Central Park Snow Dogs

Today I went out to paint in the snow... of course I did!

I mostly won the battle against the cold but my toes were really in some pain at the end.  I was ok by the time I got out of the park but I need to find another heat source in my boots.

Oil paint gets really, really stiff in the snow.  Usually I just use more solvent but today I tried Chelsea Classical Studio lean medium.

They have been around for a while but I never tried their products until today.
They make everything with lavender spike oil... the old bottle of spike oil I have (not CCS) smells really strongly of camphor and I never use it.  The CCS stuff actually does smell better.  Everyone says "oh it smells like lavender" -which is my favorite scent- but lavender spike oil is different than aromatherapy lavender.

Anyhow, the CCS stuff actually does smell pretty good.  It's a little camphor-ey but also a little lavender-ey.  Plus it is nontoxic so that's good.

It is VERY expensive though- I paid $16 for 2 oz.
But a tiny bit- literally drops- goes a very long way. So this bottle should last a while and it is WONDERFUL for subzero oil painting.

8x10 oil

Snow But Not a Blizzard

We had a good snowfall but it wasn't really a blizzard.
But I *had* go go out in it!

I called my friend Janet who is in the neighborhood to see if she wanted to come out in the sow with me.
She reluctantly agreed.

It was pretty out and we had fun,,, jut Janet got cold and wanted coffee and tiramisu, so off to the bakery we went...

I don't like coffee so I got a Mexican hot chocolate.  It was really good but could have been spicier!

Then we played in the snow some more.

Pre-Blizzard Prep

The cats are in hibernation mode.
Isis thinks she is me.

Furball is such a perfect fur ball!
She is so cute and perfect.

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I washed a LOT of brushes and re-packed my plein air gear.

Tonight I also went to Blick and got .... more brushes.
The Utrecht kind I want to try again with Good Brush Hygiene.

I'll give them another try. I really do like them a lot and I want them to last.

I reduced the amount of brushes in my brush roll, which has been gradually and ridiculously expanding.

Honestly this is still too many.

We are getting a blizzard tomorrow and I do love a good blizzard!
I got blizzard food. :)

Marshall Jones Week 3

Last night was my last class with Marshall Jones.

It was a great class and a good use of time and money.

Here is my unfinished and never-to-be-finished painting, 8x10 oil:

Notes:
Brush cleaning!

I have been using those nice Utrecht synthetics that everyone loves- including me- but they just don't last. And I talked to Marshall about that because they do last for him, although he did say he has heard others say the same as me, that they don't last. But I want mine to last!

I thought it was friction against the painting surface but he thinks it's paint in the ferrule.
And I'll own that I suck at brush washing.
I have made a vow to take better care of my brushes.
Especially when I plein air, I'm so bad about just swishing in solvent and calling it done, and that's just not good enough. 

I am going to try Marshall's brush regimen which involves putting that hand cleaneer Goop on the brushes after use and before cleaning.

*Wide vs tall again
*Don't make things too human too quickly

*Burt Silverman- I need to look him up.

Brush cleaning-
goop, ivory soap and scrub with one of those soap saver holder thingies, then cheap hair conditioner or The asters brush cleaner.

Art Grind- Marshall's podcast

I restarted the painting three times to get the placement right on the page.
At least I knew to look at the proper placement at the very start. Marshall didn't have to tell me that but he commented he was glad I was aware of the overall placement.

If you're off to a bad start it just can't go well at all.  So if it takes three times to start over... it takes three times. That's the nice thing about oil paint, just wipe it off.

*****

One of the most valuable things I got out of tonight's class is a very strange weird thing, and it had to do with not being able to "see" / resolve the model's eye.

I was in front, so it wasn't a distance thing. Squinting didnt work.  Staring didn't work... i just could not make it out.  She has light grey eyes and there was a large reflection from the spotlight right over her pupil. All the values were the same. I just.... couldn't see it, no matter how hard I tried.

And because of my own vision issues I am always unsure how I am seeing (missing stuff) differently than others... It's something I worry about a lot.

Marshall came over to check how I was doing and I told him I just can't see the eye...and you know what?  From my angle, he couldn't either!! We both really tried. I told him I was wondering if it was my vision and he said no definitely not, it was just at such a weird angle and lighting it wasn't visible.  Which is a weird thing to happen when looking at someone right in front of you.

Anyhow that really made me feel so much better.  I really needed that confirmation. Like honestly this was one of the best things that happened in the class.
Because I do doubt my vision sometimes, and I'm not sure I'm seeing everything.
It comes from... well a life of wacky eyes and not being able to read the board in school and crap like that.

I always worry- how can I be a good painter if I can't see?  Especially working from the live model; it really is so different than working from photos and is the most ideal situation. 

Back at LaG

Today I volunteered for most of the day for the dance senior luncheon at LaGuardia.
It was nice to be back, and this time I didn't have to take ANY stairs!

I can't believe Daya will be a senior next year!!

The Winter Dance Showcase was fantastic!

Doran

Dru and Branwen lost their wonderful cat Doran, so I did a painting for special friends of a special cat.

5x7 oil

Parent Observation- LaG Dance

Parent observation was over zoom.

Ballet was yesterday and modern was today.

Daya looked great.

I did a digital quick sketch but didn't post it anywhere.

I wasn't in a good art groove, this was maybe 30 mins in Procreate.

This is Daya's modern class from today.

The camera quality was really poor so you probably can't spot the huge glaring problem with this picture........

.......Daya isn't in the class.

************

When she got home, I said to Daya, Your modern class looks fun.

She said I guess.  I think we had a sub today.

I said you did not have a sub today.

She said we didn't?

I said No.  It was parent observation day and I was wondering where the heck you were!

To which she replied...I thought that was yesterday.

me: It was yesterday AND today.

she: I did not know that.

What ensued next was an unpleasant conversation about where, exactly she was.

The locker room.

Why?

She said she was feeling "off".

Of course I was concerned and pressed for more details, but it ended up being that she skipped class 

to do homework, I am hoping that's true because it doesn't make a lot of sense.  Dance is the last period of the day and she didn't have dance after school either. It's a bunch of bs if you ask me.

********

Daya has not been managing her time well with homework and she has waited until the very very last minute to do a ton of work. She has missed school AND dance because of it and I am Not Happy.  And I am Not Happy about being lied to.

I mean, it is hilarious that she chose to skip class on parent observation day......... but............

I told her I was going to email her teacher about it, that I wasn't just going to let it go unnoticed.

Daya is VERY VERY angry with me for emailing the teacher.

They have a good relationship though, and the point is not to get Daya in trouble but to give this visibility and not say it is ok to skip class.

Marshall Jones week 2

Week 2 of Marshall Jones... I was so physically uncomfortable last week that I just brought my plein air gear last night instead of using the easels in the room. 

I realized this class is my first time in-person with oil paint and a live model since before covid, and also since my eye surgery.  I have realized that I accommodate my physical space a lot because of my eyes.... or I don't know, maybe the space was ok for everyone else or they didn't mind or whatever but I couldn't deal with it.  My palette was way too low and the back and forth from there to the painting was terrible.

Plein air to the rescue!

I felt I did a little better last night and it's a reminder that I still need so much practice.

It's overwhelming to be honest.

I keep having these thoughts that I'm not really very good even after all these years.

I've been doing so much graphite drawing lately, it's got me in a linear- thinking mode rather than a shape/mass thinking, and I need to rebalance that.

Marshall did some tweaky work on my painting which made it look a lot better, most of it was blending edges. He's a really, really good teacher.

I would not call this a finished painting but this is as far as I got.

**********

The lip structure and the highlight that looked very bright below...

Marshall took 2 sheets of white paper. and put them under the light  One he left flat, one he crumpled then uncrumpled. The un-crumpled paper is an overall darker value than the flat sheet of paper- compare to the forehead vs the intricate lip structure.

This was a super interesting way to describe and think about values in the face.

Marshall made my painting look a lot better, mostly by smoothing my edges.  He told me he used to do a lot of work painting celebrity portraits and most of what he did was smoothing shapes together rather than sticking value piles of paint, which was, in fact, exactly what I had been doing!

I showed him my Loomis/Asaro head app and he was very interested in it and wants to check it out further.

******

In general my eyesight is a real pain in the ass with this stuff and all this time after surgery I'm still finding myself needing to figure it out and physically adjust and compensate to not having multi-focal vision. It sucks.

Marshall Jones Class #1

I’m taking a class this month over the next three weeks, every Tuesday.

It’s an alla prima portrait class with Marshall Jones (@sweetmarshalljones on Instagram)

Last night was the first session and it was great!

My painting definitely was not great but that’s ok, I almost never do good work during class.

Also, my physical space setup was so uncomfortable so next week i’m bringing my plein air gear.

Marshall is a great teacher and one of the reasons I like to take classes is to see how other people work, I always get good insights.

Sometimes they don’t even have anything to do with paint application.

*On painting from photos…. I get really weird about this because 1) i’m a snob and 2) I don’t like using other peoples’ reference unless for a commission and 3) those free photo sites are usually terrible.  It’s true that using photos can introduce a whole lot of problems because of distortion. You have to be selective about the reference.  I also have weird mental hang-ups and self-imposed walls that I havent fully defined to myself, I feel them but don’t know what they are or why there are there.

But the video demo Marshall showed of his painting was from a photo… it was a movie character, I forgot who. And it got me thinking that sometimes I’m too uptight.  I have actually been wanting to do practice portraits from Netflix screenshots, because the lighting is so good and there is no distortion.  Sometimes I getin my own way and it’s a weird mental thing.

*Sometime (often) I need to re-hear things. Things I know but they get other things stacked on top and end up at the bottom of my brain pile.  I got some good reminders.

*Marshall spent most of the time going around to everyone individually.  There was a wide experience range in the class from someone who did their first painting yesterday to experienced people. I really liked this because I have experienced being ignored in classes before because i’m “advanced” and the teacher focuses on beginners.  I do need help and critique.  That’s why I am there.  I don’t go to classes to already be good- I’m there to screw up and be out of my comfort zone and try new things. I liked that Marshall gave me the same attention as everyone else.

Because I am a geek I took some notes, this is here for my reference:

*******

Marshall started with Loomis

Tear duct half way

1/3 hairline/nose/chin

Alizarin
Ultramarine
Sap green
Makes awesome chromatic transparent black

Measure how wide vs how tall

Michael harding emerald green- Marshall’s tube is pretty and i want one

Rembrandt- transparent vs opaque
Undeveloped painting-  let the white of the eye be the cheek color instead of grey

Here is my painting- i really lost focus at the end because there were only 20 minutes left, I was physically very uncomfortable, my palette was different than I am used to and also unorganized, (I cannot work with a disorganized palette!!!) and I knew I was going to wipe the canvas- which at the writing of this post has already happened, thankfully.

I liked it more before I started adding color.  I need so much practice!!!!

Website Woes

I was going to go out yesterday and paint again, but freezing rain stopped that idea.

So I stayed home and did some work on my website, which drove me crazy.

I did find a great solution (also an easy one) but it took me a couple hours to get there.

And then I thought that maybe I should look into a new host… my website is wordpress, I built it…. It’s just a basic site and I have cheap hosting.  I have been getting weird errors and my admin area is slow so I thought…. Maybe I should check out FASO.

So I got a 30 day trial and I want to love it but I don’t.

And I must have some kind of gap in understanding, because a LOT of really big names in the art world have their websites thru FASO… but I thought their site builder was pretty awful to be honest.

Their support guy was ok but not great- as a potential customer I guess I was expecting a little more, especially because this week at work I am in a three day sales conference. And I’m a new prospect!

I might have given up but I remembered that Central Park modeling session with Abigail, where I met another artist named Kristy Gordon who works for BoldBrush.  So I DMd her on Instagram and she put me in touch with the person who promotes FASO.

We have a call scheduled for Thursday.

I remain on the fence and i told him I need help loving FASO because I really don’t, but… I mean, it’s good enough for Jeremy Lipking…… So I remain open to learning something new even though I really don’t like their site builder.  It’s way too limited.

I just think it is worth getting new info about so we’ll see how that goes.

Website building turns me into an insane crazy person and that’s not how I want to spend my 30 day trial,

I’m glad I found someone to talk to, but if not for meeting Kristy Gordon, I would have just given up.

Driprock Arch

We got snow so I had to go outside to paint it.
It was pretty cold, 24F.  

I put on my full winter painting gear and used my rubber-bottom bathroom carpet and it was a huge win.  It made a big difference.

(Someone on a plein air forum said they use one of those foam exercise mats, and i think that’s an even better idea than the carpet so I’m going to get one.)     

8x10 oil, three hours, and I have a buyer for the painting which is a great way to start the year!

Here is a picture taken at home. 

Before starting:

Here are some pictures of Central Park with snow.

Things I Think About

I hate TikTok.

Until Daya and I got new phones last year, I had it banned in my household.

I didn't know that when you get new phones all the parental controls are reset, and that's a battle I lost.
Daya's older now though, and I don't know if she goes on there much anymore.  

But I still hate it, for many, many reasons.

The videos give me anxiety and I think it's because they end and switch right when they start.
It makes my head feel bad in a weird way.

I also think it is completely dumbing down attention span and how people intake information, moreso than other forms of social media. Yes some of them are funny but mostly they are mindless stupid garbage.

Instagram is turning into another TikTok and this is highly annoying to me.  It's actually their new platform model. I just want to see pictures of peoples' paintings.  I don't need to see a 20 second process video that is many hours of work condensed into a few seconds. And that's all there is now, with few exceptions.

So where does this leave the medium of visual art?

Because it seems to me that now the focus isn't on the actual finished painting itself, but a performance of how it was made which isn't even accurate. and half the time the finished result isn't even shown, like it doesn't matter anymore. So now painting is just performance art.

I find this to be highly annoying.  

We can't even look at paintings anymore? And everything is just a concentrated seconds-long show of someone making brushstrokes? It isn't just digital art either, it's ALL of it.

It's annoying and I'm highly grumpy about it.

1|1|22

Another New Year!

My word is THRIVAL.

That's my word, I made it up.
(I think other people also made it up too because I googled it... but it's still mine. Apparently it isn't a "real" word but it should be.)

I want to shift from surviving to thriving.

Time to state my intentions, which I do every year:

1. Drink a lot of tea

2. Paint some pictures

3. Swim regularly

4. Continue and maybe even finish clearing out old stuff in my apartment and making my space nice and refreshed. I have been here a long time (15 years) and it's pretty amazing how things end up sitting around for years. And I need a new couch or couch equivalent.  This is an important time to refresh my space. Life is changing to a new phase.  Daya is 16; she has a year and a half left of high school. So over the next couple of years, I will be entering into a very new Life Phase that I need to prepare for to let everything good in. I feel it coming.  I had wanted to really do this about 4 years ago but honestly I think I couldn't because it just wasn't time yet. This past year (and a little in 2020) I really have been shifting my space in earnest.  So it is going...slowly, but it's going and I might see that accelerated this year.  It's time to prepare and pre-pave the way.

5. This is a new one- I'm doing prints this year.  Giclees. (Archival museum prints) It's time. I'm ready.  I haven't been ready before but I am now. I'm going to start with some Topiary Cats, see how they do. Last year was a pretty ok year for painting being self-funding, and I'd like to continue that trend.

I have a friend who wants to help me with the photography, and I have 2 printers- one is recommended by 2 friends but isn't local. The other reached out to me after I posted my Topiary Cats and they are local.

I still need to compare and check out prices. I have a lot to learn but it is time to start.

*********

Here is the Lee Harris energy update for Jan 2022.

It's interesting that the big theme he says is that this January is not the time to go blazing into action, but it is a time to be introspective and reflective.  This is exactly how I feel, and I was thinking about that even before I listened to the update. I don't feel a big momentum to action right now.  I think this time, especially with the Omicron wave, and winter, is about rest, self-care, and introspection.

********
Over the past couple of days I was thinking it might be good to do daily cards this month, and I had a thought from the recesses of my mind to use the Black Cat tarot.

To be honest I haven't thought about this deck in a whole bunch of years. Seriously. So it's a little odd I thought of it, it literally just popped into my head, which is even more reason to go with it.

Here is today's card, 2 of coins (pentacles) which completely and accurately describes where I have been and how I feel. It's SO RELEVANT.

This isn't a "negative" card. 

Last night I was thinking how I always feel like I'm walking right at the edge of a treacherous cliff.

I have a lot to balance, I have no idea where I'm going, but I haven't fallen off the cliff!

Basically this card describes the state of precariously but successfully balancing resources and being able to handle problems as long as time, energy, and resources are managed well.

I actually think I have been doing pretty ok with that. Maybe more than ok.

Thrival.  I have to shift from survival into Thrival.