2ND PAINTING JANUARY CHALLENGE STAGE 1

Thanks to everyone who shared their comments on painting number one. Last night I pulled the next set of parameters for painting #2. YELLOW ORANGE for the "Mother Color"....I love chrome yellow so that will be fun to work with. VALUE as the dominant design element...value is one of my favorites. I usually put in the entire gamut from value 1 to value 9. So far so good. Then I opened the composition....RADIAL!!!!!!!!!! OH, NO!!! I thought I was really in trouble with this one.

I got out Marianne Brown's book and read up on Radial Design. She had some really interesting ideas. A radial composition has a central point where the other elements come off of or go to this area (shape, point, etc.) The central shape or point doesn't have to be in the center of the page. In fact, it doesn't have to be on the page at all. She had one design where the lines radiated to a vanishing point outside the frame of the painting. Also, an inkblot (fold the paper in half, drop ink in the middle and press the page together so that one side is a mirror image of the other side.) So, a design with a central axis that has a mirror image on either side counts as a radial design. But, a radial design doesn't have to be symmetrical.

After reading the descriptions and seeing her examples, I realized I could use a Kaleidoscope design. I absolutely love Kaleidoscopes. I bought one which fractures what ever you are looking at rather than having colored chips in the contraption to create patterns. I even bought some software awhile ago that would create a kaleidoscope out of a photograph. Naturally, I couldn't find the disc anywhere. Then I decided to go on the internet and search for a kaleidoscope quilt pattern because I couldn't remember exactly how the image was repeated. I found what I was looking for and even was able to print out a basic pattern. Seems like everytime I solve a problem, I create a new problem. Now I had to figure out how to enlarge the pattern to fit the size I was going to paint. I decided on a 25" square. My math skills are around 3rd grade level, and I had some kind of algebra formula to work out so I called in the brain power in my family. Might as well get some return on the education we paid for. My son, Kevin, who is my graphic designer, worked out the formula and provided me with the magic numbers I needed. In the meantime, I figured out if I folded a 25" square in quarters and then on both diagonals, I could come pretty close to the answer myself. Now I had my pattern which I made out of tracing paper. I made two wedges, one for forwards and one for a reverse image. I drew my face on the wedge shape template, then traced it in reverse for the other template. I put turquoise watercolor crayon over the lines on the back side of the paper and then transfered the lines to the paper using a mechanical pencil because it gives a nice sharp thin line. The watercolor crayon will mostly dissolve during the painting process.

I find it difficult to photograph line drawings, so I hope you can make out what I have done so far. I have created a detail as well. I taped off a 1/2 inch border all around and taped off the corner triangles. I hope this tape makes a good seal. I usually don't have great luck with this, but this is a new tape. We'll see. I will decide what to do with the corners after I see how busy the main part of the painting looks when done. I am anxious to start painting tomorrow!

JANUARY CHALLENGE FIRST PAINTING IS FINISHED!

I think I am fairly satisfied with this finished painting. I slowed down and sharpened up the features and the hair. Because this was a "texture" painting I wanted to capture the texture of her wispy thinning hair, the texture of her aging skin the reflective quality of her glasses and subordinate the background to the face and make the whole painting "read" as a whole. Texture can be so strong that it takes center stage and becomes the "subject". The objectives of this painting were: "vertical" composition, texture as the dominant element and red-orange as the unifying color. These objectives have been met, but is it an interesting painting? A compelling image? I'm not sure. This always happens after I have been working on and staring at the painting for days. Sometimes it is a good idea to put it away for awhile and then take it out again and see it with fresh eyes. Feel free to comment on "interesting" and "compelling". Everyone has their own response to works of art. It is helpful to hear how others respond to your work. I paint for myself, not for the buying public, not for the critics, not to please others. But, I do appreciate honest comments from others, both positive and otherwise.

I talked my sister into starting a blog today! This is the sister who did not get the "drawing gene". She does have her own unique set of talents which I admire. After reading her annual letter she sends to family and friends, I told her she needs to nurture her creative writing and a blog would be a wonderful place to start. I find her humorous outlook on life very entertaining . I have added her blog to my links. For a smile or a laugh, check out Momimax.

Mary Paquet sent me THREE paintings today for the January Challenge!!! Hope you are well on your way with your paintings, as well. Tomorrow I will set out the next set of objectives for the 2nd January painting. Don't worry about keeping up if you work slower. This is not a race, or a competition, but a motivation to engage you in art.

STAGE 3 AND 4 ARE DONE

I worked on stage 3 as long as I could stand it but the urge to get the texture going was finally overwhelming. I didn't want to use black ink so i decided full strength Hydrus in a dark color might substitute and give a brighter result. Jean Pederson's work tends to be fairly neutral so black works well with her images. I thought it would look terrible with the palette I was working with. I mixed chrome yellow with the gesso and used Paynes Gray initially but that didn't look right so I switched to a turquoise and that created more harmony. Once I got started, I couldn't stop! I kept spraying and dripping and messing and messing and I think that's what I have, a mess! These techniques always look so much easier in the book. I did start to see what happens with the gesso and water. I splattered some alcohol on it to break up the surface a little more. I think I over did it with gesso on the face, too. I will work on it one more session and see what happens. Sometimes the best thing to do is evaluate what you did, what you learned, what you would do differently next time and then start again.

So far, I have met the challenge requirements....a vertical composition, red orange mother color and texture dominant but do I have an interesting painting? Not yet.

FIRST TWO STAGES COMPLETED

After hours of running around and doing art related activities most of the day, I finally had some time to start the painting.
First I drew the image on a sheet of watercolor paper which is part of a block since I didn't want to have to stretch the paper. I am working on 18 x 24 which is a favorite size of mine. I used a dip pen with a fairly fine nib. I had a small amount of Indian Red Hydrus in a bottle. It seems when you get to the bottom of the bottle there is some concentration of pigment that didn't get dissolved. I added some water to the bottle and shook it until all the pigment had gone into solution. I used that diluted color for the drawing. I started with her eye and worked out from there hoping I was judging the placement correctly. The second stage of the painting was saving the whites and covering the rest of the paper with my "Mother Color". I used the light pattern to create a vertical on the paper.

I will be sitting at Gallery Concord tomorrow so I will have time to paint there. I am excited to try Jean Pederson's mixed media textural background for this painting. This is from her brand new book from Northlight Publishers "Expressive Portraits" I will follow her process of painting the face first then doing the squirting and splashing in the background. I think I will wait to do that part at home as I am anticipating it to be a little messy (to say the least!) That will give me my texture dominance plus I think the running and dripping will have a vertical essence . Now that I have the red-orange color over the paper, I will just paint with any and all colors I feel like and they should have that unifying element of the red-orange undertone.

I want to publicly thank my wonderful son, Bill, for installing and setting up my new auxiliary hard drive. It is set to back up my computer every night automatically. Hopefully this new hard drive with its huge memory storage will solve the overload problems. I can store squillions of photos on the extra space. All this technology is possible for me because my kids and grandkids install software, hardware and fix problems when they arise. They patiently explain things and advise me. I am so fortunate to have a tech team at a moment's notice. A home cooked meal and they feel sufficiently repaid. Works for me!

THE PLAN

Here is the image I have selected for me to work on the January Challenge. Everyone should have their own image to work with. I was so tired last night going through tons of photos and was getting very frustrated that I couldn't find a figure I wanted to work with. I found this fabulous face and decided to go with it. I managed to work in my sketch book thinking and working out ways to create a vertical composition from this photo. I surprised myself and thought of 3 interesting ideas. I fell asleep with this project on my mind. When I awoke in the morning, the solution popped into my head. It is an amazing phenomenon that happens during sleep where solutions to problems are worked on.

I had a very long day driving out to the Gallery Concord to deliver 3 new paintings for the next quarter show and pick up all the paintings from my featured artist show there. I worked with others to hang the new show, then drove the hour home. There is a big storm coming in tomorrow, so I wanted to be sure and unload all the paintings while it is dry. I have no idea where I am going to store so many framed paintings. If anyone has creative solutions to painting storage problems, please share! Tomorrow is the Critique Group gathering and then I will deliver my painting to the Triton Museum for the upcoming California Painting Exhibit. After that, I plan to spend the afternoon painting! I am excited to get this idea onto the paper and get my brushes wet.

JANUARY PAINTING CHALLENGE REVEALED!

I am excited to get started on this new challenge. It is an expansion of the December challenge. First and foremost, these challenges are things I have been wanting to explore for a long time but never have. I hope that you want to follow along and try them yourselves. You may use part of the challenge, all of the challenge, change elements to suit your own growth and interest, etc. I am interested in seeing where this takes you, so please send me your results, thoughts, etc.
The following are the rules I have set for myself:
1. Select an image to work with FIRST! Stick with the same image throughout the different variations. This will produce the most growth and creativity. The idea of one image is from Mike Bailey's Watercolor Beyond the Obvious course. It is a brilliant idea that he created. Always give credit where due.
2. I have taken 3 aspects of creating a painting, broken them down into subcategories and randomly selected one from each category, bundled them together and that is what I will incorporate into the painting.
First Category: the 7 elements of design....Line...Size...Shape...Direction...color...value...texture. The one that is selected randomly will be the DOMINANT ELEMENT for the painting
Second Category: Basic Compositional Design. Horizontal...Vertical...Pyramidal...Checkerboard...Asymmeterical...Staggered...Frame in Frame...Cruciform...Cantilevered...Radial...Floating. Different books and different artists have their own ideas about how these categories of overall design are labeled. I have chosen to work from the book by Marianne K. Brown called "Watercolor by Design" She has clear definitions of each of these categories and excellent examples of each. As we pick different ones, I will give you the description and some examples for clarity. You can see that it will be very challenging to take your image and redesign it to fit these different compositions. Much too easy to find an image to fit the design.
Third Category is Color. I have decided to work with the concept of a "Mother Color" for each painting so I put each generic color in the pot and you can decide which exact tube of paint you want to use. Example: Red Orange could be Cad Red Light, Vermillion, Scarlet, Quin Coral etc. The idea for this exploration of color comes from Stephen Quiller's book "Painter's Guide to Color". The idea is that you will have a harmonious color scheme if every color in the painting has a touch of the "Mother Color". This can be achieved in one of 3 ways. You could tone the painting first with a wash of the Mother Color. You could add a touch of this color to every other color you used in the painting. You could glaze the Mother Color over the finished painting.

Okay, here we go. There were more colors and compositions than design elements, so I evened everything up by duplicating some of my favorite design elements. I put each category on a different colored piece of paper then drew randomly, clipping the sets together and then picked a set. You can do this yourself, or just use the ones I have done.

The first set is: DOMINANT DESIGN ELEMENT: TEXTURE!!!!!! (I swear, I didn't cheat)
COMPOSITION DESIGN: VERTICAL
MOTHER COLOR: RED ORANGE

Pick any subject that interests you. I haven't decided yet on my exact image but think it will be a figure.

The photo I have posted is of my experiment with texture on canvas and then painting with watercolor. There are two basic texture categories.... implied visual texture (spattering, pattern, etc.) and physical texture which is what I have done here. I used heavy gloss gel spread with a knife, then stamped into with numerous items and also some Japanese patterned papers collaged onto the canvas with the gel. When it dried, I put absorbant ground over it. When that dried, I painted with regular watercolors.

On vertical designing: The Vertical forms should be dominant, however, other shapes can be introduced for variety but the vertical forms should be most obvious. You do not need to confine your paper to a vertical format but have strong vertical rhythms prevailing.

Now, to select my image to work with.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I found this post on the internet on a website for creativity. I thought it was an inspiring message as we start out the New Year.

Becoming Creative: 6 Easy Steps Toward Becoming Creative By David Wahl

First, I’ll state the obvious. Everyone is creative. There is no person on this Earth that is incapable of coming up with a new idea. However, our entire educational system and most of our culture is set up to squash the creativity out of you. Instead of trying to learn how to be creative, you really just have to remember how to be creative.

If you have a nagging voice in the back of your head telling you to be more creative, here are 6 simple tips that will push you toward becoming a passionate, creative person.

1. Lower your anxiety level. Fear, insecurity and stress are all creativity killers. Do you have some issue or worry in your life that you could easily solve? It doesn't have to be a big issue, take care of little things. Make sure your car never gets below a quarter tank of gas so the empty light never comes on. Avoid caffeine or other stimulants. Breathe deeply. Meditate. Take care of little problems before they become big problems. The less anxiety you have, the more you'll be able to focus on being creative.

2. Ask more and better questions. Asking questions is the keystone of creative thought. The only way to get something new is to question the old. Every time you ask a question you force yourself to consider other perspectives and to question your preconceptions. Don’t rely on other people’s answers, really figure it out for yourself. Here are some questions to get you started: How can I make this better? Why do we do it this way? Why am I the greatest human being ever to exist?

3. Try new things. Do something that you have never done before. This can be as extreme as finding a new job or as simple as trying Indonesian food. Read a book on a topic you know nothing about. Strike up a conversation with a stranger and ask him/her about his/her past. Trying new things will expand your references and perspective. Finding new ways of looking at the world increases the value of what you already know by letting you find new uses for it.

4. Figure out what you love doing and what makes you happy. This should be an easy task, but some people can’t list more than two or three things. Shouldn’t you be able to fill up a full sheet of paper, both sides, with things that make you happy? If you can only come up with a few, focus on finding more. Your creativity follows your passion and happiness. Artistic expression is its own benefit. It’s the rare artist that makes a living from his art, so passion and happiness are the only two real reasons to create.

5. Forget about your lame excuses. Really, stop with the excuses. They are all lame. There are many people that have it worse than you do that manage to do incredible things.

6. Actually do something. This is the step that actually turns you into a creative person. Thinking about doing something doesn’t make you creative. Talking about doing something won’t do it. The only way to become a creative person is to actually create something. This is the only step that matters. Pick up that pencil and draw! Write! Dance! Carve a robot from a bar of soap! It doesn’t matter! DO IT NOW!