Art Blog » February 2006

primary colors

Last night, we had a still-life of objects, all of which were primary colors. I picked a yellow watering can with a red pig on it, next to a small heart and some bluejeans to focus on. My canvas was one from over a month ago, when I painted a woman using only my pallette knife, white paint, and black paint. Having her rough ridges underneath my weak efforts last night was challenging!

back to the dog

AFter months and months of neglect, the dog has finally gotten some attention. It’s been a while since I posted photos of her, so the differences are clear. She’s got a lot more armor/skin now. I posted a photo showing new metal next to old metal. Next week, there’ll be more photos from the front.

yellow shoe

The instructions last night were to use only yellows (and white). Cadmium yellow deep, lemon yellow, and some yellow ochre (though over-use of this last was strongly discouraged). I found it somewhat frustrating, because I couldn’t really make dark darks. But the end result is pretty neat. Being unable to use the full pallette is actually quite freeing.

final bull

After a 7-month hiatus, I went back to the metalshop this week. I spent my time there reacquainting myself with the machinery and finishing off the bull. along with a bit more metal on his haunches, he’s now got a tail, which was really the final thing missing. The tail pulls the whole thing together. Take a look!

painting at home

Earlier this week a friend of mine and I got together to practice portraits on each other. He goaded me into not only using a medium (oil paints) that I am not anywhere close to comfortable with, but also using color instead of two-tone! After much struggle (I need some new brushes and some extra patience) I managed to make it look human, though it doesn’t really resemble Anthony!

I also did a charcoal of T, which kinda looks like here.

oils with a brush

Last night I got to paint with oils on canvas for the first time in over 10 years. It felt great. Watercolors are wonderful and all, but it always seemed like such a struggle. The oil paints feel so much more natural. All I’ve got is a quick thumbnail photo taken with my phone, but there’ll be more photos in future weeks.