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Sunday, June 15/25
Online videos are useful when not able to attend live workshops elsewhere in the world. I am using the Mastrius artist platform to watch David Langevin painting in layers of transparent paints. He is thinking way ahead to the final effects while still painting in the first layers. In transparents, that counts. So does years and years of practice until it is instinctive. So - more practice and more thinking intensely about the layers to get to the end. Wednesday, June 19/25 Lots of painting practice is a good theory, but my life is still filled with garden and house fixes that are apparently more urgent, even if not more important. Not one minute of painting since I watched David's amazing painting video. Maybe I can block out some time on Sunday...
Just in time - friends were threatening to do an intervention to save my art show project. This is "Cariboo Esker" 24x48" in acrylic (so far) on a recycled canvas. I am mostly using palette knives and fairly thick acrylic. I have horizontal lines at 5, 8, 7 and 4 inches from the top to show sky, land, shoreline reflection, and sky reflection. I am having fun with the palette knives and fast drying paint. At 33C. and negative humidity outside, it is extremely fast drying today even though I am in an air conditioned studio. On hold until I get back to them: - "Monarch Migration" - Glaze over the whole with a cool toned veil again to distance the landscape. - When dry, paint the monarch butterflies in bright sharp oranges and blacks. - "Milking Heidi" - Correct the shading to make Heidi look skinny like a milk cow with new calf. - Improve the milkman but not worry about whether he looks like my brother-in-law. - several supports that need gesso or sanding to be ready for their turn in the studio.
Aaahhhhh! 18 days without painting a single stroke, and it is only more 3 days until my next Art Coach phone consult. However, I now have a lovely garden. The heavy spring garden work is done with the help of some husky young neighbours. Starting tomorrow a wonderful garden elf is coming weekly to maintain it. One more day of yard details and social distractions, then onward to paint and brushes.       This weekend is reserved for a 3-day 'intense solo art workshop' in my own art studio at home!
So many paints, so many canvases, so many photo references, so many art books, so many art videos! Meals are already organized and I get to sleep in my own bed. Perfect! Now I know why so many paintings show people facing away from the viewer. I was trying to make the farmer in "Milking Heidi" look more like my brother-in-law. After 3 hours of revisions on that one inch square of the painting, I decided Leonardo was brilliant: "What! You say the face does not look like the Duke? Who will know in 500 years!"
I am not even going to post the photo of how "Milking Heidi" looks now. Even Heidi's other end does not look as good today :( Maybe I will call this picture a 'study' and start over on the real one.
   Maybe getting better. When I started today, the painting looked kind of dull coloured. I wanted to change the lemony yellow trees and dull grasses to a richer gold with more texture and darker shadows.
Oops - now improve the highlights in the trees, get the autumn gold tint back, make some variation in the vertical green line between the grassland and poplar grove. Try not to wreck the painting when it is almost done. Now let it dry and see if it is finished yet ... I am trying not to over-blend the colour patches this time. Better, but faces are really difficult. The slightest colour change or dot makes a huge difference to the expression and mood. This guy might never look like my brother-in-law. However, the cow thinks 'the more colour changes and dots and smudges the better.' One more layer needed to bring it closer to the reference photo (1st image below): - darker and skinnier cow, - shading on the guy's face and back. Tomorrow.    
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