Lost in Wonder

Donato love

2012-01-15T16:00:00.000+01:00

I was visiting Mr. Gurney's blog and saw that Donato Giancola has a new DVD, whaaat?!? why didn't I know this?!? I loved The Mechanic and this would surely fit perfectly next to it in my shelf, not to mention my dvd player.

I want it. I need it. N·O·W. Where's that stupid "donate" button when you need it?

Make a wish

2011-12-24T12:05:00.003+01:00

Last year I went on a Thank You quest by the end of the year, I felt it was important to show appreciation to the people that made my year better one way or another.

Loved to do it. I don't do this every year, neither I send christmas cards, honestly I seldom text people for christmas, when I do I want it to be special and personal and hopefully make that person's day a little bit brighter.

Have you ever made new year resolutions? or a new year planning? or a wish list? I have, it's private, just for me, with musts, goals and wild wishes.

Last month -thinking about the next year's one and revisiting my last year one- have made me realize how important the wishes section on that list is.

That's why this year I've gone and done little paintings again, proper christmas cards this time, filled with stars ready to grant all kind of wishes.

So make a wish, make many, from the heart, believe that you can make them happen and go for it!

May 2012 be your best year yet.

Back home and fully energized

2011-09-08T20:09:00.000+02:00

It's been enlightening in so many ways :)

Nupastels are all kinds of messy fun

2011-06-24T23:54:00.005+02:00

Today has been quite hot here in Madrid, so instead of going to the painting table to work on watercolours I decided to relax a bit at the balcony and doodle a bit, somehow it looked like the perfect chance to try the Nupastels at last so instead of the sketchbook and pencil I've grabbed a box with some of them, a paper and an old cotton rag, and started doodling just for fun.

Can you tell I have mummies in my mind lately? ignore the weird look and unfinished look, this quick sketch has served 2 purposes: one has been overcoming the dead end I was trapped at with my concept doodles getting me closer to the body structure I was looking for (some times going back to basics is the best to take a turn and get into the right way), and second letting me learn some things about nupastels:

-They are surprisingly soft for a pastel that is called "hard" but it's indeed harder than the usual pastels, added to their thin and squared shape they allow a great control, I like that :)

-It is true that there's only an amount of pastel the paper will take but I find it easier to control the amount of pigment you use, they are very versatile, you can go from superwide strokes to thin lines made with a corner without effort, from soft touch to intense color, in just one stroke, this makes really easy to not overwork it and even let the grain of the paper show through for as long as you want to.

- They don't feel like chalk at all!

-They blend so easily and yet it's easy too to cleanly cover a previous color with a new one as if the other wasn't there, I guess that could not be so if the area were quite overworked already but I didn't get to that extent, in my mummy I found no trouble putting a clean soft pink over a couple of layers of deep gray and dark blue.

-Dust, this is the thing that you won't get rid of no matter how hard the pastel is, but that's the great thing about using them out of the house, you can just blow it away and let the wind do the rest :)

Now that I've made one test I want to try some more things with them, one is try them on a paper without grain (nupastels have beaten the panpastels without mercy this time but no grain maybe provide a more balanced battleground) but the most important one is trying different ways of lifting it so you won't get to overwork the paper unless you go too far, not knowing too much about working with pastels I want to try to lift them with some kind of brush, smudging with a cloth will get rid of some of the pigment but will mostly blend and smudge it into the paper texture (already tried that today), but maybe the bristles of a brush get more pastel off the paper, also I want to try using masking tape, the pigment should stick to it and be completely lifted right? so my bet right now is:

cloth: more blending than lifting
brush: more lifting than blending
tape: no blending at all and some lifting

I can't wait to try this theory :). So...what else can I try? sugestions? have you done any experimenting with these?

Oh, and now that the mummy is done I'm looking at the pastel fixative spray bottle in disbelief, there's no way any fixative can really seal this, is there? nah!

One done, two to go!

2011-06-06T18:35:00.001+02:00

And Under the Wave is finished, now onto the next one!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, step 2, step 3

Under the wave: halfway through

2011-05-30T20:17:00.001+02:00

It's taking shape, a couple more sessions and I think it'll be done.

I love staining pigments for this kind of painting where I need superdarks and vibrant colours at the same time, also they let you keep layering forever, the only con is that it's difficult to fade them to white in such a small painting since they are really intrusive pigments, that's why I've been working so slowly up till now until all the light areas were established, usually I prefer to fade those edges as I'm adding paint but this time I'll just have to blur them later.

Anyone wants a minicornetto? I'm taking one, as Ben Affleck said in that commercial because I worth it *yums!*

New WIP

2011-05-23T20:53:00.000+02:00

No Hobbit update this week, sorry, but I have 3 little paintings in line and to be honest, it feels grrrrreat to hold a brush again, I'd missed those relaxing hours one on one with the paint and paper, feels like forever since last time I painted something!

The first one is going to be called Under the Wave and looks like this so far, I'd love to say that it's just a first wash but nope, more like some hours of work O_O, anyway I'm completely excited about painting this one because it's been on my to-do list for a couple of years (ok, more like 4), it was going to be one of a couple, the other one was Over the Wave and this one of course couldn't be but Under the Wave, have you ever had a title decided so long before actually painting the work? :P

Ok, it's an early stage and it's flowing quite easily so far so there isn't any secret or decission-making to share about this step. I'm using a very limited palette of 4 colors, the same used for the other painting, it has made me rethink about the importance or not of documenting your works, a.k.a. should I once and for all keep a decent record of my works instead of random swatches and photos of the used palette when I remember to do it?

Here's over the wave, the current twin gotta look at least as good so cross all your fingers for me ^_^.

Leaving Mirkwood, slooooowly

2011-05-16T20:19:00.000+02:00

Not there yet, but it's getting closer :)

I know what's bothering me so much about this one, I killed the composition in every single possible way, overall wrong placings, the horizontal line, the verticals splitting in half the upper half, mirrored negative spaces, Bilbo right in the middle, how did I manage to do this? it can be mended though.

And this one is gaining positions and might surpass the other composition in the end, not yet but it has potential. The big problem with this one is that there's too much dead space, and that barrel needs to be lifted, moved around and overlapped with other elements, then it might work... (and for crying out loud that hand must leave the center of the pic again, how does Bilbo manage to get in the middle all the time?)

Right now I think that overlapping is key, and unbalance, I need to break the quietness, it's time to go bold! don't you think?

Illustrating the Hobbit: Leaving Mirkwood

2011-05-14T21:54:00.000+02:00

Bilbo estaba ahora en un túnel oscuro, flotando en el agua helada, completamente solo
He was in the dark tunnel, floating in icy water, all alone

There we go, skipping Mirkwood without mercy. The dwarfs and Bilbo finally get out of the forest, but poor Bilbo didn't notice an important detail missing in his plan :)

"He was in the dark tunnel, floating in icy water, all alone - for you cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels. Very soon a grey patch came up in the darkness ahead. He heard the creak of the water-gate being hauled up, and he found that he was in the midst of a bobbling and bumping mass of casks and tubs all pressing together to pass under the arch and get out into the open stream"

These are the 2 roughs I'm pondering:

This one is truer to the text and does have a confinement feel to it but I'm worried about it getting too busy, I didn't even add the barrels and Bilbo in it, on the other hand for this scene I kind of favor a long format vs. my usually loved squared formats.

This other one feels better in my eyes, it has more interesting shapes, some areas to rest the eyes and overall more possibilities, but it will only work the way I want if I manage to accentuate more the perspective and put Bilbo in the very foreground, the key will be in being able to lower the horizon line enough to make the viewer feel like floating in the water right there behind Bilbo *I think*. The only thing that I'm not sure about this one is the format, I usually love square formats but for this illo maybe a long format would be better....

I'll start playing with some line drawings tomorrow and then decide.

Illustrating the Hobbit: lanterns to the shore - pencils done

2011-04-24T15:03:00.003+02:00

Check this out, I've just noticed about this today while merging the scans in PS, I scanned the illo in 3 parts and upside down, and somehow they make much better abstract paintings unintentionally than the finished illustration does on purpose. I have encountered feelings about this right now, excitement for the chance of strong new paintings hidden in this illustration and sadness because they're happy accidents instead something elaborated on purpose.

But the post is about the illustration itself and here it is, it's been three weeks of working on and (mostly) off on this one and now that it's done is time to move on.

I am glad for the potential it has for the final piece but I know that even when I've stick to my goals and made a finished drawing before picking up a brush it's not what it should have, it should not be focused on anything other than stating the values perfectly, but somehow I've been caught up in fiddling with tiny details instead of values (which still need some severe adjustments).

What I'm happy about is that, even if it needs some tweaks on the values, I know exactly where and how much, and even if I've gone way too far with unnecessary detail now my brain and my arm know exactly every shape and movement and it's going to be so much easier to paint it, I have a much better understanding of the image and how to control the eye flow around it.

Now a secret between us, using a kneaded eraser to lift up the graphite back to white for the lanterns is not as good an idea as it appeared to be, using white chalk over it ain't the brightest idea either...

Ok, here's the first linework that was the skeleton to all this drawing, from the moment this line work was done all my body has been urging me to stop drawing and start painting, the devilish little teresa on my shoulder kept whispering that it was more than enough to get to painting. Even if I followed the little sensible teresa advices and finished the drawing it'll be used as one more reference, it's served it's purpose to let me familiarize with the surroundings, the shapes, the values, the flow and the mood I want, but the base for the painting will be a rough line drawing similar to this one.

The palette I have in mind will range from dark blues to fuchsia unless the color thumbs get to look too weird.

But that won't happen yet, I'm going to let this one rest because I'm too much into little details about it right now and I don't think that will be of any good to the final painting, also my goals included a "finish all the drawings first, for cohesion" and I'll try to stick to that (for as long as I can :P)

Illustrating the Hobbit: decision time

2011-03-27T16:39:00.001+02:00

Los elfos habían traído faroles brillantes a la orilla y cantaron
the elves had brought bright lanterns to the shore, and they sang

That's the sentence I had underlined during the reading and - having been in love for some years with japanese and chinese lanterns of all kinds - the image that immediately came to mind was a quiet shore full of lanterns floating on the water, lighting a bit the dark evening forest. That's one of the 3 reasons why I chose to take this scene to the next level instead of others that happen sooner in the story, but not the only one, other reasons to choose it have been that there're no characters that need to be recognizable and it's up high among the top six images that hit me hard when reading the book.

After deciding to take on this one I returned to the book and reread the whole page to be sure of all the details, somehow the image that my mind created was not true to the scene described by Tolkien, reading the description before that sentence it states that the river "was flowing fast and noisily, as mountain streams do of a summer evenings when sun has been all day on the snow far up above" also "there was only a narrow bridge of stone without a parapet" and only after that "the elves had brought bright lanterns to the shore, and they sang a merry song" which means that my first vision of the image won't work, I've tried to revamp it without harming my main idea too much which was making the lanterns the main character:

- Off with the zoomed in lanterns quietly floating near the shore, since the river is running "fast and noisily" I've tried 2 approaches: a huuuuuge river wide enough to portrait running water that seems quite quiet, or a stream with jumps and more obvious flowing water. Both options makes me zoom out.
- Zooming out means that I'll have to add the bridge.
- Zooming out also means the close up on the lanterns is not an option, making them the main star will have to be done by the light effect on the river and shore rather than by the detail on them, also off with the idea of having them floating on the water unless I want them all over the place instead of close to the shore and/or bridge, the stream would carry them away, right? I've decided not to compromise on making the lanterns the main character so I'll have them floating over the water, why? why not.

I though the huge river would be better at first but now I think the running waters with falls will have more interest and also will let me have the bridge and lanterns a bit closer to the viewer.

And between the running streams I'm going to go for this one because I want to move the angle of the bridge and I like how it has more interest and depth, even if I like the water itself better on another one, but the scene will be in the late evening and the river and woods are going to be supporting characters.

These are some of the roughs that didn't make the cut:

I'm going to try to turn the cons of this illo into pros, so far:
-I'm into close ups, opening the scope feels weird, but the scene being at the end of the day gives me the chance to still tone everything down except for the area with the lanterns.
-Landscapes, big fat nemesis of mine, I hear my brains going eeeeeek! But on second thoughts it's mainly a river instead of foliage and land, I can do water, it's going to be fine...

What do you think, does my approach make sense? Will that work? I do hope so.

Illustrating the Hobbit: there's no shame in failure if it leads to success!

2011-03-21T21:58:00.005+01:00

This week is the fourth deadline of the Hobbit project, I kind of feel guilty for not having updated on my progress at all, the reason? there's almost no progress but I'm on the way, it's taking quite some time because so far instead of the usual natural flow I'm kind of hitting against a wall, going through all the dead ends of failed ideas before getting to the right track, but I'll end up in the right track if only due to stubbornness.

After rereading the book I ended up with a pretty huge list of scenes, probably my punishment for my evil thoughts when I saw my 2 partners in crime having problems to edit their lists down to 14; here's mine, a huge 28 *blush* BUT as you can see I'm already working on editing it down and the final choices will be made after some sketches, then I'll be able to base the decision both on preference of the feeling I had when reading the book AND how well I can make it work on paper.

Once I decided to stop trying to downsize that list and just start doodling and see which ones would have more potential I though that would be it, the end to my troubles, but the thumbs have been just another kind of bump in the road, seems like reducing that list won't be easy, the scenes that where clearer in my mind and I thought were keepers have been being more challenging to define in those thumbs than others.

So I've decided to take one more step since this process seems to be based on substracting all the failures before hitting the good one. That means I've started to work on rough sketches of one of the scenes, maybe if I elaborate the images a bit more I'll had a better understanding of the scene and will be able to decide easily if it'll work on the long run or not, sounds like a plan?

But it's late and I have to leave so those first roughs will be posted tomorrow, meanwhile here are some of the thumbs, yes I know, rough doesn't even begin to define it, but I promise there are at least 6 Bilbos, 2 dragons, and 2 Bardos, even a Gandalf! Bear with me for a while please, they do make sense in my mind :)

Illustrating The Hobbit: codename BOLSÓN

2011-01-24T21:45:00.002+01:00

Have you met Ben and Andy? This past month Ben invited Andy and me to join him for a project, illustrating the Hobbit, a challenge as exciting as terrifying, to the point that I took a whole day to think if I should join them or chicken out, but the possibilities are endless, the growth assured and honestly I've been craving a group challenge with close friends for almost 2 years now and Ben&Andy are the perfect partners in crime, so it's a yes, even if it takes me way out of my comfort zone, so far from it that I can't even see it at all, which is good.

The challenge is finishing 14 illustrations, one every 3 weeks. I started late and planned on catching up by the second mark (the 6th week), I wanted at least to have a final list of all the moments of the book I'd like to illustrate by now, but somehow I'm still rereading the book, still at the middle of it, the good news are that so far I already have 11 scenes.

Also I've just noticed that my book is in spanish and I have no idea which are the original names to most of the creatures and places, or even how are the original descriptions, so who knows how I'm going to put my list of 14 scenes up here without making a fool of myself. That's why I'm gonna tag this whole project as "Codename: BOLSÓN", because Bilbo Baggins in spanish was translated as Bilbo Bolsón, yes, don't even ask...

I didn't get to see Andy at the starting point of this journey, I turned around just on time to see his trail, filling his sketchbook with several thumbs (which I call well developed concepts) and some character designs already. Not long ago Ben took off too with some character designs. I'm still here at the starting point but will follow their lead really soon, I'll make sure they know I'm with them, maybe they won't see my trail but sure will hear me panting somewhere right behind.

Since I have no sketches to share yet I'll set up a couple of personal goals, weaknesses that I hope to improve with this project:

- Storytelling/Narration
- Character design
- Cohesion in a group of paintings - series.

Also I'm rethinking the schedule, this last year I've been reading a lot about how to create a picture book and a lot of illustrators have in common one procedure, instead of making each page from start to finish and then go to the next one they work on all the pages at the same time, advancing one stage at a time. I think that's a really smart way to keep things cohesive so that's made me rethink my approach here. Instead of 1 finished illustration every 3 weeks I´d like to spend the first ones getting a cohesive group of scenes and start painting them only when I have all the base drawings for the illustrations nailed. Then finish each illustration in full color in one or 2 weeks instead of 3, that would balance the overall schedule. Of course that's just an idea that I still have to ponder, and yes, this is me getting all cocky when I haven't even finished rereading the book and the first 3 weeks mark has already past, hmmm...

Christmas ramblings

2010-12-22T21:31:00.002+01:00

When I woke up this morning I was complaining in my mind about the horrible rainy dark cold and early morning I'd have to face and how I should just rebel against the world by staying in bed warm and cozy under the duvet, then I thought that hey, christmas lottery day should have a sweet surprise for me so it wouldn't be that bad to get up and moving.

I didn't win the Christmas national lottery today. I honestly thought I should be one of the winners this year but alas, Lady Luck messed it up again and got lost somewhere in the way. Yet this morning - while it was still dark and the sky filled with stars and a fantabulous full moon hidden somewhere behind those rainy clouds - I was feeling like running, dancing and jumping to the rhythm of Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine" in my way to the subway. So I guess it's been a good day after all, right? That's the interesting thing about days, that they let you see how relative good and bad can be.

I've been thinking about my 2010 and pondering all that's happened and all that hasn't, trying to see things in perspective, how good has "good" been and how bad has "bad" been and how much they've mingled and changed coats or how much they've been totally apart from each other and true to themselves.

While doing all that thinking I've spent the last couple of weeks painting like crazy these little tokens of appreciation, I only have these 2 to show, the first and the last, the ones who haven't carried messages to so many special people yet, the ones that will carry it for you, I've loved to chat, laugh, rant and drool with you so far, I've had the chance to tighten bonds with dear old friends, met some new and enjoy lots of art, anecdotes and insight. I hope to be able to walk through this road with you all in the year to come, with the occasional stop for bed and breakfast?

Is this a Merry Christmas post? Yes it is, bear with me and my ramblings for this one, pretty please? And forgive me for not fixing that scanned crazy red but I wasn't in the mood, after all I haven't won the lottery today, remember? Now go and have fun!

Wanna make a good deed?

2010-12-13T20:14:00.003+01:00

Some of you might know already that Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson has been making anything and everything since last september to help her dear childhood friend Cherie Stannard, since she explains it much better than I could ever do I'm shamelessly stealing part of her blog posts so you can get the idea of what this family is going through:

"Cherie is my life-long friend of 42 who rolled her Jeep in September and suffered a spinal cord injury. Cherie is currently in rehab in Atlanta and when she comes home, her brother and sister have to adapt a home and provide 24-hour care for her as she is paralyzed from the shoulders down."

One of Elizabeth many efforts has been putting together an art book full of donated works, you can see a preview of the whole book here and maybe if you like it you'll consider purchasing your own copy, $12 of each copy go to Cherie, the rest are producing costs, Blurb will take $10 off orders until Dec 31th if you use one of these codes depending on your currency: USD$: CHEER , GBP£: CHEER1 , EUR€: CHEER2 , CAD$: CHEER3 , AUD$: CHEER4

Art with Heart by Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson

Just one last thing, maybe you don't like the book, or you don't want one more art book right now, or simply don't have enough to spare from this month already tight budget, if that's the case and you still want to help Cherie you can visit Cherie's fund raising web page where you can make direct donations anytime to the Cherie Ann Stannard Special Needs Trust, or simply spread the word! Every little bit helps.

Now it's time to go back to the painting table, the second batch of illustrations is already on the making and the first one is ready to be mailed!

Frustrated

2010-12-09T00:44:00.000+01:00

It's past midnight, I've been painting for 6 hours straight, my thumb hurts like crazy and right now I'm pondering either pushing it for another hour to finish all the backgrounds and remove the masking, wait for tomorrow hoping that nothing goes worse, or simply throw them all to the paper bin right now.

A couple of hours ago I realized I wouldn't be able to finish them all today so instead of finishing the last step on 3 of them I just jumped into painting the details of one and check how it'd look completely finished, so I finished the background and removed the masking fluid, and IT HAS STAINED THE PAPER, dear Universe, seriously??? C'mon!!!

I'm so frustrated right now! all that work freehand masking them all, doing my best to have straight lines without any pencil in there, just to avoid exactly this! argh!! Of course this has to happen when I'm painting several pieces at one time, why waste one hour of work when I can waste 6, right? And I don't even want to start thinking on what I'm going to do to save those edges in the next batch.

I'm trying to find something positive to share about this experience but I'm at a loss, maybe that now I know how not to use this masking fluid? Maybe that there's no shame in sharing the failures? "that'll show you, Teresa. no pain no gain!" :(

Sorry for the tantrum, I'll turn off the rant mode right now. I better go to sleep and maybe tomorrow, with fresh eyes, I'll be able to see this with a positive attitude.

Last project of 2010? maybe!

2010-12-07T21:01:00.001+01:00

I can't remember last time I painted in bulk like this, but I'm sure I've never done more than 4 in this way, I'm ridiculously excited about this!

This past sunday I finally came up with a concept I liked which, as usual, had nothing to do with the original idea, soon enough I had 3 sketches that has been edited very little. So I have 3 designs that will be painted in n cards, and of course I want to make 3 extra ones for me to keep them, will I? depends on how tired I get of painting them.

Lately I'm realizing that I enjoy more and more the preparation process, a couple of years ago I'd let a lot of ideas undone just because I'd grind too much through the pre-work, now it's quite different, it's becoming not just a preparation for the final work but a preparation of my mind state too, getting me in the right mood for painting, does that sound too weird? have you gone through something like that too?

This time it's made me try an alternative to saving a crisp edge around the illustrations with tape, somehow the last tape I bought doesn't work well, it either doesn't stick well to the paper letting the water run beneath it or tear the paper off when I remove it, the other one I have is great for stretching but not for saving white paper 'cos when you remove it it leaves a lot of yellowish sticky gum *yuck!*, so this morning I decided to simply use masking fluid, then realized I 'd had to freehand the straight lines and with masking fluid once you put the brush to paper it's done for good or bad, unless you want to wait for it to dry and remove it all, so I've put myself to the task and found myself checking against the window light if the lines where straight.

What's happened is that the first time I've seen a sloppy one I've gone over it again trying to fix it, the result... let's say that it's like that moment when you know you must stop adding more colors to a wash but you just can't and end up overworking it at best, yep, I'd love to say "lesson learned" but it's not, I just couldn't let them alone. I hope that, after all the fiddling I've done, they end up looking good but I won't know until the pics are finished and the mask removed.

So, right now this is the first batch of 6 ready to be painted tomorrow and hopefully cut the paper for the next batch, remember this, I now predict that the first one of each batch will be the fresher, probably the second and third will be the best ones, and the last three the average ones, shouldn't it be like that painting in groups of 6? have I mentioned how excited I am about this? :D if they don't decide to go a different way I plan a back to basics in these ones.

BTW, do you have a favorite brand of masking tape? wondering if I can find around something inexpensive and that gets the work done, I thought I had the perfect one all these years and now it comes and fails horribly...

Greeting cards anyone?

2010-11-26T12:41:00.000+01:00

It's almost that time of year again, so if you're thinking about sending some cards to your people this Christmas you might like these.

If you'd like to purchase them in units or having a pack but with assorted models you'll probably prefer Zazzel.com or Zazzle.co.uk, you can also personalize them there changing whatever you want, adding or removing stuff.

If you're bound to buy sets of 10 or 25 Deviant Art is offering a retail sale due to Black Friday, that means a 20% discount!

Click on the images or the links to go to the stores, hope you enjoy your goodies!

Baby's first value study

2010-11-16T21:46:00.000+01:00

Today I've just tilted the drawing table, taped an A3 paper to it and made a value study of yesterday's quick sketch, guess what, it finally looks like her! Could it be more finished? yes, quite a lot more, but I don't think it's needed, it's served its purpose already.

After spending almost 3 hours working on this, studying every plane and shape of her head, I feel like I have a much better understanding of her facial features than I did before, drawing values really force you to pay much more attention to all the little details and to realize what's where. And maybe when I make the next one I'll have to swallow these words :)

I don't feel like starting the color sketches yet so probably there'll be more quick sketches and value studies in the near future, though I feel much more comfortable already, even with this sore shoulder, I could do with a massage, volunteers?

One more warm up sketch

2010-11-15T13:01:00.001+01:00

Better but not there yet, though it's already resembling her. This one deserves another attempt, without the time restrain since, in an attempt to loosen up my arm and wrist, I'm doing these pretty fast, for me anyway, I know people who can get finished colored sketches in 10 minutes but I'm not one of them.

Things to have in mind for the next one: the eye is still a bit large but not too much, and probably what's making the huge difference is the shape of the eyelids, they should have a bit more roundness.

I think it's time to start alternating these roughs with more finished drawings that'll allow me to define the shapes better, and following my friend Ben's advice I'll work on those bigger, probably that'll help.

Baby portrait operation: face

2010-11-13T22:21:00.000+01:00

This is the first attempt I make at sketching her face. The bad thing about it is that it doesn't look like her AT ALL, the good thing is that ...it looks like a baby? an old baby with a bit of a mustache?

On the bright side I think I know where is the problem/s, I did the eyes too big, moved the angle of the nose and - trying not to add too many shadows to avoid an old look - I just lost the roundness of her cheeks and forehead, not to mention the mustache.

All that should help for the next one, right? or maybe I'll just create a brand new human being mwahahahaha!

Shaking the rust away

2010-11-12T15:38:00.065+01:00

Have you ever got that mix of excitement and fear when someone ask you about a possible comission in the manner of "could you make it look like *insert here one of your previous works*"?

I recently have and it's kind of scary, I don't like that feeling because I know that any piece that I begin with fear won't flow, won't work at all, so I've decided to take action and just get familiar with the subject, I'm lucky enough to have several pictures of this little sweetie around so why not, right?

So I'm gonna aproach it in different ways:
a)warm up with some gesture drawings of the baby, full body.
b)sketches of her facial expressions to get familiar with the subtleties.
c)value sketches, the goal is to get so used to her correct volume and proportions that it comes natural.
d)color swatches and color sketches to see which ones suit her better and getting confident to use them boldly.

Sounds like a plan? It does to me and after drawing this first gesture I feel more confident already.

I'll share the wip of this process, for better or worse, wish me luck!

Halloween's around the corner

2010-10-20T15:50:00.000+02:00

And little Franken jr. is eager to go trick or treating around the neighborhood dressed up as Jack Sparrow, because every kid wants to be Jack Sparrow! I want! you know I'm five

This concept was edited quite a bit since it came to my mind so here are some steps for your entertainment:

Nobody can deny that when I say I doodle or draw rough sketches I mean it, reeeeeeally doodly and rough first concept, at that time I had a version of Mama Estein dressed up as the little red riding hood in mind too

The idea at first was having her taking little Franken around the neighborhood, with some creepy fences and houses silhouettes in the background, but she was totally looking like Marge Simpson so... off with her!

And as you can see the idea of some metal fence surrounding the blocked shape of the background remained until I was half done with the illustration, at that point I was thinking on using some white for them to make them look like carved shapes that melted with all the white surrounding the main theme, that was edited out too, as soon as I was carried away by the dark night sky and decided I didn't want anything to compete with it.

My favorite part of this illustration? painting those dreadlocks! I want to do that again, maybe a series of monsters dressed up as Jack Sparrow is in the making... or maybe not!

Creative block anyone?

2010-10-04T23:55:00.002+02:00

Today I've realized that I have a painting to mail on monday and I haven't started to work on it, not even sketches, not drafting of ideas, no nothing, and it's not the only project I have on hold, I'm in the middle of a creative block, it's gotten me thinking.

Have you ever been through a creative block? I bet you have, I'm almost sure every artist - in fact every person who creates at some kind of level - goes through blocks, not only that, I'm sure creative blocks happen to every artist AND in cycles, and when they come back home the routine is always the same, a little bit of anguish, some frustration, self-doubt... sounds familiar?

Also soon after the block has made itself comfortable in your mind there comes Procrastination taking advantage of your weakness and adding to the burden. In fact yesterday I was listening to an interesting speech by John Cleese where he stated the importance of setting boundaries of space and time when you are creating, I thought that would be the key, but sadly procrastination seems to sneak beyond those boundaries easily.

Procrastination is such a peculiar beast, you can't paint, you can't draw, in fact you can't even think of any interesting ideas, and suddenly you are creating a mental list of things that you need to do at that very moment, like deciding the kind of shelves you should get to stock those cluttered supplies that are distracting you right now, or merging that image in photoshop, and now that photoshop comes to mind you realize that what you should be doing is putting up that jpg for the rollover menu of your web's sidebar, which reminds you the web page... you should be working on it which means you probably should be studying some more chapters of that php and mysql course, or finishing the design of some buttons and since you're already on the computer you should catch up on emails, write a blog post about creative blocks, check your social networks and... You see the pattern, the list soon becomes endless, not that you are gonna do any of those things anyway, procrastination brings them to mind just to get you in a loop of a big pile of NOTHING.

Another funny thing about this kind of situation is relying on the Mood, I'm sure that you're familiar with this too, the mood is a trickster, I know I can get a good enough painting to mail on monday, one I can be proud of, IF I'm in the right mood, that amazing state of mind where you pick the brush and time no longer exists, it's just you and the images and your own world, but hey, what if I can't get in the right mood??? gosh, I could not make the dead line, and there it comes again, a panic attack in the rising!

Since we all go through this once in a while we all have painter friends who go through it too and we all have shared with them some tips to get over a creative block. Sure you all have some tricks that you use and that you recommend to other painters who are going through a block, I do, what I usually recommend to my friends when they go through a creative block is:

1) Search for inspiration on your favorite art books, music, nature etc. More than "search" is a "enjoy" them so eventually ideas start to flow.
2) Doodle, no matter what it is, it doesn't have to be anything, just pick up paper and pencil and throw lines around, on a daily basis, because what looks like inspiration is really the result of habit.

Now, it's easier to say it than to do it, since I have 6 days to have a finished painting I've taken my sketchbook with me today and have forced myself to try some rough sketches, nothing has worked, the little ideas I've gotten seem poor and unoriginal, then I've decided to simplify it even more and just try thumbs, really rough masses of white, gray and black just to see if something worthed to be developed further, the result has been a pile of failures, my own advices are totally logical and still doesn't seem to work at all when I try them!!! Does this happen to you too? I really hope it's not only me, does everybody have troubles attempting to use their own advices? in fact, does everybody follow their own advices? I'm really curious about this, 'cos some little devilish side of me thinks not everyone does, I mean I don't always do and I'm the person I trust more! I'm really really curious about your thoughts on this.

After thinking about all this situation during half of the day I'd say that when everything seems to fail... it's not really failing, those failed doodles and unoriginal thumbs are really just another step of the trip towards the final piece. Next time I'll approach them, with fresh eyes, I'm sure one or maybe some of those bad thumbs will be the base that - after moving things around, quitting an element, adding some other or puling a concept - will lead me to a good first stage of the painting. And maybe if I can force myself to repeat these 2 tips for overcoming a creative block I'll be able to get in another kind of recurring cycle all artists go through too, the one where all kind of ideas for amazing paintings comes to your mind one after another :).

What are your tips for overcoming a creative block? even the craziest ones would be of help. Do you always follow your own advices or find yourselves using advices from others instead the ones that you think of? Procrastination anyone? Also when you're on a super creative state do you just make as many paintings as you can or you record all the ideas you get in some way? sketches? notes? just trust that if you won't remember the idea it wasn't good enough? Food for thinking...

Sketching

2010-09-21T14:40:00.000+02:00

These past months I haven't been too productive, at least in my main field which is watercolors, just some marker sketches here and there and digital stuff. But these days I'm having the chance to sketch human figures from life and it's bringing back the urge to pick up the brushes again, I recognize this kind of itching so yeah!

Here are some of the quick sketches I'm doing, not refined but that's not the purpose, the goal is loosening my arm, wrist and fingers. On a side note I'm loving the texture of this paper for graphite work, it feels really good under the pencil, even if at first I bought it for watercolor sketches.

Muffin top illustrated, take one

2010-08-14T19:56:00.003+02:00

Lately I haven't been very productive but my friend Angie has put a stop to that asking me to make some illustrations, so I'm having fun doodling, inking and playing with them in photoshop.

She's starting an awesome fashion blog called Fashionista Mileurista (it's in spanish but I'm pretty sure with time she'll make it available in both spanish and english, go take a look!) and wants some illustrations to go with the articles, since one of the images she wants is a muffin top and I was already in the funny-faces mood I came up with this one that may or may not be suitable, either way I did have so much fun with it!

Now I'm thinking that I'll probably play a bit more with this image on paper, with watercolors, to see how it looks.

I've promised to make a little smiling face for her Twitter icon too which hopefully is up to par with the ones she made years ago for mine, I like the final linework but was worried because once resized to the actual tiny icon size it wasn't working, a cropping was needed but I still wasn't happy (click on the image to full view it and you'll see the cropped icon actual size) and after taking a look at it she agreed too.

So this is currently in the middle of a changing process, as much as I like the idea of having her inside her bag that will most probably be edited out, and I need to figure how to keep that scarf in, happily floating around and still not interfering or getting the face reduced.

So revamping the current icon is already in my to-do list and -since I've been playing with styles for the blog illus- I'll probably give a shot to the idea of a more realistic detail of a muffin top seen from behind too (such as the rough sketch on the left of the page), in graphite/charcoal and watercolors.

What do you think? quirky and crazy fun or serious and realistic?

The painting that never arrived

2010-07-27T14:13:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I ordered an extra drawer for my new freezer and the customer service's guy told me that it will take at least 2 months to be delivered to my home, in answer to my shocking "whaaaat?!" he just laughed and explained that, well, it has to come from Turkey plus there's august around the corner and what not, so he recomended to order it right now and wait patiently.

That's made me think, MAYBE the painting I sent last month for Rhonda's swap group is not really lost forever, MAAAYBEE it's taken the long way through Turkey and it simply will take at least 2 months before arriving to its destination, yes, sure.

How long has it taken for one of your mailed paintings to reach destination in the worst case?

I wasn't going to blog it but since probably the original will never show up I'm getting nostalgic about it. Ain't it great that we're in a time when you can save digital copies of every single painting you paint?!

If I ever get to redo this one again I'd approach it from a completely different point of view, like turning it into a more experimental ink painting with only touches of color here and there, food for thinking...

New Twitter banner for my blog sidebar

2010-07-05T21:57:00.004+02:00

I've been having this urge lately of making a sidebar banner for my twitter instead of just having the latest tweets there.

BTW ain't it super easy to alt+tab to check your emails and fav pages and social networks and what-not when you're working in photoshop?

Metal leaf, it was gonna happen sooner or later

2010-06-18T14:00:00.007+02:00

A couple of weeks ago I saw a gorgeous painting of a dragon that incorporated some metal leaf here and there and then was watercolored over it resulting into a really interesting look.

The actual result has been my latest order turning from brushes, restock of paint and paper into all kinds of metal leaf, hmmmm…. How did that happen?

I’ll be making some experiments watercoloring over those metallic pretties and trying to achieve some textures soon enough.

Also, I ordered a small bottle of sealer just in case because I read the metals would tarnish, I’m not sure if I’ll use it or how it’ll affect the watercolors, will the tarnish be THAT bad? Anyone has any experience with this? Share with me your experiences, will you?

BTW Los Angeles won the ring! GO LAKERS!!!!

Spirit of the Gulf of Mexico art challenge

2010-06-01T22:22:00.008+02:00

I just read at Rhonda's blog that Suzanne McDermott has started a challenge to increase the awareness on the Gulf of Mexico disaster caused by the oil spill.

As soon as I read about it I decided to join in, it's not the first time we see the horrid consequences that oil can cause to the sea life and wildlife of the area in general, and sadly it's probable that's not the last time too, so what a better way to share the concern and increase the awareness than joining in such a challenge.

We may not be able to go and help remove the oil, nor giving loads of money or help to take care of the affected animals ourselves but if you're willing to raise a bit more the consciousness about the current situation of the Gulf of Mexico why not put some time and creativity to the task.

Check out Suzanne's Spirit of the Gulf Challenge for more info and join in if you like; collage, paint, draw, sculpt, write, make a video, knit, whatever you prefer, there's no limit.

Here's the description of the challenge:
• Find a photo or other resource depicting some living aspect of the Gulf of Mexico before the oil disaster or
• Tap into your spirit and use your imagination
• Make a drawing, painting or other piece of creative work with love and gratitude for the beautiful life of whatever you're depicting.
• Post what you make on your website, include a link to this post: Spirit of the Gulf Challenge (http://www.suzannemcdermott.com/2010/06/spirit-of-gulf-challenge.html) and put the icon below in your sidebar with a link to this post.
• Now there's a Spirit of the Gulf facebook group. You can link to your work there! (If you're not on facebook just email me your link and I'll post it.)
• Invite 5 of your friends or favorite artists to accept this challenge, include a link to this post, copy this description of the challenge and the icon below for their sidebar.

• Please let me know if you post a response to this challenge on your blog. I'd like to keep track so we can organize the results. Maybe a group blog...

Time to resume the door front painting

2010-05-20T13:07:00.013+02:00

I know, I know! I haven't been painting much these past couple of months, baaad me!

So now it's time to finish the detail of the romanesque entrance, it's taking forever to be done, and at this point it's already taken control and I'm just following, struggling won't do any good to it at all, right?

This is how it looks right now, some of the paint is still wet but the overall idea of how dark the darks are going to be is already clear:

Thoughts to have in mind during the next painting sessions:

- Don't loose the highlights! it's being so easy to add too much of those siennas while building the texture.

- Check if there's some masking fluid on the area you're going to paint next, it's not viewable at all and I'm not sure if I want it in all the places I put it at first seeing the big value leap I'm getting in those shaded areas, so it's time to TOUCH before adding paint.

- Don't get lost in the texture! It's the global look the one that has to look good, don't fall in love with the brushwork, don't go overboard and make it busy all over the place! I can see already how and where I'll have to dull and tame some areas and it's going to be a difficult step for me, I'm not the best at editing.

Here are some close ups to some of the areas that are more developed right now, click on them if you want to see them big:

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Forgotten

2010-05-07T23:23:00.003+02:00

I was thinking today how badly I need to start working hard to build a new portfolio, that's lead me to take a look to some old works for inspiration, this is one of my all time favorites and I'm surprised I haven't blogged it before, I have a thing for old dolls.

Now I only need to be able to draw and paint again on a daily basis instead of just some hours during sundays and everything will be all right.

Just for fun

2010-04-18T17:40:00.005+02:00

This morning I've been painting a bit more of the church portal after almost two months without working on it, since it's starting to feel as if the whole blog is filled only with this painting I'll just add a link to a detail of today's progress.

So instead of today's painting session I'll post some of the other stuff I've been doing during march, this is my brother's birthday gift, an iPad! Well, not the real thing since it's not available here yet, but an arts&crafts bank version with some money.

Yeah, I know, looks like a school project but I had so much fun making it!

Dried banana skin collage from Rwanda

2010-04-14T21:18:00.004+02:00

Last week we had an amazing visit at the office, a couple of nurse nuns that had helped our reporters to move around and see the reality of Rwanda during their visit there some time ago. Both of them had the chance to travel to Spain last week and made some time to visit our place and tell us the current situation they're living everyday in Rwanda, close to the Congo border, such a difficult place to be.

Having the chance to listen to them first hand was quite an interesting and energizing experience, it's impressive to meet people who have their life at stake everyday, in a place where people actually get imprisoned over 30 years for something like stealing a chair, where it's not rare to find a corpse buried in your backyard or what not, yet they manage to keep balance between a critic and a positive mind and face it all with a smile on the face, authentic is the only word that comes to my mind to describe them.

This authentic people did bring some gifts all the way from Rwanda with them -as if they needed to- and I must say I'm the luckiest one since the gift of their choice was art! What? YES, ART!!!

Ok, I've never ever seen something like this and while they were talking about the gifts before taking them out I couldn't believe what they were saying, something done exclusively with banana skin and leaves? no way! but alas, it's indeed true! This piece is a collage on textured paper - around 16.5x8 inches - and there's not a single drop of ink there, it's 100% dried banana skin with some tiny bits of banana tree leaves, and you should see it in real life! the texture is amazing! when my turn to choose came and I got to get off the way with my brand new collage I couldn't help keep touching it, it's so firm and textured that's ridiculous! Hopefully nobody saw me in my "my preeeecioouuuuuusssss" moment or it would have been quite embarrassing hehehe!

Gotta frame it and put it on my wall, I'm so in love with it at the moment!

Click to enlarge! not the best of the photos but it's really easy to see all the texture in the large image

Donato Giancola's The Mechanic DVD review

2010-03-21T21:27:00.009+01:00

As soon as I heard Massive Black was to do a dvd with Donato Giancola I put it in my wish list, "why? after all you don't paint in oils yet Teresa" well, the main reason is that I've been a diehard fan of Donato for years, notice how I call him by name, and second because it happens that the only other dvd about oils I have was made by Massive Black too, featuring another of my idols, and judging by it I could tell that the amount of knowledge dropped into this one would be enormous even if it would only have a 10% of the Dan Dos Santos one, and I wasn't wrong!

What you get inside this DVD box is 2 dvds filled with 5 hours in the studio of Donato Giancola extraordinare, up close and personal, creating The Mechanic from start to finish:

What I've always loved about Donato's works is that he paints like the old masters, he's a classic master embodied in a current 21th century painter, so I was looking forward to see how he paints skin, as if it were a chance of peeking over Rembrandt, Rubens, or Michael Angelo's shoulders, if you don't believe me is that you've never seen his works. Check Faramir at Osgiliath or The Battle of Agincourt or Elegy for Darkness-The Lady of Shalott if you don't trust me.

That was my main expectation, to be able to see him rendering skin and talking about how it's done to get that kind of finish, I must say I was a bit disappointed when I found that the demo would be a sci-fi illustration instead of fantasy, maybe because I relate him so much to the classics and sci-fi didn't click for me for the one and only Giancola's workshop I'd get.

Well, I couldn't be more wrong, whoever made the decision nailed it because there's a bit of everything, not only skin but a spacesuit that equals any armor demo, machinery - in case your metal needs weren't fulfilled by the spacesuit - and a galaxy, enough technique insight to your heart content.

Being a bit more specific what you can expect to get from this dvd is:

- Preliminary work, one of the things I love in the 2 dvds I have on oils is that they didn't stick to show oil techniques, there's a lot of information about a lot of other stuff, in this case starting with a talk about the concept sketches or a whole photography session with a model and objects in the studio so you can see how and why it's done.

- Beginning of the painting process, or should I say the drawing process, from start to finish, how all the drawing is made, materials, influences, adjustments made from the concept sketches and an explanation why every decision was made. Drop in some talk about his influences and the old masters and you have a happy Teresa, it's great to hear someone talk about the classics knowing he obviously knows what he's talking about, it's so evident that Giancola has studied in depth the old masters works that you can't help to smile while hearing him talk about them, you can feel the enthusiasm and admiration.

- Mounting process of the final drawing, getting ready to paint.

- And the oils workshop per se begins, I was surprised of the amount of medium he uses because my only reference was Dos Santos and you can tell it's completely different, don't ask me which one is more often used, I have no idea, the only thing I can say is that both of them seem to work for their users and I've always been a true believer in Whatever Works so... Well, he starts with the galaxy, a deep analysis of how he makes it and why, and how many failures it took him to get to do them the way he does them now, then begins the rest of the background (and finish it after painting the foreground). After that he goes to the flesh, I was drooling too much at this point to be coherent writing about it, perfection, the way he blends is perfection, also he talked about different pigments and how they react and why he uses them. Then he begins an analysis on metal, how it reflects it's surrounding and the light and how to make it believable and paints the upper spacesuit making some changes to the base drawing as he goes on. After that come the parts of the spacesuit that are not around the focal point and the machinery with some more talk about the old masters and how he used to go to the museum to copy them (with examples!) while he was talking about editing out information in some areas.

Here's a promo:

Darks on the bottom area

2010-02-28T15:52:00.006+01:00

I don't know why but I've gone darker this time, what I meant as mid values are almost the same value of some older darks, and the darks on the lower body of the dog are deeper and with a lot more of blues than the ones I painted in previous days.

The fact that I went one point darker doesn't bother me at all, after all the goal is getting all them dark enough, but when I come back to this area I have to be careful and tame a bit all that intense blue.

This is starting to feel like a neverending wip, sorry!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Unexpected mentions always make my day

2010-02-27T17:25:00.004+01:00

Wow, a Sunshine award, I didn't even know those existed and now I have two, thank you so much Rhonda and Irina for thinking of me, you're far too generous and I'm delighted so I'm passing it back to both of you because you're awesome *smoooochies*

So time to pass this on, since editing is not my forte and I have just 12 slots I'll try to give it to people who hasn't received the award (or so I think), then you can add all the artists in my blogroll to it.

The 12 of them are not only awesome artists with completely different styles but have the power of making my imagination travel through places full of wonders, each one of them in a different way. Please check them out, if you like what you see return often, don't be shy and leave some comments, I assure you they all are really nice people too.

Latasha Moore
Paul Kasmir
Andy Smith
Carmen Jimenez
Elisabet Ramirez
Balaji
Heather Castles
Juan Valdivia
Mª José Barrera
Dhar Cedhar
Theresa Miller
Mollie Jones

I love all your blogs guys :D

Building some shapes on the door-front watercolor

2010-02-26T21:40:00.010+01:00

I've been trying different things all over this painting because this time I've chosen a palette full of colors that I don't often use (plus some old friends of mine) and I wasn't sure what I could expect from them.

What I can already say about this piece is that it's looking nowhere near to what I had in mind when I started sketching, that's why I've made so many trial and error, but as soon as I've let go and just follow the path it's taking me through I've begun to enjoy each minute of the trip, sometimes it's better to let it do its thing.

Usually I would build up a painting slowly layering pure colors, getting crisp and clean edges, but for this one that didn't seem to be working so I've decided to just block in some darks, hoping those let me simplify and see my design clearly, because I was stressing too much about shapes and pigments and temperatures and what not.

So far laying the dark areas first is being really helpful though I already know they're going to need at least one more layer, they are not as dark as they should be and it'll be more obvious when I introduce more mid tones but so far I'm focusing on getting them rich in color, clean and with texture, hopefuly I stay focused and don't mess temperatures.

My main concern is that the warm areas, filled with ochers and reds, look lighter in value than the blue/violet ones at first sight but they are not, they're tricky when it comes to value and I've found myself being sort of self-indulgent with the rich colors and ignoring their value strength, gotta be more focused and careful about that when I start with the second layers.

This is a detail of the middle of the painting, I've been thinking a lot about that crisp shadow there, it's dark and rich and as hard edged as I love, but I'm not sure I want that kind o finish there, I would have softened it already if I wouldn't miss to get this kind of sharpness in this painting, so far I think I'll have time to soften it if needed when the painting is more developed but I probably will have to do so, what do you think? Maybe getting a look closer to the one in the upper hand?

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Thoughts on Daniel Smith's Genuine Lapislazuli watercolor pigment

2010-02-25T15:09:00.004+01:00

This is a color that has been for a long time among my paints yet I haven't really used it in a painting until now, mainly because I don't use many granulating pigments.

I was ready to use it as one of the main colors for my current painting, have done so and these are some of my thoughts about Lapislazuli now that I've had the chance to experiment a bit more with it:

- It granulates beautifully, and a lot, probably it's the most granulating pigment I've tried.

- The color itself is gorgeous, a subtle muted blue.

- Surprisingly it doesn't lift too much when you remove masking fluid previously applied over it.

- It feels grainy to the brush and gummy, the gummiest paint I've ever tried, not only when you take it off the tube but even after mixing it with water, even when you put it on the paper.

- It stays where you put it, even more than other granulating colors, not an easy pigment to move around and fade to white.

- Its darker value is a mid value.

- Very easy to lift when you add another layer over it.

- Backruns easily and beautifully, nice for texture.

There are some pros and a lot of cons about this pigment in my opinion, at least when you paint the way I paint.

So after using it here and there I've decided to substitute it with a different blue for the main areas and leaving Lapis as a secodary color for extra touches.

Half the fun is making a mess

2010-02-18T13:32:00.008+01:00

So they say. how much fun is throwing paint all over the place? :D
Time to get the spray bottle out and keep on playing

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Going romanesque in this new watercolour painting

2010-02-14T11:51:00.011+01:00

This one is a detail of the romanesque main facade of the Basilica de Santa María la Mayor in Pontevedra, I took many photos of this doorfront and surroundings when I was there last september with the idea of a series so it was due time to make the first approach. I chose this one first because I loved the idea of having a figure sculpted with glasses on, and I liked the fact that a skull was included too.

Each time I think of Galicia the 2 words that come to mind are "green" and "stone" that's what I want to be the focus in these series, today I'll be working in some texture tests, so instead of a color test I'll see what kind of pigments will work better for texture purposes.

I don't usually share the process previous to painting, right? it's different for each new painting I do. Here are some rough sketches and value studies for this one, I always said my sketches were rough, that explain my "rough sketches" to be uber rough.

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Subway sketching past sunday

2010-02-02T14:26:00.006+01:00

I haven't sketched outdoors lately at all, looking through my small Surroundings sketchbook the last one I did outdoors is dated sept.24th, so last sunday I took my sketchbook with me in my way to take a test, resulting in 7 sketches in the subway.

The first 3 were from the few people on the train around 8 am, there's not too much people at that hour in the subway on sundays, the good thing is that the three of them were distracted and/or more than willing to pose for me so I could look as much as I wanted, the color and text were added later at home. My favourite model of this batch was the poser, the "sleeping" guy of the 3rd pic, he wasn't sleeping at all! I clearly saw him staring at me while I was drawing the previous one and the moment he noticed me looking for a new subject he just posed like that, I had a great time drawing him in those baggy clothes and much more interesting pose than the usual passenger.

I did the final 4 in my way back home at midday, and this time I was lucky enough to sit in front of sleeping-party-girl, I've found that a sleeping model is the best in the world! had to make 2 sketches of her, face and feet; I'm not happy with the standing man though, I messed up proportions badly :(, and then couldn't finish the last one either because we arrived at my station but he was really interesting, I wish I'd had a couple more minutes to sketch him.

And here's the one done in september, I don't think I posted it back then, looking at it now I wish I'd forget about the rest and focused on the corner with the poster and the motorbike :) loved drawing it!

Have you ever tried to dye your own gesso?

2010-01-29T14:33:00.007+01:00

This week I received a portrait on gesso that my friend Rhonda painted for me, so she's guilty of having me wanting to paint something on gesso again. And since I want to use gouache for this I've decided to use colored gesso instead of plain white and maybe use it as part of the painting, I'm blaming Carla O'Connor for that.

The fact is that I only have white gesso so I did some research and found a web where someone said that he had tinted his own gesso successfully with watercolor, gouache and acrylic paints, that's more than enough to encourage me to try, so since this is the first time I try to dye my own gesso I'll share the process, and some questions that have come with it so if any of you have ever tried something like this I'd love to hear any insight you can share.

So my first step was diluting the gesso a bit, enough for it to run nicely, produce few texture from the brush strokes and provide thin coats that dry fast and without cracks. Then the color, I was planning on a green color and the paint of choice is acrylic since I'd be needing quite a bit and didn't waste that much watercolor or gouache, so Jenkins Green it is since it's my only acrylic green, pretty ugly color, I know, plus somehow I didn't think about the fact that it was a mixture with a lot of white, the resulting color wasn't what I wanted so I added some yellow too (probably should have used a blue and a yellow from the beginning but I often got carried away when I try new things and instead trying something new in a controlled way I use to keep adding "new" stuff to try to the process, too many variables if you wish).

Step 6 is the result of mixing the gesso with Jenkins Green and right before mixing the Hansa Yellow Medium, the amount of green mixed in was the same as the yellow you can see in this photo, that makes a mixture of 50% gesso 50% acrylic paint more or less, this proportion worried me a bit and is my first doubt: isn't it too much paint? I use to apply 3 coats of gesso on each side of the board/paper so maybe it's a better option to add a first coat of plain gesso and then the tinted ones over it? or maybe it's not an issue at all and there's not a problem to have so much paint in the gesso mixture?

Before applying the gesso to the board I diluted it a bit more because the added paint had thickened it.

Once the gesso was ready I started to add it to the board, a foam brush is the perfect tool for this, it's completely inexpensive, easy to clean and gives enough texture but not too much so there's no need to sand the surface at all unless you're going for something extremely smooth, I like a bit of texture so no sanding needed here. Another good thing about thinning the gesso is that the drying time is almost non existent, when you finish applying the coat the starting point is almost ready to begin the second one, and if not a couple of minutes will be more than enough. I wonder how many of these thin layers would be needed if I wanted to sand the surface.

Ok, the last step shows the finished look after 3 layers of greened gesso and a zoom that hopefully shows the final texture of the surface. BTW I had to finish yesterday morning since I run out of mixture before finishing the 3 coats, so the total amount of gesso and paint used is a bit more than the one you see in the photos.

Video tutorials

2010-01-24T17:16:00.002+01:00

Have you noticed that Empty Easel has a video tutorial section now?

I was checking my emails before going out and had a nice surprise when I read about it in their latest newsletter, it's a promissing section for sure.

Gotta run now, bye!

WN Gouache Chart

2010-01-08T16:07:00.006+01:00

I haven't painted anything with my new gouache yet but after making this colour chart yesterday I already know I'm going to love it, looks easy to use, not too problematic at first try (though it may depend on each different colour pigments), so some highlights so far:

- It gets the overworking pretty well, I came once and again with more pigment, plain water, dabbed back and forth and no damage was done to the chart at all.

- It "feels good" to the brush touch, pretty soft and with a good flow, even straight from the tube.

- After applying it to the watercolour paper and playing with the pigment on the palette I'd say it'll be a good medium to use on smooth papers: HP, bristol and illustration boards, yupo, gessoed papers and such. Every single colour could be extended evenly on the plastic palette going once and again over it with the brush without leaving brushtrokes, the only exception to this was the Ivory Black that seems to like to gather into small separated drops as soon as the brushtroke is finished (remember, on a plastic palette), probably a thicker appliance will make it behave like the rest of the colours though that's just my assumption and haven't tried it yet.

- The Phthalo Blue looks at first sight closer to my watercolor Manganese Blue than to phthalo, but since my watercolor phthalo is from Winsor&Newton and they make just green shade or red shade I guess it's just that I don't have a good referral to how a pure phthalo should look like.

- They don't lift as easily as watercolor. See how nothing changed at all when a big drop of water accidentally fell on the Raw Umber, after it dried the pigment hadn't lifted and moved a single bit even being an area where it was pretty thick, nice!

- The water bucket ended up completely dirty after using few paint, only a tip of the brush from each tube, but then when I emptied it there were no sediment at all in the bottom of the bucket, interesting.

I finally have gouache

2010-01-06T20:29:00.002+01:00

Who's been good this year???? ME! And that's why among my birthday and 3 Kings day goodies I've gotten all these gouache tubes, YEAH!

Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow... right! playing with my brand new pretty shinny lovely tubes of gouache, I can't wait!

Click on the photo to view the colors, you know you want to

Got a Xmas card from Latasha M. Moore!

2009-12-29T13:03:00.007+01:00

And it's a handmade one! It's the best thing that happened to me yesterday and I got ridiculously excited about it, I still am!

And not only the front, the illustration goes all around to the back side too! doesn't it look great?

Tasha has a way with color, no matter what medium she's using, you can check A LOT of her works at her DeviantART gallery and of course she has a blog too.

I'm the proud owner of 2 of her originals, about 12"x16" each, see what I mean about her color? Yummy! ♥

All the images in this post are ©Latasha M. Moore

Random post of the year

2009-12-24T15:21:00.018+01:00

It's the morning of Xmas Eve and I'm thinking about my visit to the beach during september again, why? no idea. But I thought I could post another oldie featuring the sea, I painted it for a swap group and didn't get to keep a good image of it because my scanner was broken at the time, a pity.

And since I'm missing the beach I'm looking through some photos I took, can't believe that I actually took this one walking in the water with my cell, best idea ever! will keep it forever :)

Ok, enough, I think I've lost my Xmas mojo today, but yesterday was all about presents hunting for the Three Wisemen Day, I came home pretty empty handed though, except for some absolutely tacky Xmas wrapping papers and photos.

The Xmas monster (aka my brother) instructed me not long ago about what's a Do and a Don't when it comes to "propper" Xmas decorations, and looks like it's all about tacky, so being the fast learner I am I've applied it to the wrapping already, in fact I'm loving them all and most of all the one on the right, to the point that I'm actually thinking of not using it for the presents and use it for some collages... hmmmm......

Well since this post is turning quite random here are some more photos I took yesterday (ok the ninja assassin one was from last week),

"break in case of zombies", it's good to know where I can find a huge strong wooden antizombies weapon, right in the middle of Preciados street, nice! I'm planning a combo with some friends this weekend, Zombieland and Ninja Assassin in the same glorious afternoon, it's gonna be epic, I've been waiting for ninja assassin for a whole year and it's finally here, in fact I've been so unbearable about it for so long that the same week I took the picture my friend Victor sent me an MMS of a similar ad too, and he wasn't the only one to think about it, the only thing that stopped them was that I alredy had sent them my own photo, ninjas for the win!

Back to yesterday, later in the afternoon I came across this tshirt, I totally want it, but I didn't buy it, all my budget this month is for presents for other people, had to remember that for a second, just a second, and left it again on the shelf :).

And finally when my shopping day was officially a failure I found this, it's indeed a couch, who wouldn't want it as a present? I would if I had a viking themed room for sure, you gotta love a goat couch, and yes those are goat heads lookalikes AND horns, WOW, and WOW again, ROFLOL, brilliant.

Oh! look what I've found going through my cell photos, my letter to the 3 wisemen this year! lol. Yes, I DO write it every year :D

Ok, time to shut up, right? Happy holidays to all of you who celebrate this season and if you don't... have an awesome day all the same!

Who'd have thought Tim Burton would be prettier in watercolor?

2009-12-17T14:47:00.007+01:00

Next step will be the hair and background, I don't know, seeing that he doesn't look like Tim Burton any more -but like a younger smoother version of himself looking for a pirate or musketeer role a la Erroll Flynn- I want to go completely different in the rest of the painting and even make a flat hair and texturized background or something like that, I better stop and think about it before making something stupid.

What I'm sure about is that I want to go back to the face in the end and wash some process white here and there because I love that chalky look he has on the sides of his face, in the shaved (or bad shaved) areas, so I think I'll try something like that and see what I get, right now I'd prefer any weird looking texture rather than the soft as a baby look it has now; even if I'm really happy with the color I want it to have personality, not just look good.

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Maybe I'm just doodling giraffes but at least I'm not procrastinating

2009-12-15T17:10:00.004+01:00

I doodled it yesterday night and started throwing acrylics in, I've been playing with it this morning and it's ended being acrylics, marker and chalky colored pencils. Somehow among all my stuff I don't have any kind of fixative, how has that happened!?!?

Plus I've just noticed it's anatomically incorrect!! WHAT!?!?!?! Oh, well, it'll have to do.

I hope this finish with my obsession of making giraffes for this guy who's gathering 1 million of them.

Ramblings about the portrait

2009-12-12T19:13:00.008+01:00

I've added some more shapes to the facial features, and finally attacked the glasses and eyes area. it's funny that my camera is trying to adjust the colors to counterbalance the yellow lighting of the room so it ends up doing strange things to the colors of the painting, why is always already night when I decide to stop and share?

Things to take into account during further steps:

1.- When I add the second layer of purple on the glasses' crystals everything under it will probably blur a tiny bit, gotta be careful with the values and not mess that area up.
2.- The black of the glasses is just the base coat so the value will be darker in the future, gotta darken the value of the glasses shadows before adding the final purple wash of the crystal if I want it to be correct, since both glasses and shadows will have to be close in value.
3.- Beware of the pink lipstick effect Teresa!
4.- Fix the bag under the left eye, it was correct in the monochromatic version, be bolder with it.
5.- Gotta fix the shape of the chin, it's a bit off, and have to adjust the color of the shadow under it.
6.- Gotta add the beard and mustache asap, this guy looks pretty ~~ugly~~ weird without them, it'll probably be enough to finish that area, plus maybe that's enough to fix the chin shape.
7.- Approach to hair/background/clothing on hold until next round, don't stress over it by now.

Irina, here you have a shot of the palette, my setup of the colors is pretty random but it works for me :), not too much going around right now since I'm almost layering pure thin color for the 90% of the painting and I'm not needing big amounts of pigment by now, when I start with the background/hair/clothing things will be different, I'll upload another photo then, ok?

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

About Giraffes and Da Man

2009-12-11T15:49:00.007+01:00

First of all, I've seen at Niroot's DeviantART page today that there's a guy who is asking for giraffes, he needs 1 million before 2011, so why don't you go and check the challenge and create a giraffe for him and maybe spread the word? the only rules are that you can't use a computer to create it and of course can't buy it. It'll be fun and hey, why not?! anyone who thinks about something like this and put so many people to create all kind of giraffes "just because" should achieve the goal, don't you think? let's think giraffes! Oh, and since we're at it don't forget to check out Niroot's gallery, he's an extraordinaire artist.

And now to the WIP of Tim Burton portrait, I've painted a bit more today right before lunch, it's starting to have stronger values, I'm going where it's leading me at this point and I'm enjoying the process much more this way, why struggle when you can have fun with it? Now, if only I could speed up a bit...
BTW say hello to my tools too, I almost forgot how much I like painting flesh on Fabriano SP paper, it's a perfect paper for painting on dry, prrrrfect!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Tim Burton is not going easy on me

2009-12-08T18:01:00.006+01:00

I don't know when I stopped thinking blues/purples/reds and my hand started picking the usual skintones, so I'm trying to reset and set my mind on B/P/R mode again, first step to the revamp = adding cool blues all over the left side of his head, just to set up a base to work from, I started to do the same on the right but with reds, I stopped soon though, after a couple of wrong strokes that I'm not liking, the light is killing me and I need this one to rest for a bit.

Looking at it again it's obvious I don't have one single dark value there yet lol, ah, the turtle is back!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

The three owls

2009-12-08T10:31:00.004+01:00

I'm thinking of giving them a tiny weeny head up there between the eyes, I gotta decide about that yet, meanwhile here it is, the wannabe 3 wise owls that can't help seeing evil. My favorite is still the one in the middle, poor thing.

I haven't got time to adjust the colors in PS, I'm sorry if the scanner has made it too flashy again.

Today I should paint something more in the serious field, yes? YES!

Link to the previous step: Step 1

Three wise owls?

2009-12-06T12:12:00.002+01:00

I've been thinking about the 3 wise monkeys lately, in japanese it's said "don't see, don't hear, don't speak", in english it's adapted to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And I've kept wondering why us, awesome westerns, haven't adapted the imagery entirely, owls are traditionally symbols of wisdom here, right? so why not adapting it to the three wise owls? well, keep thinking, after a quick doodle playing with that idea it's almost obvious why not...

I better let it rest for a while so the ink can settle a bit more before throwing water all over the place.

The man himself

2009-12-02T18:48:00.007+01:00

This time one of the projects for the color group is portraiture, it was supposed to be better to choose someone we don't personally know yet I wanted someone familiar and since Alice will be airing soon it felt like a good idea to make my own little homage to genius Tim Burton, plus there are beard and wrinkles and colored glasses and crazy hairdo, that can't fail!

So far I've finished the value study, after hours of hard work while I was doing the pencils it was surprisingly fast and easy to do the monochromatic painting, half hour aprox. and enjoyed one single second of it, no struggles, not doubts, no pains, just fun! Maybe so because I wasn't putting any pressure on me, just thinking that it was only an intermediate step and any error could be fixed in the final piece.

I should have done it in a better paper but I just wanted to bring on the paint so I did it over the pencil drawing. How I managed to splash paint on the other side of the little palette remains a mistery...

Now there's only the finished painting to do, I'll try to approach it relaxed, if I mess it I will always have this one, right? Who am I trying to deceive, I'll be nervous and hesitant because I want a great final portrait, the sky is the limit!

Here are the pencils before adding paint (click to enlarge):

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you thanksgivers

2009-11-26T11:48:00.005+01:00

I wanted to wish you all a great Thanksgiving day, we don't have such a celebration here in Spain so instead of turkeys and feathers and pretty pictures I'll just thank you all for being who you are and will share with you this video I found yesterday, different is good too! Let's be thankful for diversity

5th christmas card finished at last!

2009-11-19T13:44:00.005+01:00

Done! HA! this one flown so easily that I cannot believe it. And it's the end of the series for this year's Christmas cards.

I wonder what I'll try next, making these 5x7" has make me want to go big for the next project :D or maybe a portrait for the colorful watercolor group, it's time to join in the fun!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

Olive green, never again?

2009-11-18T21:12:00.004+01:00

I'm calling this almost finished, tomorrow morning will be done.

Olive Green has reminded me why I never use it anymore, beautiful color, nasty pigment for me. I tried to use it for the dark green areas and it didn't flow and granulated badly and then lifted by just looking at it and in the end I just decided to remove it, lay again the base of spring green and yellow in those areas and then replace it with sap green, much MUCH better.

It hasn't been hard but it did take time redoing things and delayed me quite a bit, this card should be finished already. But now that the background is finished and the candy already shaped the rest will flow tomorrow morning for sure.

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

Still working on the background

2009-11-18T15:55:00.005+01:00

This is how it looks now, the peach color has turned out to be more like a coral, but it's ok. Right now I'm working on reapplying a second layer of that coral because the first was so thin that soon got pretty overpowered by the green and yellow, it's taking me longer waiting for one color to dry before putting the other down instead of doing the whole base coat in one single layer as I did in the previous cards but, I don't want muted greyed colors so it's safer to apply the coral and the green in different layers.

Since there's not much to see yet I've included the swatch of colors I did to decide which ones I would use in this illustration, the Olive Green from Winsor&Newton is so different from the Daniel Smith one that it's scary lol.

And this is a shot of the previous step, before the second layer of coral, it was really light, but not anymore, I want BOLD in this series of illustrations for the cards, boldBOLDBOLD!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

Ready to rumble

2009-11-18T11:46:00.006+01:00

Quick update while I wait for the watercolor paper to dry after stretching it.

This is the final sketch on the watercolor paper, as soon as it dries the fun begins. I'm thinking greens and yellows or peaches for this one, then reds browns and purples, I want ot try perylene maroon + manganese blue since they made a nice reddish eggplant color in one of my swatches.

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

One more christmas card in the making

2009-11-18T00:02:00.009+01:00

It's midnight already but I thought I could post the sketch of the 5th card before going to bed, BTW the "stuffed with love" sentence I put there is not going to be part of the illustration, it was floating in my mind while I was quickly sketching it, it gotta be the best sentence in a zombies' game EVER, true, in the actual game you can throw these sweet teddies that say "I'm stuffed with loooooove" and then explode taking down lots of zombies ^____^. I'm sleepy, ok?

There will be only 1 candy bar in the final illustration, I was just checking the best positioning while making the sketch.

Can you see the resemblance with the teddy in my banner? yes, who said I'm not good at portraiture...?

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

BTW, deviantART is giving a discount offer this week, 30% off any greeting card until friday, so if you're interested pay a visit there, it would be great if you'd check my store if you see something you like, these are the greetings in it, click on the image to get redirected there:

Yupo, I'll try it in the future for sure

2009-11-16T15:33:00.006+01:00

I've been trying to design some visit cards today, thought it would be easier but now it looks like I'm not satisfied with anything.

Then I've looked at my palette and have seen some dry used colors mingled together, that has put an idea in my mind, why not look for some patterns of paints flowing into each other? so instead of cleaning my palette I've taken a sample of yupo I had around and thrown Lamp Black and French Ultramarine Blue all around hoping to get some patterns I can use in the visit cards.

Lesson learned: Yupo is an interesting animal... worths giving it a try.

Pattern nightmare! another christmas card done

2009-11-14T01:00:00.009+01:00

I've finally finished the second Christmas card, it wasn't working at all and I strugled a lot trying to get something acceptable from that bag of gifts that used to be in the lower corner, then Angeles told me that maybe getting rid of the bag and painting the gifts would be better and I think she was right! Of course I had to photoshop it to compose the final piece, maybe I'll post the wip later, when I have time to gather the images.

My only concern about it is that now the gift boxes have much more weight than the deer but that's fine because they are gifts! and they must be colorful and tacky and full of patterns! ok, I added a blue thing to the deer face to redirect the eye back to the upper corner and maintain the eyeflow, just so you know I'm still thinking straight.

Links to the whole Deer WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.

Oh, and this is the sketch for the fifth card, I'm not sure why I call this mess a sketch at all but it makes sense in my head and just doodled it while I was painting the pile of gifts so I wouldn't forget the idea, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Hint -> sock, teddy, candy:

Links to the whole Teddy WIP: Step 1 (rough), Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6.

Santa Claus is coming to town (as a greeting card)

2009-11-12T09:15:00.008+01:00

Good morning everybody! Ok, the fourth card is finished before the second LOL, this is Santa coming to town during Christmas night, get the cookies and milk ready guys!

So far the first 3 are already up at my prints shop in Deviant Art if you want some, from tomorrow on they'll be offering a 30% discount! Don't miss it :)

I'll upload a banner later on the side of the blog so everybody have it handy during the whole season.

An since I haven't put up the progress of this one so far, here are some shots I took while painting:

Link to the previous step.

Deconstructing Daniel Smith's Moonglow

2009-11-09T12:57:00.002+01:00

I'm in the middle of a quest to solve a pigment problem in my fourth christmas card. The choice I made yesterday doesn't seem like the best one, it was Daniel Smith's Moonglw, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL color, but not the right pigments for this card in particular.

Then today after some tests a bulb has lighted over my head, why not check all the pigments in Moonglow, see if I have them and replace the problematic one? so of course it's taken me 2 seconds to realize I didn't have all the pigments in Moonglow lol, but that's ok because it has let me go on research mode, handprint.com is fabulous for that.

So for Moonglow I need:
- Viridian (PG18) which I have (in fact it will give me the chance to try my untouched Yasutomo paints).
- Ultramarine Blue (PB29) which is the granulating color in the mix and the one I wanted to change for Indanthrene Blue since I've already used in the sky and is rich and staining.
- Anthraquinoid Red (PR177) which I don't have and after looking at the pigment it's not under another name at Winsor&Newton, so I won't be able to buy it locally, on the other hand after reading about its qualities I don't like the fact that it hasn't good lightfastness, one of the alternatives given at Handprint is Perylene Maroon which I happen to love and after reading more about the pigment it's staining, so it'll be good for darks and my mix wont granulate.

I feel so accomplished right now! LOL, so I guess I'll put here the info I wrote about both pigments, it's easier to take a photo than to rewrite it, sorry if my handwritting is a problem (one day I'll have to take all those scraps of paper I have around with info and put them together in a notebook or something).

Now after all the theory is time for making some tests and see if it does really work for my painting or I'll need to keep on looking for solutions, let the fun begin!

Toony deer christmas card almost done! almost...

2009-11-08T12:07:00.004+01:00

I'm letting this one sit for a while, gotta decide on that bag of gifts since I'm not so sure how I want to approach it right now, then it'll be finished. Meanwhile I guess I'm gonna start the next one.

Hope everyone is having a great sunday :)

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.

Almost finished

2009-11-05T17:18:00.010+01:00

Looks like I didn't work on it at all, right? but I was diligently working at the painting table the whole morning, what's happened? simply that I've painted the upper area and lifted it for the second time, then I decided on a different approach because that white/blue/purple spiral looked like weird cotton candy glued up there and I didn't like it, now it looks better IMO.

Now I'll look for an acetate and try the white spiral over this setting and see if I like it better or leave it as it is right now.

Also, lines around the squared shapes, yes or no? Vote now.

3 interesting things about this morning session:
1.- the process white lifts pretty well
2.- the paper took all the abuse of a second lifting perfectly.
3.- Ultramarine violet and Cobalt violet seems to be shy and almost invisible in front of a camera.

During drying time I started on the third card, after all it's been stretched there for 2 days now so why not painting on it? the sketch is light but its a deer (someone pointed at it and said it's an elephant already so I feel like clarifying it and save me further humiliations).

EDIT : I now declare this one finished lol.

Links to the whole Snowman WIP: Step 1, Step 2

Links to the whole Deer WIP: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.

Another christmas card

2009-11-04T10:36:00.008+01:00

Time for a different approach to this year cards, I didn't manage to finish this one yesterday as expected BUT I'm happy I made the decision to stop, I came to that point when you want to rush and you know it's better to stop for a while but I didn't ^_^ so I ended up with quite a mess in the upper area and lifted it right after, THEN decided to stop.

So today I think I'll play with it in Photoshop for a while and decide what I need to do up there before wetting my brushes again. Also... do I want to keep it pure watercolor or going mixed media?

Lesson learned: No matter how much you think you hate granulating paints when you're layering over them, as soon as you need to lift a messed area the love is back!

EDIT: A little tweak in photoshop, fun if not refined hehehe. My options now: going dark inside those whites, not going dark, more subtle spyral as in the sketch, using process white, saving it with masking fluid... I'm going to have fun with this one!

Links to the whole WIP: Step 1, Step 2

Cobalt Violet mystery

2009-11-03T20:27:00.008+01:00

This hasn't happened to any of my paints other than this one, I've had it for half and a year now, haven't used it because I still have a tiny bit of W&N Cobalt Violet but each time I pull this American Journey one out of my tubes' box it looks like this, like resin dripping off a tree, I clean it and the next time it's just the same, this can't be good LOL, maybe when I finally use it there will be only pure pigment in that tube?!?!? Hmmmmm....

Probably not Rudolph

2009-10-28T14:23:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I spent the day trying to finish some christmas cards, one ended in the paper bin and will never ever come back, this is the other one.

Somehow I managed to spend a lot of time trying different settings, designing a sleigh (or is it sledge?), adding it, removing it, redoing thumbs for value studies... just to decide that even if it didn't feel right I'd fix it while adding color.

NOTE TO SELF: if you take the time and make the effort to put up a plan just stick to said plan!

I guess it works, it could have gone really wrong, working on this paper didn't help (give me my Fabriano CP or SP anytime) I feel like it ended up pretty well other than for the shadows and definitely much better than it seemed when I started, but I'm not happy because this is not what I wanted to achieve, so it will probably be labeled as a winter landscape with an animal or something like that, most likely not a seasonal greeting for this christmas unless it grows on me this week.

Now back to the drawing table, there are loads of paintings to try yet!

This post is about memememe! and 7 awesome bloggers

2009-10-21T17:35:00.013+02:00

Paul Kasmir surprised me with the Kreativ Blogger award, now it's mineminemine and you can't take it back Paul! nah, just kidding, you've made me a happy lady for sure and honoring the KV rules here come the 7 facts about me, completely random, I know:

1.- I'm obsessed with anything asian, I have a soft spot for zombies too, so a Jiang Shi should be the perfect halloween costume, right?

2.- My feet are huge, truely hobbit feet, I hate shoe shopping because I can't stand to keep on getting off whatever I'm wearing to try shoes that I like but that just won't fit, once and again and again and again...

3.- Coke Zero addict, yes.

4.- My full first name is Maria Teresa, long loooong time ago my art teacher at school used to call me Maite and I hated it, Maritere won't do either. Teresa or Tere are love ♥

5.- I use to give names to my techstuff, the TereDell, the TerePod, the TereTera... the only 3 that didn't get my own name as a part of theirs were 3 old hard drives called "fluffy", "gordito" and "atún", the later 2 honoring my favourite sentence from Lilo & Stitch.

6.- My grandfather is still the only one who I trust with my deepest worries and pains, he's been dead for over 20 years now.

7.- My shelf is full of unread or just half read languaje methods, one of these days I'll put them to good use and become multilingual, YAY!

How was that? ^_^

Now the good part, seven awesome artists and bloggers that I happen to stalk:

Andy Smith
Deb Léger
Gina Hall
Latasha Moore
Michelle Himes
Mª Jose Barrera
Irina Rekhviashvili

Among those blogs you'll find plenty of works in progress, sketches, exercises, watercolors, illustrations, colorCOLORCOLOR, art talk, people from all over the world, one of my best online friends, and the only one artist that I've commisioned up to date.

My part is done, now do yours and check those awesome 7 artists blogs, they well deserve the award

More beaches

2009-10-09T16:49:00.004+02:00

I was going through my portfolios today and this beach crossed my path, it was the first time I tried Holbein's paints and I've been in love with them ever since, it was fun to paint and is the kind of painting that has grown on me after some time.

Have you had a walk by the beach today? Have you dip your feet in the water and got them covered by the thin sand? Have you smelt the salt in the breeze? I wish I had.

I'm a happy mushroom!

2009-10-07T15:41:00.004+02:00

I got this gorgeous painting from Jane today and I love it to bits!

This image keeps telling me how rich deep darks should be done (and that they CAN actually be done! *gasp*). Jane James has a way with the brush, just as if she'd put it on the paper and in just one stroke the image would magically appear there, it's awfully hard to make it look as if it were the easiest thing, that's one of the reasons I worship her, thank you so much for the painting Jane!

September swap

2009-10-06T18:48:00.008+02:00

Well, I've just received an email from Reni saying she got it, I'm so glad that the small painting arrived safe and sound and that she liked it, I guess now I can post it and why not as a little step by step?

It is based on one of the drawings I made during my trip to Galicia during early september, we have an old little quince tree there, I have no idea how old it is, sure older than me, it feels great to sit on that wall so what better idea than taking the sketchbook and draw for a while?

And the step by step (ok, I know, it's easier to see them if they're not changing constantly so here are the finished quinces and the former graphite sketch), now I can sit, relax and wait for my own surprise in the mail, can't wait to see who's from!

Back home!

2009-09-29T13:36:00.005+02:00

I'm back from my trip to Galicia, had a great time but even if I planned to paint A LOT rain soon disagreed with me, got to stay home more than I'd planned but still doodled some landscapes from there, these 2 are the views from the balcony.

I tried to paint this first one but it wasn't working as I expected so I ended up adding marker instead of finishing the color.

This other was done as an experiment, I wanted it to look like I was making a map instead of a drawing so it's kind of sterilized, not weight in the lines and lots of detailed tiny stuff, my neighbor could tell who lived in some of the houses so I guess the experiment worked, though it doesn't really look interesting LOL.

sketches

2009-09-06T16:43:00.007+02:00

These are near my home again, same distance but in oposite ways, the first one is the Glorieta de Quevedo, a beautiful plaza with a fountain and sculpture of the writer in the middle, it looks gorgeous specially during summer since the whole morning the sun hits the water running and it sparkles beautifully. Looks like the second one is currently a building used by the administration, it's funny I've spent all my life thinking it was a church but it isn't, I've just read it was built as a hospital for workers, I guess I'll stick to the fact that it DOES look like a church so I don't look completely stupid lol.

And then a couple at the waiting room again, if I'm lucky I won't have to spend hours there anymore so I'll take these as a celebration for that

Personal favs in Sorolla's exhibition

2009-08-26T20:01:00.069+02:00

It was due time I post some in depth thoughts and pics of my very favourites at the Sorolla exhibition in no specific order.

Santa en oración (Madrid, Museo del Prado) was right there at the beginning to remind the unaware visitor "did you think you knew what this is about? think again!". This one screams Mucha all over, no matter how you look at it all those patterns and gold and curvilinear shapes are SO Mucha! It went right to my favs because 1) it's stunning, 2) proves that no matter how good someone is he/she have idols to look up to too. It's so different from his style that enables your awareness mode to "see" the rest of the exhibition through a different glass.

Después del baño (private collection) is a painting I loved because, not only the rendition of all the elements (the skin, the textile, the marble) is top notch, but the reflection of the woman on the marble is so unbelievable real that your jaw drops, really subtle and well rendered.

Las redes (private collection) is just so classy, it's a pity that I couldn't find a bigger image online, it's a perfect example of what Sorolla do best, the treatment of light, not only the shadows casted by the foliage reads real and let you feel the temperature in that small alley, you can feel the sun going through those trousers hung there, and the net is so delicate and detailed that makes you wanna get closer and closer and no matter how close it still reads real, awesome, whe I saw it I started wondering about the kind of brushes he used, the strokes are so thin and delicate in that net.

La vuelta de la pesca (París, Musée d’Orsay) is one of those paintings that, no matter how good the reproduced image is, it won't do justice to the actual painting, of course the rendition of the water is perfect and full of colors yet the 2 areas I fell in love with in this piece were the block of wood in the man hands (because it's wet, you can see the hint of water running down from it, and I'm not talking only about the obvious blue and white, you can "see" the brown areas of the wood "are" wet, I really standed there mesmerized by it quite some time) and the fur of the bull (because he managed to make it look like the sun was hitting the sail and going through to the fur of the animal, with just some simple strokes of vibrant reds in the right places). One thing that you can't usually see in the reproduced images of Sorolla's paintings is the vibrant reds he uses when he depicts light, really vibrant for contrast, you look at it and would think he'd gone crazy then look at the whole areas and it's just the right color in the right amount, that orangey area on the bulls back? and the area around it's eye? are full of intense red IRL.

Cosiendo la vela (Venecia, Fondazione Museu Civici di Venezia, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Morderna di Ca’ Pesaro) This one is brilliant, probably one of the best, it's not just the light, it's the fact that you can see the vine and it's not even in the painting, that's right, the shadows on the sail let's you visualize the vine, you could stay hours letting your eye flow from the blue columns to the vine to the sail to the roses to the people to the blue columns to the vine... Something not noticeable in the print but really obvious in the actual painting is how smartly he grabs your eye and makes you focus just using some strong hard edges in the front woman's simple pink sleeve and elbow, it's SO obvious! and at the same time kind of subtle in a way! and works so well here, just a tiny detail like that and all the feast of shapes colors and lights tone down for a moment, just enough to let the party start again.

El bote blanco - jávea (private collection) This is one of those that doesn't make justice to the original painting AT ALL, a pity because there are so much lovely mauves purples greens and blues there... as soon as my friend Angeles and me got to this painting we both said "gotta be kidding me, that's FUB right from the tube!", that's how bold with color he gets in this painting, and somehow he makes it work! I haven't mentioned Sorolla's use of strokes yet, it's obvious he uses a combination of colors and values masterfully to depict light but another strong point of his is the brush strokes, he goes from thin blended and delicate to bold loose simple almost careless huge strokes in the right place, in the right painting, this one is a good example of that.

Maria vestida de labradora valenciana (private collection) Talking about bold brush strokes lol! I think this is the only portrait I've included here, even if he's a great portrait painter, as much realists those can get, I don't liek them as much as I like his other themes. But yes, this one is perfect, not only for the strokes, but for the rendering of the costume AND most of all the use of color in her face which is the part that made this one in to my top, it's not easily seen in the reproduction of the whole painting (I didn't find a good image) but look at the face detail, now imagine those blues deeper and those oranges more red and vibrant and you'll get a hint of how vivid this is, usually his portraits are full of darks but this one is full of life. A second best to her face are the greens on the background, nothing at all as depicted in this image I'm posting :(.

Hora del mediodía en la playa de valencia (Arango collection) Perfect title because you could actually tell the hour when this scene was immortalized. Just look at that water shining, do I need to say more?

Preparación de la pasa (Oviedo. Principado de Asturias, Colección Pedro Masaveu. Deposited at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias) I couldn't find a full image of this painting (this thumb must be full viewed, trust me) but this detail is brilliantly taken by this photographer, if only the people in charge of the Catalog would have made a job as good as this man did I would have paid ~~almost~~ any amount of money for it. This painting is full of color, look at those grapes, all so different, all so yummy, look at those wooden sticks, look at the colors in them, look at those trousers, look at that hand, man those veins looked as if there were blood running through them, look at those colors and look at those strokes. The background was full of color too, a middle ground in shadows then the background undere the light again, and the dance of colors didn't stop in any area of the panting.

Desnudo de mujer (Private collection) Did I mentioned bold strokes? well, here is a great example of the whole range he has, capable of the softer and most delicate strokes too, the skin of that woman is incredible but then there comes the bed clothes stealing the show, the pink in there turns the image in something almost ethereal, you can see the layers and layers of cloths one over the other, the texture, the softness of it, and the needlework on the transparent cloth at her feet, ah! simply beautiful.

Ex voto (Private collection) This is one of those paintings that no one would relate to Sorolla's signature, it is indeed closer to his portraits' style, what made it so special for me (and it won't leave my top favs from now on) is the amount os detail in what is basically a "small" painting compared with most of his works, 85 x 118 cm (33,5" x 46,5" aprox.), it's not THAT small either but look at all that detail, the face of that old man in black is perfectly detailed, not a wrinkle left, and it must be what... 3 inches tall? AWESOME, plus even it's not the most colorful scene ever but there are indeed a lot of vibrant colors "hidden" in it, a good example is the wall around the door that has such a beautiful drawing or pattern or whatever that's called, the paintings on it and the mirror, if you get close you can actually see the oposite wall of the room, cool.

Saliendo del baño (New York, The Hispanic Society of America) Because the light shines on the white cloth, reflects on the sand, bounces back to the girls' clothes, which are wet and stuck to the skin, and the skins IS SO REAL! and what not! it's top notch, it's perfect, the feet are a blotch of paints and they read as perfectly normal feet. At this point it's something to notice how he really doesn't paint faces in his beach paintings even being a brilliant portrait painter, it's just not necesary, some colors here and there and your mind do the rest, it's not the important part of the painting, the lead role is not the person, it's the light, I loved that.

La bata rosa (Madrid, Museo Sorolla)One of my all time favourites, a masterpiece of simplicity yet it's full of light, I'd swear that the hole in that back wall is actually a yellow triangle outlined by a dioxazine violet line. Bold careless strokes? "in your face!", those whites over the towel agree. I love this painting, always have and always will.

Idilio en el mar (Nueva York, The Hispanic Society of America) is a perfect example of how good this man was at using contrast, depicting not only a rich full of color water, not only wet lively skin but movement too, you can feel the water running softly around the children, you can see the transparency of the wave over the sand at the beach, and it's full of blues greens, almost a viridian color mixed with mauves and purples. Soothing image, and one worthy of being seen IRL.

Rocas de Jávea y bote blanco (Madrid, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza collection, in deposit at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza) this is one of the most vibrant with color in the whole exhibition, impresionistic, great texture, mesmerizing to the extreme. One of my very favourites of the whole list, maybe becausse it somehow makes you feel alive.

There's nother one I really loved because it's different from the rest of his works, it's Día gris en la playa de Valencia (Private collection) and it's a grey dark seascape with a storm far at the open sea oposed to his usual full of light scapes, it's so subtle yet you can see even the storm, all in greys, sadfuly I can't find a photo of it online.

For a full list of the pieces in the exhibition just click here.

backs backs and more backs

2009-08-26T17:51:00.002+02:00

I've just realized waiting rooms are perfect to sketch people, but it looks like sketching their back is the only way to sketch them freely without having to worry about time, when they are not backwards they tend to get anxious and run away lol.

I loved the ear of that man, I couldn't make it justice

Saturday doodle on site

2009-08-24T12:16:00.005+02:00

Yep, this time my surroundings' journal entry is not even a place per se, I was waiting for the bus again after almost loosing a hard fight against my *gasp* building's gate, yep, it refused to let me out no matter what, do you know how it feels to be let out of your home? (as in forgetting the keys inside) well now think how does feel like being locked INSIDE. At least it wasn't only me, an old lady was there with me trying to get out too.

So when I finally got out and went to the bus stop just to see that the new advertisement there was the promo of Ong Bak 2 I realised I had my journal doodle of the day, because when you feel like kicking and punching something there's nothing like thai style, with your knees or your elbows or your knees AND elbows... while flying! then again I can't do a flying kick to save my life so drawing it should be more than enough.

Couldn't sketch it all since the bus came pretty soon for once. I think this one will remain in black and white.

S is for Superfabulous (a.k.a. Sorolla, Joaquín Sorolla)

2009-08-13T21:07:00.005+02:00

I've just arrived home from the exhibition of Sorolla's works at El Prado, WOW and WOW! I'll write a looooooong post about it all in the next entry because it's imposible to describe it just briefly, I've loved it!

It's funny how just a week ago I was talking on the phone with my friend Victor and we were saying that the Museo Sorolla is the one we've paid more visits to through our lives, probably because it's near our houses and not so crowded with people, Sorolla is one of the painters that has always been there in my life, when I didn't knew the names of a lot of relevant painters I already knew Sorolla very well. That said I couldn't even imagine the magnitude of the works I saw today, "impressive" and "terrific" are not enough to describe them, I'll just have to go through each one of my favourites in detail later.

For all the people out there who will have the chance to see his works in New York I must encourage you not to miss them, no printed image will make it justice, that reminds me the only drawback of this afternoon --> the book they are selling at the exhibition, what a bunch of horrible pics it has, I know it's really hard to capture all the colors accurately but these weren't even close, they turn an image full of vibrant ranges of color from reds, oranges, creams, corals, mauves, greens, blues... into blue/yellow and grey, quite disappointing. Yet I couldn't leave without getting some beautiful merchandise for my friends.

BTW on my way there I took the subway and remembered that long ago I had promised Rhonda to take a photo of the walls there which are full of reproductions of his works since it's the nearest subway station to his museum, so here, my cell camera is quite bad but you get the idea, plus one of them is of one of my all time favourites, below the image it reads "La Bata Rosa 1916, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. Museo Sorolla", wouldn't be able to say right now how it's known internationally, "the pink robe" maybe?

An yes they are huge, almost the same height of the wall, see?. (horrible photo, I know)

Quickies

2009-08-10T22:04:00.005+02:00

Months ago, during a stressing couple of weeks at work, my friend Angeles started to send to my cell a photo a day of a stuffed monkey named Cholo, everyday he was doing a different thing and she accompanied the photo with a description of "his day", Cholo's daily agenda put a smile on my face every time I got one of those messages and I decided someday I'd paint some of those.

This morning Angeles was really sick and I went to make her company, I didn't want to disturb her so I thought it was a good moment to make some sketches of Cholo's anathomy, yes, I've never done it properly with the human body yet here I am doing it for a stuffed doll, what can I say. It was due time though, I've been delaying it but I think it's a good moment now, while I prepare the next lantern painting carefully these Cholo pics will take the pressure off my shoulders, right?

So here are some head quickies, some hands and some feet.

Sweetheart get well soon!

Feeling a bit gloomy today

2009-08-07T21:29:00.003+02:00

Morning sketches

2009-08-05T19:45:00.004+02:00

I've been neglecting these weekly sketches, shame on me! so I'm trying to resume them properly, even if I hadn't even picked my sketchbook since July 24th I'd put it in my bag yesterday, met a friend to had breakfast and after a nice morning chatting and window shopping, in my way back home I decided to stop for a while and sketch a bit since it wasn't late, these are the results, both sketches are not farther than 20 meters one from the other

There where I put a blue sky actually is a huge net surrounding a golf area I think, I haven't get in there ever and even if I wanted to sketch from the front garden there was a security guard there so I didn't even try. So the front door will have to do, it's a beautiful place even from the outside anyway.

This other one was my first target, all the way back home I had the fountain in my mind, then it happened to be the most unsuitable thing fora quick sketch, the concrete walls that form the fountain are completely uneven with an interesting design and I failed badly to capture it, yet I hope it still has the right "feel" to it, I enjoyed painting it.

Next time I'll choose a place in shadow to stand while sketching, august is being hot!

Done!

2009-07-28T11:58:00.005+02:00

It's finally finished, I've loved painting in this format, wanna make more biggies.

Now there are just two more things to solve:

1.- framing, I wanted to put it over the mat so even the borders show, a friend mentioned someone doing it like that months ago, probably Carol Carter? I'm not sure, the problem won't be the matting but the framing, won't a cristal weight too much and be awfully expensive? will something made of plastic look good too or it will loose the shine when being cleaned? questions questions...

2.- Most important, how on earth do I scan or take a quality photo of it? I haven't tried but I'm pretty sure my scanner won't do it even if I scan it in a hundred little pieces, my good camera is dead and I know nothing about what light etc.. I should use and how, looks like big formats bring new challenges even after finishing the painting process, hmmmm...

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Treating myself

2009-07-19T21:24:00.007+02:00

Yesterday I spent the day with my friends, breakfast, stroll by the city, shopping, lunch at the japanese and then to the theater to watch the latest Harry Potter, good day, and I bought books!

It's been quite some time since I stepped in a shop here, took a look at an illustration book that I didn't know existed and fell in love, it happened yesterday, I haven't read Fables, not even one number, but James Jane does such a terrific work for each issue! plus there's not only the finished pic of each cover, there's the concept, pencil and commentary by the author, not any of his other works not-Fables related though, but it's ok like this, it's going into my inspirational shelf. Man it feels good to unexpectedly find one of these gems in a local shop.

And since I had to wait in the line to pay I though I could add a couple more books that I've been wanting to read for quite some time, they are Amélie Nothomb's Ni de Eva ni de Adán (Ni d’Ève, ni d’Adam) and Paolo Giordano's La soledad de los números primos (La solitudine dei numeri primi), the first one because I loved Estupor y temblores (Stupeur et tremblements) wholeheartedly, Nothombs has a way with words and is fresh and different; the second because I listened to a review in the radio a couple of months ago and got me so curious about it, we'll see if I like mr. Giordano's way of writing.

Oh! I painted today after 3 weeks without properly handling a brush, YAY for me! Now onto finish Ni de Eva ni de Adán.

More sketches

2009-07-12T21:47:00.001+02:00

I'm not painting at all lately, it seems that everyday there's something that keeps me away from the painting table so I'm balancing it doing the july sketching, fast, easier and pressure-free, I could get used to it, it's so much fun! I thought after sketching the open MRI it was mandatory to sketch the high field one too.

And this weekend wasn't a painting weekend at all, I've spent it at a friends house taking care of her dog while she and her husband were out, dog's name is Luca and she's really old and having a lot of health problems and she never ever stays alone in a room if she can go with you so it was like having a second shadow somehow, but she's a doll and I had a good time with her and seems like she did too since when I was leaving their house she followed me to the stairs instead of staying home with my friend. I planned to draw a lot of sketches of her but since 95% of the time her pose was the same I ended up doing only one.

Teresa's surroundings

2009-07-09T14:36:00.006+02:00

July project with my dear pals, sketching weekly whatever is around us and related to us, I'm liking it a lot so I'll probably keep doing it, I've started it in my new small Fabriano Venezia, it's a good sketchbook to use a lot of mediums plus is small enough to fit even in a pocket.

Last saturday I had breakfast with my brother and my friend Angeles as usual, so while I was waiting for the bus on my way I decided to sketch a bit, it's right next to my house and it looked a good subject, I wasn't as fast as needed and before I noticed the bus was going away, without me, and the bus driver was looking at me with that kind of look.., a mix of evil pleasure and shock, I still got to have my "americano" brunch, YUM!

And these are from the clinics where I work, late at night or early at morning are perfect quite moments to take a few minuts and make a quick sketch:

And the ones from the subway, SHAME! each time I look at those.... EWWW! anyway practice makes perfect, I don't know when I'll get brave and bold enough to take the sketchbook out again in the subway and sketch my fellow travellers.

midnight incoherence

2009-07-07T23:41:00.003+02:00

Since I could have had a better day I guess it's time to spice it up with some stupidity that'll let me go to bed with a smile in my face so, here! Rhonda, you thought I wouldn't do it, right? but I did! just in my journal though, it's probably not apropiate for a big banner after all,

And I got some goodies last week that I forgot to post, I was going to smell the aqua fix (yes I had to buy it after all, even if there's a chance I never ever use it) but it happens to have one of those secure caps, stupid thing! one of those that can't be opened just by turning, you need to push and then turn to make sure that children can't open it, well I spent over 2 minutes trying to open it duh', and after all the effort it doesn't really smell! I don't even know why I have to smell all these new products when I buy them lol, anyway I bought some sketchbooks too and a set of Pitt pens that I love, I'm a new fan! And of course the excuse to place the order in the first place, a tube of raw sienna :)

Unmasked

2009-06-25T14:18:00.003+02:00

I won't be able to paint tomorrow so I better update the progress on the lanterns now, right?

The prints and kanji are finished and the mask removed, I missed a couple of spots when applying it but it's not a big deal, I painted out of the masking fluid at some spots too lol, don't ask me how but those doesn't look bad either, kind of interesting, or maybe I'm just being delusional, anyway the next time I sit to paint I'll be working with my old good watercolors on those large white lanterns, can't wait!

It looks mostly pure black, right? I don't have any close up to share but there're indeed a lot of patterns in those blacks.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Tooooonta!

2009-06-25T14:05:00.005+02:00

It's being a hell of a week at work, it would have been nice if it were just at work but today the world has slapped me in the face again with my inability for being a people's person, yeah world, as if I didn't know before... so I feel like sharing this page of my journal, who's feeling like a fool? I AM! good for me.

Wednesday

2009-06-24T12:53:00.003+02:00

Even I am going to get sick of posting these updates.

Today's works has been doing a first layer of shades of black on all prints and kanji, and finishing half of them, the pic shows both stages and some of them with the mask already removed, this is going fast.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Tuesday

2009-06-23T13:48:00.005+02:00

And the under coat of all the kanji and prints is finished, in the blink of an eye! I know, I know, it looks horrible lol but it's not really horrible, just in the middle of an ugly stage, the important thing is that I haven't had to do it slow motion, it's wet on wet, it has continuity from shape to shape and finally it looks like it's progressing.

I haven't used masking fluid (nor continued painting yet) around the bases of the lanterns because I won't be using the same method I'm using for the kanji and prints, those bases are big and simple enough to let me work on them my usual way without worrying to much so they'll remain like this until the final stage.

On a different subject, I have 2 orders of goodies on the way home YAY! maybe I don't need them but lord, how do I "need" them XD Now I'm in a quest to find a place in Spain that sells Fabriano paper rolls, I assume there's no one around who knows about Spanish art shops that could provide them, right? I've only found them at Artifolk but they don't sell them out of the UK, my chances of finding it here are close to zero I guess.... maybe I should take that as a signal from the painting gods to stop purchasing things that I don't really need at the end of the month, maybe.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Third one, I have my winner

2009-06-22T11:31:00.004+02:00

So I finished my last test yesterday, the process has been similar to the previous 2 but using mostly acrylic paint except for the blue which is a half/half mix of watercolor and acrylic

1 to 4.- Applied masking fluid and the base coat of color (blue red and ochre)
5.- added some layers of pure black or black mixed with red or blue
6.- removed the mask and tested the bleeding, 0% bleeding, YAY! I was afraid the blue wouldn't work but it did, what could go wrong with the black in the first test? maybe there were more watercolor that acrylic in the mix or maybe wc lamp black just don't wanna work for me.

Anyway, this is how the 3 tests look like next to each other

I'm going for the third one, it's worked pretty well, looks interesting and there's no bleeding, I can fake bleedings here and there on purpose later on. I still like better how the black watercolor looks compared to the black acrylic but that reason doesn't have enough weight to make me struggle through the 2º test's process all over the painting.

The red kanjis and prints won't be made with mask and acrylic, I believe I can work those out without problem since I won't have the horrible bleeding lamp black gives me.

I spent the day yesterday masking all the prints and kanjis that are going to be black and this morning finished some spots I missed yesterday, since it's monday again I'll have to wait to work more on this one but now that I know what I''m gong to do I'm sure this stage will be fast, maybe I can finish this baby before the end of the month :)
Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Second test

2009-06-18T11:58:00.005+02:00

This time I've tested how would it work to paint the prints only with watercolors, without masking around them, that's to see if it'll be a good idea to leave them for the last step.

1, 2, 3.- I applied a layer of blue and reds for the base colors.
4.- lifted some lines here and there and blended some of the color out of the kanji, just to see if it looks good
5, 6.- some black added here and there and here and there again :), after taking the photo I splatered some water over it and blotted to see if I could regain some blue dots.

I'm not sure if I like this better or not, it proves that I can still work on the tiny stuff adding enough textures and interest without relying on the masking fluid but:
a) it bleeds 10 times more than my previous test.
b) even if I've managed to work it out I can work much more freely using the masking fluid for these.
c) it's obvious the work's been on dry, that's more layering and less blending, on the other hand I went slower and this time kept more of the blue/red visible.

I'm still going to make a third test, masking around, doing the red/blue base with red acrylic and blue watercolor (yep, I don't have FUB acrylic and it's the color I want to use here no matter what) and using just acrylic for the rest of the layers instead of a mix, let's see if it still bleeds.

I'm hoping as soon as I decide on this the rest of the painting will flow smoother, I'm kind of stuck right now and it should be finished already.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

white or black

2009-06-14T18:48:00.005+02:00

I've been doing a test in one of the lower shapes of the lanterns, just to decide how I'm going to work on those blacks, hmmmmmm, after finishing with it I have more doubts, here's a step by step

1, 2 & 3.- Masked the shape and added some blue and red as a richer base, it dried lighter as often and mute but the variation was there.
4, 5.- The first layer of black/blue black/red added and dried, I wanted to keep some of the shape of the paper of the lantern and play with textures and edges.
6.- Sprayed some very diluted blue and red acrylic paints which was the main reason to mask around the print in the first place, the mixes of black run a bit, enough to make me loose the contrast and edges when it dried as seen in step 7.
8, 9.- Plan B, if spraying the acrylic don't work maybe applying the back mixed with blue and with red acrylic paint instead of watercolor would work, waited for it to dry and removed the masking. It doesn't show as much of the underpainting as I wanted at first but it's a corner so I don't mind not having it as interesting in there as in other areas of the image.
10.- The main reason of trying the spray and acrylic was to avoid the bleeding of lamp black which seem to love running around, yet I put a brushtroke over it and it still bled a bit, not to much but it's a concern, 11 and 12 are the acrylic palette and the watercolor palette, I think I mixed enough acrylic paint to make the black permanent.

So what's gone wrong? maybe the sprayed acrylic was too diluted and didn't work and what's bleeding is the color from some areas that can have remained uncovered when I applied the color in the last steps?

Right now I have 2 choices, to paint the lanterns' paper first or the symbols first, I was decided to paint the symbols first and once fixated to paint all the rest, but if those blacks still bleed I'll have problems, in the other hand I could finish all the white of the lanterns first and then the symbols but then I wouldn't be able to use the masking fluid 'cos it's already lifting the colors of the subtle washes, hmmmmmm, gotta ponder a bit more about it.

The good thing is that I'm liking the kind of variation that I'll be able to get in those black shapes and still have them black which was one of my goals for this one

Here's a gif of the step by step, just because:

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Safe!

2009-06-12T23:25:00.005+02:00

After an afternoon of painting under high temps and a peculiar mix of Katy Perry, Kat-tun and Martina McBride playing on the background I think I've regained confidence, and looking at the lanterns now I think I'm gonna be ok, go figure!

I know the photo is bad, it's night already and I don't have a better light source to take it

It stil has a long way to go but I'm already thinking on calling it yukkuri onegai shimasu because as I painted I found myself repeating in my mind "sloooow Teresa, just go slowly", now that I'm doing my thing and feel in control again I'm finding a lot of new possibilities to this big formats, it gives plenty of room to splatter, gradate, lift... mess around and play, just pay attention to big shapes and make them interesting, even a bad stroke turns itself into a chance for something special rather than an error, somehow it's easier to forget about the subject itself and focus on the shapes. Now I'm sure this is my first attempt at a big piece but won't be the last at all, I can get used to this!

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

I'm not nervous

2009-06-12T12:18:00.004+02:00

It was looking like this this morning before I decided to throw in some darks,

Something was telling me to build up the paper of the lanterns a bit more before going to the darks yet I didn't listen to myself and I went ahead with some blue and mauve and it wasn't going as I wanted and in a blink of an eye decided to add some red there and why not perylene maroon since it looks like blood and I like it tons and.... I stepped right into the ugly stage sooner than I thought, as I was adding those colors I couldn't help thinking "didn't I decide to have pure black in this one? what the hell am I doing?" ok, well there's plenty of work to do yet so this can disappear under layers and layers of color :(

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

A bit more

2009-06-10T19:44:00.006+02:00

And this is how it looks after another wash of the same 3 colors plus blotting with a paper towel,

I can already see that I'll have to add many more textures than I usually do to make those big shapes interesting enough.

Next step will be setting some darks there, kanjis and other prints on the lanterns, and fixate them if necessary, but that will be tomorrow, since I'm getting out of light now.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

First wash

2009-06-10T15:18:00.008+02:00

I've finally started! I was going through a serious case of fear to the blank page but I've laid a first wash of colors so even if it's a little bit shy at least it's not blank anymore, I'll get bolder from now on.

The first wash has been wet on wet and with a few primary colors, it's the way I often begin my paintings so I'm feeling more confident right now, the wash looked like this

and then while taking the picture I noticed I didn't leave any white areas so I went in with a paper towel and lifted some paint in the front of the lanterns since it was still wet enough, trying to get some uneven whites and not being too careful because it's just a first wash, right now it's like this

the lessons up till now are only about materials, nothing I didn't know beforehand though:

1.- I never paint this big so my brushes are not big, this step was made with a hake that I usually use to wet the paper, it worked pretty well, easier than I thought, though I know I won't be able to work as I'm used to with it when I tighten up, so it'll give me the chance to explore different ways of painting out of my comfort zone.

2.- I don't think I'll be able to sit while painting with this one, I can't reach the top! so it'll be standing or turning the paper, will be interesting.

3.- I can't fit a whole sheet in my bath tube! shocking lol, I had to move it and twist it and turn it to get it thoroughly wet, maybe this is a good excuse to look for a house with a swimming pool?

Time to let it dry, this afternoon I'll probably work at it again, YAY for vacation days!

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14