This is probably not the type of picture that you expect to see in a painting blog. Frost build up in the freezer is what happens when you freeze your paints and the airtight container holds the freezer door open overnight.

Started applying color over the underpainting today. This is what Robin looked like BEFORE:

And this is what she looked like AFTER:

Face: 1) cadmium red light/naples yellow/white  for skin tones

2) the same mixture with a little alizarin crimson for cheeks and lips

3) burnt sienna/white for skin tones and

4) burnt umber/permanent violet for shadows.

Hair: 1) glazed raw sienna over highlights

2)burnt umber over medium hair

3)burnt umber/permanent blue violet into the deep shadows.

At the moment the face is a little bland. I’ve lost the darker values and I’ll need to just glaze straight colors on after this dries. I always freak because the first few days of applying color the skin tones look sick, so next time I may try doing the under painting in burnt sienna/white. That way the skin tones won’t take so long to develop and I won’t freak out so much.

Wow, the pinky finger and the one next to it look shaped very oddly. Looks just like the photo, but will have to look at my hand in a mirror to see what’s  really going on.

The blue jeans are a mixture of indigo/black/cerulean blue with white added in for highlights. Later I’ll dry brush on cerulean blue to give them the frayed blue jean texture.

Didn’t feel like I made much progress while painting, but can definitely tell from this photo that Robin has been color-ized. Not sure I’m going to like the plain white shirt – wanted her clothing to be a simple contrast to the others’ more detailed clothes, but it may not work out as planned.

Finally decided what to paint in the background. Keep a folder full of pictures I’ve either taken or torn out of magazines which I’ll browse through when I’m stuck for ideas. Most of them are walls with graffiti, beautiful furniture, or gardens – funny, I never seem to paint gardens. And I never buy the beautiful furniture……The background will be brightly painted bricks with a broken heart between Mike and Annette. I think it will add to the story – what did he say to her? Did he break her heart or propose? Is he leaving Annette for Robin? Oh, God, I’m painting a soap opera!

Okay, terrible picture taken with good intentions. When I first start painting on a canvas I use a stiffer brush to really scrub the paint in. Monarch brights by Winsor & Newton are good. They worked really great on the bricks – just trying to lay on some texture. Change to a softer brush for the 2nd pass over the painting – also start using more medium because I want the paint to start looking smoother.  I like Performen Black Sable and Performen Kolinsky by Creative Mark. Order them from aswexpress.com although I think they’re discontinuing the Black Sable – and it’s my favorite brush! Darn.

Don’t have enough dimension built up on the face yet – and the right side isn’t turning back. Need to darken that side. If you look closely you can see outlines around the hands – I was defining the shape of each finger. Usually when I draw an outline it means : what I really need to do is either lighten one value or darken another. Does that make sense? It’s the difference between values that makes objects come forward or go back.

Took a photo of Robin and reversed it to check out the progress. The hands look pretty good, but the face is still too flat. One problem is that the photo reference has the light hitting her face from the right side and I’m trying to change it to the left side. I’m always better at painting what I can see rather than what I’ve imagined.

Mike has a really interesting face – his cheek bones are sharp as a knife. You can see that I’ve put a 2nd layer of paint on the left side of the jacket – it’s much smoother and well defined. However, there isn’t enough variation in values in the folds of the jacket – the folds just look like dark lines. I like the idea of the darker broken heart against his light blonde hair. That’s an example of putting a dark value next to a light value to give dimension. Duh……am I repeating myself too much????? I sound like a broken record…..just like my teachers.

In the reversed photo the nose looks a little strange and I don’t have the right look in his eyes yet.

At the end of the day you can tell that Robin, Mike’s face and part of his jacket are more developed than the rest of the painting. Wonder if I should have done this on a larger canvas? I like to paint people as large as possible while still focusing on their expressions – if I’d done this on a 36×48″ then their legs and feet would have been included which would have diluted my intention. Hmmmm……..I’m never completely satisfied.

Woke up this morning with my head bursting full of ideas. Since I’ve started thinking in terms of using my paintings on greeting cards, calendars, magnets, and wrapping paper….well, the ideas have really started flowing……

And now we return you to our regularly scheduled painting program…….Once I have a full scale drawing finished, then I trace it onto tracing paper. Put graphite paper under that and trace the drawing onto the canvas. Put a book under the canvas so that I can press down with the pencil without stretching the canvas too much. Even if your canvas stretches out, you can spritz the back of it with water and it will tighten up again.

This is the toned canvas with the drawing traced onto it. Okay, so it isn’t toned very evenly. Sometimes it’s just because I’m always in a hurry when I’m doing it – seems like I’m always rushing around toning a canvas at 9pm so I can start a new painting the next morning. Sometimes it’s because  I put the paint straight from the tube onto the canvas and then try to spread it around by thinning it with water. Oh, forgot to mention that I always tone with acrylic. That way I know it will dry overnight. And sometimes it’s because I like the way the different shades of orange peek through the background of the painting.

Decided to try a little experiment with the paint. The last time I did an under painting was about two weeks ago. Had loads of the 10 values mixtures of burnt umber/white mixture left over…so  put it in an air tight container in the freezer. Usually  don’t leave it in there for more than a few days, but this time  decided to see how long it would freeze. Was really surprised that after two weeks it was just as fresh as brand new paint.

This is what the under painting looked like after a few hours of painting. Just trying to establish the values and start to develop dimension. Usually do 3-4 complete passes over the under painting before I’m satisfied with it. Suppose if I were a better painter that I could do it all in one pass, but I’m not.

Used up all of the paint in the previous session, so on day two had to mix up new values. I mix them up on a different palette and transfer them to this one to keep things neat. Ended up with 12 values this time and could have mixed a lot more. The less white you add into each mixture the more values you’ll get. Note: This photo was taken on the floor of my studio. The area in which I paint is covered with those interlocking mats that you can find at any hardware store. It makes it much easier to stand up all day and paint. Never realized how physically taxing painting could be until I started doing it 8-10 hours a day.

This is the under painting after about 6 more hours of painting. Still not sure what I’m going to do with the background. Originally I was thinking of doing a white brick wall but am afraid it might look too much like they’re in a police station. Tom/hubby/art critic suggested a park, but am afraid it might look too much like he’s a perv accosting them! No matter how carefully I plan ahead of time…..the painting seems to have a mind of it’s own. It seems to know where it wants to go. I’ve learned to trust my feelings on this – if something is bugging me -even just a little- then I make the change.

This shows how using the different values of paint creates the folds in his shirt. It also shows how I’ve kinda screwed up the stripes on his shirt – added an extra one in a few places. At this point I’ve only used a few values and blended them. Later will try to put the exact values in the correct places. Lighter where the shirt comes forward and darker where it folds under.

Happy Birthday to me…….Happy Birthday to me……

Oh, yeah, that was yesterday. I forgot – I only get to celebrate for one day and then it’s back to work. For the record: I had a pretty good day. Painted in the morning, then went to a movie in the afternoon and dinner at Carrabba’s. Had a great time.

I’ve started work on a new painting and thought I’d show how I came up with the idea for it. I have hundreds of photos hanging on my studio walls. Photos of family, friends, and people I’ve just met. Some are snapshots and some are from lengthy photo shoots. I have so many great photos that I sometimes get overwhelmed by them when I sit down and start sorting through them.

My nephew, Dr. Andrew Hackworth, of Richmond, Virginia.

I met Annette Wirth at the Craftsman’s Classic Art Show in Richmond, Virginia. She reminds me of a woodland sprite.

My niece, Maxey Hackworth, a lawyer from Knoxville, Virginia.

I met Mike Ferdnandz during a Final Friday at the Pendleton Art Center. I was immediately struck by his appearance when he walked into my studio, but was too shy to talk to him. A few minutes later I decided to ask if he’d let me photograph him…but I had to run all over the building in order to find him again! He’s a very interesting person. He used to be a Billie Idol impersonator in Las Vegas and he totally gives the impression of being a strung out rock star! However, he’s a runner and was in training for Olympic try outs. I did a photo shoot with him and have lots of great poses that I’d like to paint.

I also met Jennifer Painter at my studio at the Pendleton. Interesting people attend art openings. She teaches yoga at thelightbodystudio.com in Clifton.

I probably have hundreds of photos of just these five people…so you can tell how confusing it can get when I start trying to fit them into a painting. First I start with the story – in this case I wanted it to be about the reaction that the women had  to something that Mike had said. So that defined the location – probably a bar or restaurant.

I used to sift through photos trying to come up with a story that I liked, but would get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of possibilities. Recently I’ve started working with them in Photoshop and printing out my favorite ideas. I love this particular pose of Mike and want to save it for a really special painting.

Liked this combo but not sure it has exactly the right attitude I want to convey.

After printing out about ten different variations I finally decided on this. The photo of Jennifer is actually reversed from the original , but I think having her body twisting around adds some action to the scene. Now I just have to decide – do I want to have them sitting behind a bar? Decided that would be  too static and that having drinks in front of them would be distracting. So then I had to work out the problems: 1) what are they sitting on?, 2) what is behind them and helping to define the location?, and what interesting things should the girls’ hands be doing?

I took  photos of my hands in various gestures and was happy with the impression that they conveyed. Then I decided that the expression on Jennifer’s face wasn’t quite exasperated enough. That’s when I lucked upon this photo I’d taken of Robin Ewers who I also met during Final Friday at the Pendleton. I probably have 200 photos of her and have used her in another painting titled DecisionsDecisions. Question: How many times can you use the same model in your paintings? I could probably make a career out of just painting Robin Ewers. Anyway,  in that particular photo of Robin I loved how her head was turned to the side but also tilted slightly to the back. Also her jaw line is very strong and adds an intensity to the pose.

I did the drawing full size – 24×36 and also enlarged photos of the faces and hands to the actual painting size. I find that it really helps me to discern more detail. Funny, I don’t like painting from life. 1) I get too distracted by talking to the model to focus on painting. 2) I can’t afford to pay for a full time model. 3) No model would ever want to be at my beck and call. I need someone I could take in and out of a closet as needed!

These hands are going to be difficult to paint – I’ve never painted hands in quite this position. And because the clothing is so dark this photo will help me see the detail and folds.

This may seem like a lot of bother to go through to come up with a drawing for a painting. But I think it’s helping me to create more interesting and dynamic paintings. Sometimes I come up with an idea and then photograph people in the correct poses. But more often than not, I see an interesting person, do a photo shoot with them in hundreds of poses, and then build the idea from the photos.

Put the finishing touches on my self-portrait – although now that I see the photos of it I see more things that I need to fix.

For some reason this is photographing too blue – must be the lighting. The shirt is actually black.

Glazed color onto the arms. Glazed straight burnt sienna on the arm on the right – I think it makes the skin look too brownish. The left arm was glazed with a mixture of cadmium red light/naples yellow which makes a more reddish orange color. Glazed permanent blue violet/alizarin crimson into the creases and folds on the knuckles – those are the places where the blood is closest to the surface. Supposedly you can glaze a medium skin color over the entire skin area of the underpainting and the lights will be warm and the shadows will be cool. However, I feel like I’d have to make the lightest skin tones in the underpainting a perfect white in order to be able to glaze a medium skin color over it and not have the skin tone too dark. I added some white to the cadmium red light/naples yellow mixture and glazed it over the lighter parts of the arm.

This shows where I’ve started glazing forest green/alizarin crimson mixture over the shirt to make it darker. That combination is supposed to make the closest you can get to black. I added some ivory black into the mixture for the darkest folds.

Yikes – this is almost like seeing your face on a movie screen. Shows every imperfection in my face and every misstep that I made with the paint. The wrinkles look a little too obvious and the blue around the laugh lines is too dark. I do like the way the colors blended and mixed in the irises – sort of a greenish blue. When I looked at this in the mirror, though, it didn’t look quite right.

In this reverse photo you can really tell that my nose is going off  to the left – in the direction of the grimace/crooked smile. However, I painted the  nostrils straight and even – they should be up at an angle in this pose. Will have to fix that later.

I’m doing the Loveland Art Show Sunday September 12th, so I wanted to finish painting The Bluebird of Happiness. I started with the jacket – yeah, I’ve already painted it several times, but it just doesn’t look like real leaves to me. This time I glazed on sap green (what a lovely color!) and added a mixture of yellow green/cadmium yellow light/white for the highlights.

As you can tell….glazing on sap green made the leaves look much warmer than the forest green I’d originally used. However, I think that first leaf I painted ended up being the best one on the entire jacket.

Well, the bird on the right is what it looked like after I glazed it with indigo blue to darken it and make it look more realistic. So why does the before photo on the left look better than the after photo on the right???? I lightened portions of the background by glazing naples yellow/white over the brightest yellow sections. The background was looking too medium in value, so I lightened part of it. It made the bird and her head stand out more.

I’m really wondering about the color shift in these photos – this painting looks much better in my studio. Her face looks very realistic and the background looks the color of the setting sun. My husband/critic said it’s one of the best paintings I’ve done – he said he was really surprised how well it turned out. Originally the entire idea of a woman holding a bird and wearing a leaf jacket was just too weird for him….and I admit that it’s a little left of center for me.

Liar Liar Pants On Fire……well, I did exactly what I swore I wouldn’t do. Last night I spent about half an hour applying very thin glazes of burnt sienna and cadmium red light to the skin tones. My face, especially, still looked really sickly. Worried about it all night. And today what did I do? Painted on thick paint with hardly any medium at all. And got the whole thing almost finished.

Painting when I started this morning.

Painting when I stopped this evening. All I have to do is let this dry, then do a little bit of glazing – probably mostly cadmium red light on the face and some ivory black on the shirt and it will be finished. I did put a thin glaze of straight cerulean blue over the background. I thought it would neutralize the background colors, but it turned some of them green.

Skin tone mixtures: 1) Four values of cadmium red light/naples yellow/white

2) Burnt umber and white

3) Burnt umber/ permanent blue violet/white

4) Some burnt sienna blended into wet skin tones

5) Some alizarin crimson/permanent blue violet blended into skin tones

I used a small stiff brush and painted wet-into-wet. Up close I thought it looked very illustrative, but step back a little and it looks realistic. Tom said that anyone could take one look at it and know that it was me. High praise indeed.