorry to have so many short bursts of the blog, but I like to document as I go before I forget it and before I loose the chance.

Please leave a comment if you like the blog so that I can know it is getting read.

 

Pope Francis Portrait

Tide Pool is almost complete with mostly some texture still to complete on the hat.

To begin the painting of Pope Francis I applies several layers of neutral grey gesso to the canvas and sanded it after the final layer. I wanted to start with a neutral grey in order to be able to build up the light areas and down the dark areas. I thought that the smoother surface from several layers of gesso would make for a nicer working surface but I am not pleased with the result. The gesso is too smooth and my paint will not soak into the canvas as it usually does. I often do a lot of fairly thin layers at first and allow the canvas to show through some but with this surface my usual technique is not working.

I  drew out the layout on the canvas and showed it to the Priest at my Parish for his approval. He gave me the go ahead and this is the result from 2.5 hours of work.

 Pope Francis Detail

 Progress on Suzanne at the Beach, coloring in the forehead is nice but I still need to fix the hue, of the other shaded areas

And for any of you who wonder how can a mother of  3 young children find time to paint. Here is the pile of laundry I needed to tackle yesterday because I have been putting it off for too long, And there were three more loads still in processing. Some days I need to push housework aside in order to have time to paint and some days I need to buckle down, and as my husband commented, be a folding machine. Most days I need to give hugs and cuddles and read books and fetch sippy cups of milk and nurse the baby. The children are more vocally demanding than the laundry and I will always have laundry, but will not always have babies. And at least with painting there is a sense of accomplishment after my hard work. Laundry is never ending.

Sleep, What sleep?

The last few nights have been late ones. I have been staying up to work on painting and the baby is teething so I am feeling a little tired. Sometimes the fact that I am not getting much rest makes me feel more obstinate and I end up staying up longer just to not let my tiredness win. Maybe not the best approach but at least I have been getting some painting done.

After Nap time

After Bedtime

I have not yet worked on the hair or the hat since block in and only put in a lowlight on the cup.

Learning to Color and Human Anatomy

My son has learned to color!

 

I am so excited because while I know kids do thing at different rates and they all have their own learning curve, it really bother me that my two year old was better at coloring than my 4 year old. Every time he tried he would just scribble wildly all over the page and my daughter would at least carefully try to color individual parts of the page.

 

All of a sudden this week while coloring organs for our anatomy study, (What can I say, my son loves to know how his body works) he suddenly started coloring almost entirely in the lines and coloring the whole picture.  He also did a very nice job drawing an avocado for our science observation notebook. So comforting to the artist in me.

 My youngest has learned a trick of her own. She was having a great time playing a game of crinkled nose grins to make me laugh. What a delight to watch these milestones as they happen.