Orchids In Oils - WIP 3

Here is the third installment of the work in progress of the orchids I've been working on.  It doesn't feel finished but I don't know exactly what is wrong so I can finish it!

Any C&C gratefully accepted!

Orchids in Oil - WIP 2

I haven't done a whole lot with this painting but thought I'd post an update of the little progress I've made.  It has a long way to go but at least you can sort of tell they're orchids now!

A New Web Friend From Brambleberry Cottage

Only this one I met in person first!  I was shopping with a couple of friends last weekend and found the perfect stroller for our little rescued Maltese in a thrift shop in a neighboring town.  I'd just paid for the stroller when another lady came up with a cute little Yorkie to inquire about the same stroller.  I found out later that her name was Liz and that she has a gorgeous blog here on Blogger.

We exchanged pleasantries and I gave her one of my business cards with the painting of CiCi on it (you know I can never resist showing off my baby!)  Today she left a comment on my blog here as well as emailed me. 

To make a long story shorter, I've spent the morning looking at her beautiful blog and came across a post of hers on "Morning Glories" http://thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com/2011/08/glories-of-morning.html.  The photos are spectacular but I think she may have some bindweed there instead of true morning glories (sorry, Liz!)

I've long been enamored of the bindweed that runs rampant on our farm and even painted some a few years ago.  I entitled the painting "Glorious Strangler" because that's what bindweed does to any plant around it.  Not only does it strangle out plants but it also puts out some sort of substance from its roots that helps prevent other plants from growing around it.  Not a plant that plays well with others but very, very beautiful nonetheless.

Please go take a look at the way Liz has arranged and photographed these flowers and you'll probably agree with me that their beauty far outweighs their nasty nature!  Thanks so much for the photographic eye-candy, Liz!

Just Squint - Pastel Landscape

Yeah, I'm still trying to make order out of the chaos that is my studio but I just couldn't go any longer without painting something!

I've recently been studying how to loosen up yet still keep a realistic (but painterly) look to my work.  The advice I see most often is to just squint.  Squinting supposedly helps you see the important and blurs out the unimportant. 

That's fine, I guess, but it's really, really hard to sustain a squint long enough to finish a whole painting! lol  Anyway, my first effort at just squinting!  I think this is one of those things that requires a lot of practice!

Pastel on sand colored Ampersand PastelBord, 5 x 7 inches, mostly Rembrandt sticks and various pastel pencils.

UPS Basic, ColourFix Suede and Revised Mallow

I don't know if you can really see any difference but I followed Dors' advice and darkened under the petals some more,  I'd said I'd probably have to do a bit more glazing and I did.  Thanks, Dors, I'm always concerned about overworking and, while I probably could go even darker, I think I'll leave it for a few days and see what it needs then.


On another subject, I still haven't received the order I placed with Jerry's Artarama and it's a week today.  Since the order comes out of a warehouse in a city only 60 miles from us, it's kind of aggravating.  Since I noticed that their free shipping was through UPS Basic I decided to find out what exactly that is. 

I found that UPS, FedEx and other shipping companies are taking advantage of a program with our postal system where they can become "consolidators" for US Postal Service mail and qualify for very reduced mailing costs.  Since mail order companies were shunning UPS (& FedEx) because of their very high shipping fees, the shipping companies could reduce their costs and fees and win these mail order companies back by becoming USPS mail consolidators.  It was a win-win situation for both the mail order companies and the shippers but it's a real PITA for their customers and our local mail carriers!

It seems that UPS/FedEx picks up packages at the mail order companies and ships them to the local hub where their drivers pick them up and take them to the local post office.  Then the packages are taken to their final destination by the local mail carriers.  They say it saves money because their drivers don't have to drive all over rural areas for one delivery when the postal carrier is doing it anyway.  That does makes sense but why not just ship USPS to begin with?  Why can't mail order companies negotiate with the Postal Service for a reduced rate when they ship so many packages or something?

My order shipping confirmation included a tracking number for both the UPS leg of the journey and another one for my local post office.  From those tracking numbers, I found that my packages sat at the UPS hub (a city about 45 miles from us) nearly 3 days before it was put on a truck to take it to the local post office.  A friend in business locally informed me that the local UPS driver has been on vacation and the substitute drivers have been very slack so I guess it doesn't surprise me that the packages weren't immediately taken to the post office.  As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure the packages will even be taken to the post office even though they're supposed to be on the delivery truck.  While I was researching this so-called "service", I found that it seems to be up to the drivers as to when to deliver the packages to the local post office!

I know, I know - the shipping was free and I shouldn't be complaining but I only ordered from Jerry's because of it's proximity to me plus the Jerry's website said that delivery would take about 2 - 4 days!  And I also know that our ice storm was probably a factor as the UPS hub city was hit very hard and normally doesn't even see such weather.  It just seems that if the UPS truck from Raleigh could make it to the hub, trucks could make it out also.

Anyway, researching the UPS Basic service was very interesting reading.  So, now I'll know next time not to order if the company offers only the Basic shipping or unless I'm willing to wait several more days than I've waited in the past!

Maybe I'll eventually get my ColourFix Suede paper - if & when I do, I'll let you know how I like it!

Finally, a Painting!

Sue, from PencilPix blog, has sort of been prodding me to get off my duff and post a new painting.  Well, I did a new watercolor this morning.  I always feel that I have so much to learn about watercolor and usually hesitate to post anything I paint in that medium.  But, I also feel that maybe some of you can either learn from my mistakes or give me a critique or tip that will help me learn this elusive medium! 

The mallow flowers are courtesy of MaLu at Paint My Photo, and I didn't come close to the rich colors of the original photo!  It's hopefully enough, however, to break the painting slump and if nothing else goes a long way toward helping me forget that it's winter outside!

C & C gratefully accepted!

Back to Ordinary Life

Well, the Easter holiday is over.  The kids and grandkids have been fed a holiday dinner and my DH has gone back to work!  Of course, with all the activity, especially my DH working in the yard and garden, there's a lot of cleaning to be done - AGAIN.  But, I guess that's life.  I just wanted to be able to go into my studio and do a little painting since I spent a good bit of last week cleaning and cooking, the weekend cooking and entertaining, and yesterday as support for my husband's efforts in the yard and garden!  It seems as if it's been a month since I've been able to paint or even do any sketching!

We went to a couple of garden centers on Saturday and I did get some really nice photos of flowers.  We're between blooms as the daffodils, tulips and such have finished blooming and the azaleas, little native iris and lilacs are just beginning.  We haven't gotten any bedding annuals yet as it's still a little early for the warm season flowers to be planted.  We'd seeded some flowers a few weeks ago and did transplant them into larger containers though.  We'll plant them out in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we're getting lettuce, asparagus, arugula, spinach right now and hopefully some radishes, broccoli and snow peas soon.  The cool season stuff is doing great even though we've had 90+ degree weather lately!

Poor Bon is miserable as she's shedding and being as dark as she is, the heat really bothers her.  I brushed on her for about an hour this morning and got a couple of 5 gallon buckets of loose hair and it didn't look as if I'd even made a dent in what she needs to lose!  She's so itchy that she let me brush her way longer that she'll usually let me so I know it was a relief for her to get that stuff gone!

We also have bluebird pairs in all the bluebird houses (5 houses, I think) and some house finches kept trying to build a nest under the porch eaves.  We put bricks in the corners to discourage them as they built under the porch last year and it was a mess.  Not only that but the nest was right outside the kitchen door and the poor mama bird was constantly getting scared and flying off the nest.  We have a glass storm door and any movement in the kitchen would startle her off the nest.

So, life goes on out here in the country.  The wild turkeys are out in force and I'm sure the coyotes are mating also, if they haven't already given birth.

Oh, I have to tell you what happened the other night.  It was about 2 am when I heard a huge thud from the front part of the house (the bedroom is in the back).  I jumped up to see what it was and saw a huge Canada goose sitting in the side yard just out from the kitchen.  It would alternately sit or stand and wobble a bit but didn't move more than an inch or so and didn't try to fly away.  I watched it for about half an hour or so but finally went back to bed.  It was gone the next morning.  I wonder if it somehow flew into the side of the house and knocked itself silly for a while!  Fortunately, nothing got it that I could tell as there were no feathers scattered about the next morning.  My DH who has always been a light sleeper and says he can hear a gnat peeing on a cotton ball at 100 feet slept through the whole incident!  Maybe we should go get his ears checked!

ACEO/ATC Pastel Experiment

The painting here is one painting of multiple experiments!  We have a shamrock plant that has tiny white flowers on it and I've always wanted to try to paint them and I finally did it.  I also used this painting as a basis to experiment with 1) using pastel pencils on a very small  support  2) using PastelMat as that support and 3) steaming as an alternative to spray fixative.

Even keeping the pastel pencils as sharp as possible, I still had problems with this small painting.

ACEOs (art card editions and originals if sold) or ATCs (art trading cards if traded) have only one rule and that is a size rule - they must be 2.5 x3.5 inches (or 3.5 x 2.5 as in my painting).  That's a mighty small space to work in especially if you're as "ham-fisted" as I am.  My hands are pretty large which makes it very difficult to work in small spaces but I managed fairly well with this and am pretty pleased with the way it came out.  I could not get a super smooth finish but think that's as much the support as anything else.

Which brings me to the PastelMat that I used for this.  I've worked on this paper before (remember Belle?) and really struggled with it.  I had some difficulty this time also as it's nearly impossible to blend on it which is really my only complaint with it.  The nappy surface holds pastel extremely well and there's very little dust which is wonderful in my opinion!  I think the color of the support should be carefully considered though.  It seems to make a difference since you can't really "tone" the surface easily.  I used the Anthracite color for this painting although I used pastel on the whole surface.  

Although the PastelMat really holds the pastel, I decided to try to fix it more by using steam.  I wasn't sure how to do it exactly but I basically just heated a small pan of water until it produced consistent steam then held the painting face down over the pan.  The PastelMat is a card instead of a flimsy/floppy paper so I was able to hold it by the edges (plus this is a small painting).  I steamed it just long enough to get the surface damp but not wet.  The pastel did not permanently change color although it darkened until the painting dried (which only took a minute or less).

I don't know what, if any, benefit there is to steaming as the pastel will still rub off but I may not have done it correctly either.  There's no loose pastel dust but there was just a minute amount before steaming anyway.  I think I may have to try this with another support to fully gauge the effectiveness.  It would stand to reason that steaming would work as using water or alcohol in the painting process tends to compact and "set" the pastel.  If it does work well, I may invest in one of those hand-held steamers so I can steam without having to hold the painting while I steam it.

I hope you've benefited from these experiments and if you have anything to add, I hope you'll let me know.

Spring! Lovely Spring!

After such an abnormally nasty winter, it's been a delight to spend time outside these past few days.  The temps have been in the high 60's and it even got up to 80 degrees one day!  More and more flowers are coming into bloom and the wildlife is on the move again.

Here are some of the turkeys we've been seeing on a regular basis recently.  I don't know what it is in that back hayfield that's keeping them coming back, but they're there off and on all day and don't even seem to mind when I take their picture.  Before, they would scurry back into the woods but they're a bit braver now.  Yesterday evening they were all out there along with a small herd of deer and it reminded me of a drive-through zoo with several species intermingling.

While we haven't actually seen a live skunk yet this year, there's ample evidence that they're still around!  They're on the move also and many times get stuck on one of our country roads in the path of an on-coming car or truck. While I have a hard time with any animal getting killed, I don't want skunks around our place either!

Anyway, I may not do so well at keeping up my blog for a while.  And I've been too restless to do much art - the great outdoors has such a siren call that I've been grabbing my camera and spending more time with it than either art supplies or computers!

Maybe it's time to try a little plein air painting!  I'll keep you posted!

New Camera & Thank You

Lantana

Clematis

I just wanted to thank you all for your support and kind words about Coalie's passing. And I wanted to tell you that I finally got a new camera. I have it out on a 30 day trial and if I don't like it, I can take it back.

It's a Canon SX10 IS and so far, I like it very much. It's a lot larger and heavier than my previous camera but I think it takes great photos. The camera does anyway, but I'm still learning the camera! lol

I've gotten some really nice shots of some of our flowers but I'm really impressed with the zoom on this thing! It has a 20x zoom and I extended the zoom completely and focused on a shadow in the area where we had seen the foxes earlier this spring. When I downloaded the photo, I could see that it wasn't a shadow at all but a weed growing in the hay grass. I could even tell that it was a broadleafed plantain! Think of the photos I'd have of those foxes if I'd had this camera back then!

I really think it's me and something I need to learn about the camera, but I cannot seem to get a decent photo of any of the wonderful birds we have here. I did get a good shot of a female bluebird but mostly, by the time I get the camera set, even on automatic, the birds have flown away! I need to learn to get the controls set quickly! It's just that the controls, such as the zoom and shutter, are in a slightly different place than they were in my old camera and working them hasn't become second nature yet. I've only had the camera since this past Sunday and a couple of days were very rainy so didn't get to play with it as I would have liked.

Anyway, if anyone would like to use the flower pictures above as a painting reference, please feel free. I've left them fairly large even though I had to resize them for the web and I did watermark them just to deter other uses. Please don't use them for anything other than a painting reference - they aren't public domain photos.

If you use them, I'd love to see what you do with them! I know Jeanette will be the first to grab one since flowers are a favorite subject for her to paint! lol