One brush stroke

Can you see it?  Can you tell what is different in the second picture? Now I'm at a really fun stage of the painting.  I'm messing around adding details details details.  I've been away from the painting for a few weeks, so I am starting back in carefully.  I worked on the veining in the leaves and -- did you see it? -- I added the shaddow under the ladybug.  So now she's standing on the leaf, not hovering above it.  Later I might even add a suggestion of her legs! 

It is hard jumping back in after taking time away.  I have to reconnect with the picture and remember what my vision is.  I am proceeding cautiously to avoid making any blunders with too heavy a hand while I am still reaquainting myself with my subject.  I really don't like to stop work on a piece once I've begun it, but life has a way of throwing curveballs every now and then and we have to adapt. 

And this curveball was a big one.  My mother-in-law had been in declining health for a long time, and we were all prepared - or at least we thought we were - for her passing.  But even a natural, peaceful death after a long and happy life is a shocking and sad thing to those left behind.   I am not sad for her . . . I am sad for us, to have to march forward now without her star in our living family constellation.  I will miss her!  If you are interested, I am posting a tribute that I wrote shortly after she died.  It is in the 'Musings - on other stuff' section.  Onward!

Pausing for Jane

Hello friends. I just wanted to let you know why I'm taking a brief break from my blog. Last Thursday, Jane (my mother in law) passed away and we've had a week of family here preparing for the funeral today. It was beautiful, if such a sad occasion can be called beautiful. I have more to say about sweet Jane, which I'll post later. I feel like a wrung out sponge right now, however, so I'll sign off. Happier drawing and painting days ahead. Yay!

Tweaking the Color

I have been working on unifying the leaves in my painting.  That is to say, taking a step back and scrutinizing what color needs to be added where to make the leaves look like they are growing from the same stem.  At this stage, I am moving all over the painting, working with one color at a time over all the leaves, rather than focusing attention on one leaf and applying many colors.  This way, the painting builds cohesion.  The composition starts to assert itself.  I will eventually go back again to each leaf and work on minute details, but right now it is important to get the whole thing looking realistic and convincing.  I am working loosely (well, as loose as you can go with a size 0 brush!) and quickly, and often stopping and stepping back to see if it reads correctly.  Now, finally, I don't really mind if someone peers over my shoulder... I am starting to feel good about what's happening on the page. 

I have made a scan of a part of the painting up close, so you can see more of what is going on.  If the resolution were better, you'd be able to see my brush strokes.  They are always in the direction of growth.  This is a cardinal rule . . . What would happen if the phone rang, and I left a green streak across the leaf?  Zebra stripes, that's what!  Enjoy!



Quercus alba - stage three

Now I am at the third stage of painting my oak leaf branch.  It is called the Overlap Stage.  This is the time to make sure the leaf reads correctly in three dimensions.  Where one leaf overlaps another, I must make sure that the underlying leaf is darker.  I work all over the painting at this point, continuing to develop the color of the leaves and beginning to add definition, such as veining.  It might be hard to tell what has changed since my last post, but trust me, paint is going on the paper!  Enjoy!

Quercus alba update

In case you thought I'd abandoned my project, here is evidence that I am still working bit by bit on my oak leaves.  I've about finished the "form stage", getting all the basic shapes and colors down for the whole composition.  Do you notice that the leaf I'm working on, which is the leaf in the foreground, is a lighter green than the leaves behind it?  This is a little trick that will help the viewer establish the three dimentionality of this branch.  Mimicking the way our eyes see things, I'll make sure the things in the foreground will have a yellow cast, the mid-range objects will have a red cast, and the things in the background will have a blue cast.  In the finished piece, it won't be nearly this obvious, because many more layers of color and more detail will be added, so I though I'd point this out to you now while you can clearly see it.

By the way, the teeny blob of red paint on this leaf is not a mistake. . . it will be a ladybug!  More on that later.  Enjoy!

I'm back!

Oops!  I forgot to mention that we'd be going away for a beach holiday... and as it turned out, there was no Internet access where we were staying.  This was an absolutely wonderful thing for my family, to be unplugged and unscheduled for so long.  However I realize that my trusty blog followers must have wondered what happened to me!  I'm back now and raring to go...

Consider the two drawings I did this past week:

The first, a quick sketch at the beach, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not terribly gifted at depicting landscapes.  But you get the general gist of the environment, and you may be able to guess that it really was a lovely, uncrowded, sunny beach that stretched on forever and inspired us to do essentially nothing but worship the sun for a week.

The second took much longer, and I am more pleased with the result.  The light source was a bit ambiguous, so the shadows are not perfect, but other than that I like it.  Ah, the friendly starfish.  Creeping slowly along on its little nobby arms (or legs?) bothering no one, except the coral it eats.  I love the bumpy, ridged texture of its body, which serves to camouflage and protect.  The bumps and ridges create wonderful shadows and are actually easy to draw by stippling with a pen. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew's favorite flower is the lily, and as this is his birthday, I thought I'd draw him one.  He loves tiger lilies... orange and loud and happy.  This is a pure white lily with larger, more voluptuous petals and leaves.  The lily plant family is primative, evolutionarily speaking.  It has simple leaves with parallel veining, all arranged opposite one another and the pairs are whorled around the stem.  if you look from the top down the stem, it looks like a spiral staircase, which is a nifty way for each leaf to get its own share of sunlight.

The flower of the lily is monoecious, meaning it has all of the sexual parts needed for pollination to occur.  Technically, it has three petals and three sepals that look alike and are arranged in a laterally symmetrical fashion, so it is called zygomorphic (bet you didn't know you were going to get a plant morphology lecture today!) The female part, the pistil, consists of a long style with a stigma at the end, covered with a sticky substance to catch the pollen.  It sits above the six stamen, the male parts.  On top of each stamen, a pod-shaped anther loaded with pollen is attached in the center, allowing it to rock in the breeze like a see-saw.  (Or spill indellible pollen onto your tablecloth if you forgot to remove it before you put the flowers in the vase!)  Lilies are fragrant, which is why I love to plant them along a walkway in our garden.  They are a welcome burst of lovliness in July, when other flowers start to fade away.  Enjoy, Andrew!  This bud's for you!!