Painting with my daughter

One of the things I really love to do is paint with my daughter.  She has absolutely no fear about painting anything.  Her paintings might be one color, or they may be A plethora of colors.  But whatever the color just goes at it with little fear and great enthusiasm.  This past weekend we decided to paint a whale.  I spread some butcher paper on the kitchen floor and taped it down, she grabbed the iPad to look up whales.  She decided on the one to paint, in this case a killer whale, and I drew it.  I got her the largest paint brushes I had, and sat down beside her.  She told me some great stories about whales:  What they eat, what they like to do in their free time, where they go on vacation, etc.

There was supposed to be a lesson about whales to go along with the painting, but I think I got more of the lesson than she did.  Thats OK, I had a great time painting with her.

Old Truck in Front of Barn

Ok, first of all, let me say that this is still a work in progress.  Secondly, let me tell you a little story about this.

A colleague of mine, knowing my propensity for all things rusty and wheeled, sent me a picture he took of this truck.  I couldn't help but attempt a painting of it.  I drew it, and painted it.  It looked horrible.  I couldn't stand it.  Even my colleague looked at it and asked if I had regressed in my painting.

I literally started pouring on the water and rubbed most of the paint off the truck.  Having done that, I was left with a painting that still had color, but which was infused with tiny white dots where the paint had been taken off.  It still looked horrible.  So, here is what I decided to do.

I admitted to myself that I'd wasted a sheet of paper and used it for some practice.  I stood, instead of sitting, and started swabbing on paint, not worrying about color or exact placement of paint.  In short, painting more loosely.  You can see I got some red on the roof of the bar,  a big swab of blue on the side of the barn, some green for trees, and yellows, reds and greens for grass.  While still wet, I just flicked in a few weeds.  I touched up the paint on the truck, and POW, a huge difference. I couldn't believe the transformation of this picture. It went from something that was totally drab and blasé to something in which the truck actually stands out in the picture.

I know that I still have a little bit of work to do painting but I couldn't believe how much better it look when I stopped trying to paint so tightly.

I hope you all enjoy it I am going to be posting the finished painting soon. Thank you.

The End of Summer

Painting with my daughter has been an incredible sense of joy for me.  We sat down and painted a garden, and this is one of the things I came up with.  Watermelon from our garden.  Tried to give the melon a little depth, but not sure I really got it.  Regardless, it is so fun to paint with someone who has no fear in what she does.   I am trying to think less and do more with my painting, just like her.  Also trying to worry less about detail and focus more on getting the feeling of the painting across to the viewer.

Well, enjoy, and thanks for viewing.

House Plant

I promised that I was going to get back into panting,  Maybe I won't paint every day, but I'll put out more work than once a month like I did over the summer.  This past weekend, after I was doing domestic stuff (shampoo'ed the carpets in the entire house, cleaned two bathrooms, cleaned the kitchen, scooped the cat box and made myself a sandwich), I took a few minutes to draw and paint a house plant that I have.

The kids were at a birthday party, and I figured I had about 4 to 5 hours to get everything done.  After the previously mentioned housework, I figured I had at most 30 minutes left.  A quick drawing, a splash of paint, a quick second splash and I figured I was gonna be out of time very soon.  A quick clean up, and I was done.  Shortly after the kiddo's returned.  All in all a very successful day.

I bought a book of 90 lb paper last year, always intending to use it to do some sketching on, but never getting around to it.  Well, I pulled it out and used it for this painting.  I'll admit it's not quite as nice as my 140 lb paper, but its not bad for something quick.  As you can see, the paper didn't really buckle or bubble or anything.  There is some very slight warping, but given that the page was wet for 15 minutes I think it held up really well.  There are 40 sheets of paper in this book,   I'm looking forward to filling up the remaining 39.

Hope you enjoy.

Staring off into the distance

I know I keep saying that I am going to start painting again with more earnest.  But it seems that life keeps intruding on my art time, and I seem to be wasting all my time with silly work and family.

Well today, finally, I was determined to paint something.  This is a little nuthatch on a broken pine limb.  He seems to be staring intently at something off to the side.  I'm hoping that he's soon gonna have a little lunch.

Well, I don't have a big write up about this little guy, he's just a nice little bird.  One of what I am hoping is gonna be many to come,  Enjoy.

Speed Painting With My Daughter (Now with Sparkle)

I love painting with my daughter.  Like me, she makes up stories about the things she paints.  (She got that from me, and I in turn, got it from Bob Ross.)  Her stories are always outrageous and seldom have any place in reality.  Perhaps thats the imagination of a 5 year old.  I could just sit next to her and listen to her stories all day long, but I'm lucky enough to be able to paint with her while being regaled with these outlandish stories.

This past Saturday we were sitting at the craft table painting when we were just finishing out first paintings when she decided that fruit would be a good thing to paint.  I would quickly sketch out a couple of pictures (one for her and one for me) and we would set out to paint.  She got to the point where fruit was a solid color with a green leaf all lobbied onto the paper in one gleeful moment.  We both ended by laughing and painting furiously.

Then she remembered that she has glitter watercolors.  We had to revisit and add the glitter (she calls it shimmer or sparkle.)  The following was my contribution to our time together.

Apples and cherries were the first pictures we did.
 

I didn't have time to draw my own grapes, so I just freehanded them.

This peach has a generous amount of shimmer on it.  I guess it is substituted for fuzz


No, a chili isn't really a fruit, but she suggested and I obliged

Second attempted portrait.

First portrait attempted.

Strawberries definitely have shimmer.

A tree to end out fun for the day.

More Koi

Today, I present for you a few Koi for your viewing pleasure.  I hope it looks like you are looking down onto them through some gentle ripples that the light is just catching.  The water and the bottom of the pool are algae covered.

I'm pretty happy with this one.  I think it turned out just about like I wanted.  The one thing I don't like is the gouache I put on.  I've not really used it before, and it didn't go on quite like I thought it would.  Regardless of that its a nice little painting.

Enjoy