Day 31

More Spirit Horses

I was having so much fun doing these horses that I took this old painting:

and turned it on its side:

And voila! A spirit horse appears!

And then I took an old canvas full of left-over paint and found this horse waiting:

Day 30

Spirit Horses

In class Kathy encouraged us to use an old painted canvas to inspire our spirit horses.  Here are 2 of Kathy’s examples:

Here is my painting:

I wasn’t happy with it so when I got home I took a closer look at Kathy’s horse:

 

And then I tried again and made 2 horses:

Horse 1

Horse 2

Day 29

I was inspired by this National Geographic cover:



Our art teacher Kathy keeps reminding us to look for the shapes when creating a picture and here I could see the triangle of the polar bear’s head and his ears and the oval of his feet and went from there.  Here is the result:

Day 28

Not your Degas Dancer....

So after looking at my flamingos, I had this idea, what if I put some toe shoes on a flamingo?  I mean they certainly have the legs for it, and their plumage does kind of resemble a tutu....

Day 27

A Flock of Flamingos!

I had so much fun painting my flamingo that I decided to paint more flamingos.  Here’s one:

And then another:

And another:

And another:

And finally:

And then I thought to flock them all together:

Day 26

Flamingo

I saw a JCrew ad that featured whimsical paint sketches and I was inspired to try to recreate the flamingo sketch.  Here is the result:

 

Day 25

Degas Again

At home I attempted to paint a ballet dancer that didn’t resemble a high school student wearing her school uniform and a got a ballet dancer who resembled Barbie:

<sigh>

So I tried it again and this time I got an Audrey Hepburn dancer.....

It’ll be a while before I ever try another dancer......

Day 24

Painting like Degas

In class we were given several examples of ballet dancers painted by Degas. We tried to follow his example.  Here’s my first attempt:

My dancer looks like a she is dancing in a Xavier uniform skirt, not the look I was going for.

My second attempt:

If DeGrazia had painted a Degas dancer, this is what she’d look like.

Day 23

Last Cat (for now)

While celebrating my birthday in Jerome, Mark & I came across a cat black cat who struck a perfect pose, and Mark was able to capture the pose with his phone:

Here is Mark taking the picture and below is the picture Mark took:

Next is my painting of the cat:

and an iPad painting of the photo:

Day 22

My Birthday Present

For my birthday the YaYa’s gave me a happy green purse:

Day 21

Painting with the YaYa’s 

Again at the cabin with limited painting resources and an abundance of YaYa libations, my painting suffered the consequences.  

Queen Gabby Guppie displays my painting of the Pole

 

Day 20

Minimalist Painting (or what happens when you a stuck in the cabin with few to none art supplies)

Gold paint on cardboard

Day 19

How to Paint Like J.M.W. Turner (kind of)

So I tried to do a larger Turner-like painting at home.  Here’s what it looked like after a few layers of paint:

 

Next I added more colors to add depth:


Then I added the darks:




Then I added some clouds and water:


Finally I took the painting into class and with Kathy’s guidance this is the finished painting:

Day 18

Learning from J.M.W. Turner

At our art class, Kathy encouraged us to a painting in layers a la J.M.W. Turner; it was an exercise in patience as each layer needed to be completely dry before the next layer was overlayed.  Happily we were doing this technique in Phoenix, in the middle of summer, and the hot dry air helped the layers to dry quickly.  Here is the result:

Day 17

iPad Painting

On day 17 I took a class in iPad painting.  Our teacher, Linda Ingraham, does these amazing paintings on her iPad:



Linda is a patient teacher, but painting on an iPad is a bit of a learning curve, colors don’t quite blend and it’s hard for me to wield a stylus with any sort of artistic flair.  Here are our first exercises learning about the paint box tools:   

Then we did an exercise trying to recreate a painting:

Then Linda had us paint over a photo.  This is a photo of Laura’s dog, Fergus:

And this is a photo of some azaleas that I tried to turn into a painting at home:

(Though I think it’s more photo than painting.....I need more practice.....!)

Day 16

Scat Cats....

My excuse is that we were out of town so I did some very quick paintings of cats:

Day 15

Day 15 (or what happens to left over paint)

Whenever I paint I inevitably will end up with left over paint, and as you can’t save it for future use, my art teacher suggested that I just smear it on an empty canvas, and that usually the left over paint will prove an inspiration.  Here’s one such example:

And as the blue dots looked like air bubbles to me, here’s what it became:

A humpback whale swimming at night.

Day 14

Day 14

Through the magic of gesso, my still life disaster has morphed into a starburst......TaDa!

Day 13

Just Peachy

Continuing on my one-fruit-still-life I painted a peach, because we had a bumper crop of peaches this summer, and I like peaches....

 

(They tasted better than they look....)

And thus ended my one-fruit-still life, or so I thought, and then last night our teacher, Kathy Taylor, gave us this assignment:


And so I painted a very large orange slice:

And while I’m not sure that looks like an orange slice, I do like it better than my peach.