Progress +

This photo was taken after the 3rd layer of glaze was applied. Will be putting a 4th layer today. Probably ought to start putting in some side/background paint, hey? Too bad about the dark green just left of lower/center. It just doesn't match anything else--not even the smaller bits of the *same* color on the 3 o'clock position. Grrr.

In other news, can anyone explain to me why cheap toilet paper roll tubes should be a thing? It never occurred to me before that the little cardboard tunnel supporting my TP was over-built. WTH??

Oily!

After saying the other day that I don't have the skill with oil paint to make this go, I got annoyed and tried to do it in oil paint. Using a glazing technique (many thin layers of paint, instead of a few fat layers), and a tiny, soft brush.

This is after 2 layers of paint. I have NO idea where I'm going with the colors, or what it's supposed to look like when it's done. The asymmetric colors on a tri-symmetric pattern makes my brain really cranky, but it's probably good for me.

Things that makes me cranky are good, right?

Looks better in person...

... but still isn't GOOD. I don't know for sure what effect I'm trying to get, but I keep not getting it, so I keep trying again and again. It's a little frustrating, and my house is filling up with a wide variety of similar and similarly unsatisfying paintings... but I'm hoping someday I'll actually find what I'm after.

When I get too much into the subtle shading, I start feeling like Rothko, but then I put some real color into it and can go on living. Anyway, it was an experiment. I didn't like it.

Really? More than a month?

It hardly seems possible, but the numbers don't lie. More than a month has gone by since my last post here. I have been kind of busy with making things, since then. I've developed a (possibly unhealthy) obsession with putting moss on things. I've carved in plaster. I've painted, and drawn, and consumed lots of tea and coffee--a critical part of the creative process. And I've taken uncountably many pictures of my cat, which is my version of practicing portrait photography.

This picture is a smallish oil painting that I have started, but not yet completed. It's partly on hold because I'm not 100% sure how to proceed technically. The good news is, it is so far pretty much exactly what I had in mind, as far as composition and execution. This pleases me. I expect it will please me even more when it's finished.

Nowhere Near Done

This is the thing the other thing was a sketch for. This is about 1' x 3'.

Yes, really.

The cat is helping me with this one, as you can see. She's doing the red bits that don't actually go on the canvas.

I'm not totally sure I like the water-mixable oil paints. In theory they're easier to clean up than the traditional kind, but I find the fumes surprisingly irritating. I guess that's the trade-off? Irritating paint vs. irritating clean up? But... I spend so much more time painting than cleaning!