Commission paintings and a helpful idea for Cretacolor oil crayons

 I was happy to begin the first stages of these sweet dogs on commission.

 

 

 

Drawing, especially on toned paper, has bumped up my skill level a bit.

Drawing daily is a big joy. These two paintings need more work but I'm

happy with what's happening in the first stages.

In Oct and Nov I was working with watercolor washes over ink 

drawings. The hatching was not working and I've moved away from it.

 

Early this month I began using Cretacolor water soluble oil pastels with

a waterbrush and love the smooth, less transparent oil pastels on toned paper.

 

I went back to some old drawings and added cretacolor highlights.

Even with the hatching it builds form more naturally.

 

 Working with it feels somewhere between oils and watercolor.

The only downside is this jumble of choices that slowed me down in

color choices...so...

I cut a small end off each oil crayon, leaving the paper on, then

glued each into this shallow case. This way I can dip into them like pan watercolors.

My new favorite tool.

Changing colors

I discovered my palette was too transparent to get strong

colors in the first layer. I changed my palette and discovered stronger

first layer colors to build on.

Another under painting I'm happy with. Titanium white is working so much

better than the (more economical) Permalba white I've been using all summer.

For painting dogs and cats my new, improved color palette includes;

Titanium white, Gamblin's Warm White, Naples Yellow Hue, Yellow Ochre,

Red Ochre, Gamblin Asphaltum, WN Charcoal Grey and Gamblin's Chromatic Black.

The Charcoal Grey is the exception here. It's a transparent dark grey perfect

for where coats fall in shade or when the fur is just tinged dark at the end.

Outside my window Cardinals are feasting on the Dogwood berries and 

fall is showing her own colors. A dear family member is very ill.
All life seems so precious. Painting helps me to recharge and take
a more grateful attitude back to my daily routine.

More dogs and pc problems

Lately the word processor part of my pc has gone mad. Probably
a program conflict. It' frustrating to type what I want to say. 

Screaming with irritation I watch entire blocks
of text turn blue and disappear and letters rearrange themselves
like ants on the page. So, first thing, if anyone has
a link or some way to fix this I'll be in your debt.

This is my immediate problem and I'm wringing as much positive as
I can from it. Other than that, I'm noticing several  bloggers I
read questioning the value of blogging. Must be something in the air.

The first photo is of me and Big Dog about 12 years ago. I'm going to paint him.
I finally got the first layer of Opie's  portrait so it shows his attitude and
personality so I think I may be able to tackle another special dog from my life.

So this is what I'm thinking about blogging in general. I keep seeing
techniques on 'monetizing' your blog and promoting what you make
to sell. Yeah, this is what we need to do in a crummy economy to some extent. 

But there's a point when this gets in the way of what I enjoy;
meeting other artists and crafts people who may be on the same road.
Learning from their experience, sharing what I'm doing and

pushing to learn new skills is the main goal. It's not that
don't have friends in the real world. It's that blogging and meeting others
online have resulted in knowing folks I never would have met otherwise.
So, for now I'll put up with the spook in my pc and type the same sentence
six times because I know there are good folks out here.

 Lately I've been painting...

and not thinking so much about selling. This may change but I doubt it.

More Animal Aid dog paintings

This terrier started out looking like a cartoon to me. I kept

 layering colors then used the rake or grass brush for highlighting the fur. A

little rake brushwork goes a long way. Also, I'm making a note on

each painting of which colors I mixed. Helpful if I can't paint for a few days.

 

 This dog is Hannah who lives at Animal Aid. 

This is Cody, also from Animal Aid. What a sweetie. I'm taking seven paintings

to Plantiques this Tuesday.

 We babysat the grand boy two days this week. 

It was fun but we had to take naps.

Oils and using time available

I now know why I'm enjoying painting in oils so much more than in acrylic. Most days

I have small blocks of time to paint. There are several stages of preparing a canvas, 

putting down the preliminary drawing, sealing the graphite, value study in thin oil color,

then layers of paint and hopefully finding a way into the dog's personality. 

These are still what I'd call "folk art". I'm learning my way around

painting from the basics. Oil paint is forgiving and using a bit of Liquin

speeds the drying time. I'm looking at brushstrokes of very good paintings.

Two paintings have sold in the past couple of weeks they've been in the shop. At this

rate I may be able to pay for paint and canvases as well as donate to the dog shelter.

 I think I've found the best medium for the few hours I have to work at this point.

I

Real dogs looking for homes

This is Reba who lives at Animal Aid in Hampton, Va.

And this is Cathy who lives there, too. I'll be framing these for sale at
Plantiques and part of the profits will go back to Animal Aid.
Hazel takes wonderful photos of the dogs and they have given
their permission for me to paint from her photos.

The awkward stage

I've read several places that in almost every painting you reach an

awkward stage. This is when values are put down generally and you haven't put in much detail.

It's that stage where we get disappointed and 'stuck'.

At this point it's easy to be discouraged. Instead of giving up I concentrate on

some part of the dog that shows her personality. In this case, the eyes.

These 'folk dog' studies are helping me gain experience with oils. Each day I study

for an hour or so before painting. It really is wonderful how much is out there in the

library and online. I never studied oils in college so am a beginner here.

When the animal this elegant she seems impossible to paint. But

by layering and glazing I can add detail a bit at a time...layers of personality.

Here I concentrated on the slope of her forehead and the tufts

at her ear and this gave me enough confidence to go on to modeling.

Sometimes the value study takes over and I can't see the forest for the trees. On this guy

I was happy to have 'gotten' the eyes early on. Seems I need some small success to continue and with

my skills at this point I usually just need to put it aside for awhile.

Then I can come back and see beyond the awkward stage. One author says that painting is

somewhere between drawing and sculpture. This is helpful for me to keep in mind.

If the painting isn't working I look for ways to un-flatten the surface. I think the white under

his chin was helpful in modeling. I need to practice with spheres and boxes and

light sources. 

Opie, resident critic and reminder to go outside frequently.

More learning

Still learning, practicing and having fun painting dogs in oils.

Recently, a dental emergency has changed my priorities so I can't take an online course I'd planned to. But time online has been educational with utube tutorials, etc. Free is good for now. I'd like to share some of the most helpful information I've learned in case anyone reading 

here is considering oil as a medium.

 

I've tried several brands of mid range quality oil paints and Gamblin has the most consistent

creamy quality and color intensity so far. This is what goes on my palette every time;

portland cool grey, flake white replacement, warm white, brown pink, indian yellow, 

trans earth orange, asphaltum and black spinel.

 I have others, many shades of browns, blacks, greys

and earth colors to mix.

 I prefer flake white replacement to titanium white for

most blending. Titanium white is what I like to use for the final layer when I need an

opaque white that sparkles even in a small dab. 

I've also discovered Radiant White,

which has some sort of reflective substance mixed in it. If used in the first layers it reflects

light thru the top layers in a wonderful way. A little goes a long way, tho.

This solvent was sent in an order to try (no charge) and I used it in on several backgrounds

before experimenting first (bad idea). The paint is still tacky after almost 2 weeks.

Something in this solvent slows drying time drastically. I'll keep that in mind when

I need that quality. But right now, working in layers, it isn't helpful.

This medium, Liquin, from Winsor Newton is exactly what I needed to

speed up drying time between layers. I use it in 30/70 (Liquin/paint) ratio and 

drying time is cut by at least half! No differences in color intensity/saturation 

until more than 30% Liquin is added to the mix.

Now I can add layers that don't build up so thick and are slow to dry.

 I can add small dabs of color to build expression and work

on that area again in only one day. 

I'd like to recommend an online book with lots

of good information, http://www.winsornewton.com/assets/ocb_english.pdf

It concentrates on Winsor Newton products but for a beginner like me

it's a PDF file full of great information...and free!

I found this book, Shelter Dogs, by Traer Scott in our library. The photographer/

author responded to my email about permission to use some of her photos

for my 'dog folk' studies. 

She kindly gave permission and this project is going forward with a

life of it's own. I sell my work in Plantiques in Newport News, Va . 

A portion of the sale of any of these

will be donated to the Animal Aid Center in Hampton, VA,

a no-kill shelter (google it to see the great dogs living there).

Still making notes to share as I continue to learn oils.

Underpainting, beginning again

I've prepared lots of small illustration boards with gesso to practice with
oils. Not using expensive materials helps me make mistakes and learn from
them instead of cringing. Yesterday I began a lot of dog under paintings.

Some of these under paintings are encouraging.

Others are less so.

Turning them upside down for value studies was helpful.

Under paintings are not supposed to look perfect, just provide a value study
fore later stages or layers. It was so absorbing that I had to snap out of it when
the tornado warnings and a neighbor called to warn about the huge
storm that blew through here. Now on to the next stages. I found this book,
101 Textures in Oil & Acrylic, last week. Along with Oil Painting and
 The Oil Painting Handbook  it's all I've needed to paint at my level of skill.

Gillian Lee Smith is offering an online painting/drawing course soon. I'm looking
forward to it!