The Process: Day 2

Day 2. Started late around 1 PM and that is not good. The light is best from 10 - 4 and I should never be anywhere else during those hours. But my neck was extra tight so I walked up the mountain and over the other side for an extended 2.5 hour hike. It was good -but oh so humid. I was soaked through when I got back, took a freezing shower, had a salad with my heirloom Green Zebra tomatoes and hit the studio.

I started by adding another background layer of goldens and reds. I lightened the cone of grace that Flannery is standing under. I just needed to get the gist of how that will look so i can figure out the overall color balance. The cone of grace will need several layers to hold the detail of drops that will come later.

I could not live without Golden Fluid Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold; it is the most indispensable color. QNAG adds a warmth to any color it overlays. It will take a lot of paint (a LOT of paint) to get the background where I want it but that can come later. Today I needed to deal with Flannery's face and that was what most of today was about.

I did the classic green shadow underpainting. Frankly, I havent done this since college. This is the kind of thing that can get me panicky and abandon the process, but I worked through it and all the weird awkward stages to follow. Note how the drawing is kind of skewed and asymmetrical. I tend to leave those lines and fix them as I paint; I try not to have the image be too perfect because its this very wrongness that gives a final painting its unique character. (I think)

I painted about 4 layers of different colors to create the flesh tone of her face. You cannot just squeeze out a tube of flesh colored paint and call it a day because it just doesnt have any life to it. I use a mix of flat and slightly shiny paint - it looks weird now but later when I varnish the painting all the layers will "come up" and it will look deep. Rich. Make sense? I mean that you can look down into the painting and see all the layers but it still reads as a fluid surface. See how crooked her eyes are? I'll fix that in a minute. Its hard to see the importance of that halo of lighter yellow until I get her dark hair painted. Right now the whole thing looks pasty and bland. Note how deep into the lines of the Flannery drawing I take the background color. That is critical for nice clean edges. Painting is a discipline where you are always thinking back to front and trying to plan for later by laying a foundation early.

Flannery's hairline is to die for; the illustrator in me loves the lack of ambiguity. You just do not see this kind of hair anymore. I really like how the left (our left) looks - Im going to have to fix that right side but its going to take some real skill to overcome that dark with the light. I used a ruler to measure the distance from hair to shoulder line and its still off. So thats something to be corrected as well.

The face is very rough here but I know that the super refined work is days away. I just need to have her look back at me for the rest of the painting because the connection with her eyes is what every other thing that follows has to sync up with. Literally, the peacock, the pond, the trees, the leg braces, the cloud - all of it must be in service to those eyes.

* describing this process is a challenge*

There is barely enough room for me and the board (40x40) and the paints to fit in here. But both Trout and Koby tend to lay in here all day. Its too hot and humid for them. They mostly lay around in the summer. I took them to the waterfall on the break around 4. Some times the chickens come in too but they have a tendency to fly up and land in paint. I just wave my dry rags around at them and out they go.

I added the eyebrows and that was very important to the look of Flannery. That mouth needs work - not alot though. I couldnt have her smiling a big wide smile so this is the face I am going with. I need her face to look a bit more relaxed and that is going to mean doing something with the smile line shadows. But not much! Too much is too much and letting go is as important a skill as any other aspect of painting. Im happy with the dress detail. I was working from a vague photo so I am sort of guessing here - the vibe is about right and that is good enough.

I thought about my mom while painting this. She was the one that taught me about how the upper lip is darker due to the shadow and that light hits the middle of the lighter lower lip. Its absolutely true. She was a good artist, and drew women's faces beautifully. Most of the day I was trying to figure out how I was going to work in the leg braces that Flannery no longer needs. In my original drawing I thought it might go something like this:

How's this for an impressive preliminary drawing? grherhahahaha! I saw her tossing the braces away and then I noted how damn big a peacock is. You are not going to stand in water holding a bird that heavy in one arm. Not even in my fantasyland. Now I am kind of seeing a Frida Kahloesque device where they might be bound in ribbon or something sort of floating away...we'll see.

This might give you an idea of how large the piece is. It is hard because typically, I spin my paintings around and work from every direction. I paint upside down a lot. Its a great way to work for some reason I can see certain things more correctly that way. But not being able to move the painting around is making it a bit more difficult. By Thursday, I will have to get it on the wall because standing back away from it will be essential to getting the final work right. Im not sure I can stand back far enough. Everything has to "read" from a distance and in case the work is hung higher. (This presumes I actually get IN the show)
I will probably have to move outside which is problematic as bugs fly into the paint all the time when I do.

Flannery is standing in water so I really dont have to paint her legs very well. Yay! I just have to have the suggestion of them beneath the water color. Same goes for how the part of her dress is submerged - it should just read as slightly darker than the water color. Koby's paw print is still very visible, but it will disappear by tomorrow. This is the end of the work day - its getting too dark and the lights make too much reflection which makes it hard to see what the paint is doing. Natural light is the only way to go. It really is.

You can get an idea of how that works here although this is just the first of may layers. This water will have a lot of life: it will have concentric circles radiating from Flannery as well as light waves and tonal variations. The water will take hours. Hours and hours. And I need that dress to look floaty, so that is an engineering problem for tomorrow.

I put up a little motivational poster for myself. Like I said, Ive won a prize in this show before, but I would like to win a MONEY prize. But even if I dont, Im kind of stoked that I am painting a real person -however stylized. I havent done that in a long time and its a fun challenge.

Tomorrow: making beautiful water, more back ground, and laying down the peacock's first layer. Thanks for joining me!

Art-o-Mats

Does your city have an Art-o-mat? There are about 90 of them in the United States. Atlanta used to have one at a Whole Foods but it disappeared without notice. The only one I am likely to encounter now is the one at Sam Flax in Orlando Florida. Art-o-mats are retired cigarette machines; thats right, in case you didn't notice there are no vending machines for cigarettes anymore. When you insert 5 dollars in quarters you get to pull the knob and receive an original work of art wrapped in cellophane and about the size of a pack of cigs.

I love this for so many reasons. The recycling of the machines themselves for starters. These old mid- century designs are still very cool with their funky peg legs, chromey looking hardware and old school advertising designs. Check out this page of machines. I love the idea of looking in the windows, making a selection and pulling the knob and having something new to unwrap and examine. You cant really know what's inside, you gotta hope the packaging is a solid clue.

I've been thinking about submitting a design for Art-o-Mat, which would clearly be a labor of love and just for the sheer novelty of it. Of course, I would enjoy figuring out how to make something unique and desirable and designing equally as cool packaging for it.

You know who is an Art-o-Mat artist? Alicia Griswold, who does the judging of Haiku Monday when I host. Here is her piece:

Alicia's is pretty sophisticated with the plexi cover bolted on. Some are just little canvases with paintings, others are photography and there's a lot of collagey works. Some of them are awful and I would be very disappointed to have chosen wrong and end up with some of the weak work I've seen. But here are two that I really like:

Joane Lipinski

Wendy Krabbe

Here is a short news story on the Art-o-mat:

What do you think? Would you buy art from a vending machine? Have you ever seen an Art-o-mat? Should I do a photography piece or a little painting? (There are a lot of both already) Maybe the "Creaturas" I used to make as my guerilla art: those little fetishes that I would leave in the trees at the park or on a table at a cafe. Why did I do that?  Just so that whoever found it would have a little mystery for the day. Same thing with the Art-o-mat. It is not something you do for money. To make these fetishes  for an Art-o-mat, Id have to make a mold first for the skulls. Or else, it would be way too much time. But Ive got plenty of sticks, feathers and alpaca fur to git-r-done.

A bit labor intensive for this project

I don't know. But I'm pretty sure I am going to submit something to Art-o-mat this fall. Maybe a tiny accordion book. Maybe a tiny wooden folk art chicken. Maybe some cool gift tags or something to be used and not just kept. What would you pull a knob for?

It's a Party and You're Invited!

You are cordially invited to attend a cyber party of the bloggers on the eve of the fresh beginning. This New Years Eve celebration, hosted by ring leader Boxer, offers an evening of great company, great drinks and food, fashion, games, events and fabulous prizes....and its all for a good cause with money earned by playing going to charity. At this party you can have drinks with your friends without facing a gauntlet of law enforcement on the way home and you will definitely find a good parking place. Plus, you'll avoid contact with carriers of holiday cold and flu cooties. And you can wear whatever you want.

Koby say she wanna go.

Every blogger in the Ring of Boxer is posting their own New Year's Eve celebration to link back with the host Boxer. When you visit these blogs you might find great recipes, astonishing photographs, jokes, quizzes and contests, open bars and on this blog, an art activity. This is something I know Boxer wants to learn.

Oh hell no. another garland?

 

You need to find two free hours and these supplies: a glue gun, or "Zots" those pre-fab glue dots on a roll. You also need scissors, some kind of string or heavy thread like embroidery floss, a bone or tool to use to crease paper, a stapler and a selection of decorative papers. If you have left over Christmas wrap this is a good way to use it. You also need to print the PDF below of the letters that spell Happy New Year and the rabbits that divide the words. (2011 is the year of the Rabbit)

Happy New Year

Cut all the letters out and fold them in half on the gray line. Now prep the other papers by folding a two inch strip into one inch and cut them into sections to make filler on either side of the letters. I used some patterned paper that i thought would look good with black and white and some gold cardstock. Other great options are kraft paper or even printing the PDF twice so your garland is all "happy new year". Really tricking it out might include printing small photos of your family or friends or chickens and incorporating them into the design.

Use something hard (like a folding bone or barware) to make really good creases on your folded paper so that they hang on the string straight. Now for the stars or flowers - the part Boxer wants to learn. Cut a perfect square. I will cut two 5" squares and two 4" squares for my garland.

• Fold the square in half both ways so that when you open it up you see four even squares
• Now fold the outer edge in so that it aligns with the middle fold.
• Fold the outer edge in again. Flip the paper around and do the same thing on the other side.
• Open the paper up and you will find 8 even sections to fold back and forth like an accordion with the decoration part facing out.
• Staple the accordion on the middle fold going the other way.

• Now take the stapled accordion and make sure the open part is facing to your right.
• From the corner of the folded edge cut at a diagonal toward the staple and stop about a half inch before you reach it.
• If you want a flower make the cut curved (as shown); for a star, cut a straight line

Open the star/flower up and glue the two sides together. This works best with a glue gun. If you are in a pinch, you can use a stapler or a Zot. It doesnt work with regular glue because the paper is being bent in a way it will work against. Now take the other squares you cut and make some more stars.

Now that you've made all the elements, you are ready to string the garland. Tie a loop at the end of the string and begin with a few of the folded squares. Open them up and give them a little zig-zag of glue that goes across the fold. Then take the hot gluey piece and fit the fold right on the string. Press it down good to make sure it doesnt slide along the string. When you get ready to add a star/flower, cut the string so that you can glue the end into the crease of one of the petals as shown above. Continue on the other side with the string glued to a petal fold. Make sure you have it on the exact opposite side or it won't hang right. Now just decide on how long you want it to be and string the garland so the "happy new year" part is situated in the middle. I usually make mine about 6' long which is good for fireplace mantles, windows, stairwells and pianos.

The garlands look good incorporated into your left-over Christmas decorations and on your tree. I have some stretched across an arched doorway between two rooms. Or you can just lay them out on a table.

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Now for the charity part. For every blogger that makes this garland, or any other hand crafted decoration that reads "Happy New Year" and posts a photograph of it on their blog, I will give $10 to my charity which is called "Heather". You must come to this blog and leave a message that says you posted this crafty project in order to win. We all know many good and well known charities that we could donate to. But I am often frustrated by the administrative costs and the slow trickle down to the ones that most need help. In this case, I am familiar with my charity and can give the money directly to her. Who is Heather? She is the assistant to the Director of the Arts Center of Blue Ridge. She is young and single and she is foster parenting four children ranging from 14 to infants on her modest salary. When I found out she was doing this during an event this fall I was blown away by her selflessness and sweet natured attitude toward the hardship of it, because the stipend she gets from the state for the childrens' care is a joke. I plan to give Heather a minimum in case you all peter out on me and make nothing - but if you DO make something, Heather will get more. So mix yourself a cocktail if it helps, put on some music, get a snack and sit down to a crafty New Year's Eve eve.

*bonus: first person to find Coco in this post will win a photoshop tribute to appear on this blog New Years Eve.