Thaneeya McArdle 30day Artist of March'06
PROFILE
A little about me: I'm 26 and I have a BFA in Studio Art. I enjoy a wide range of art, from abstraction to photorealism. The most common element in any of my art, regardless of style, is detail. I love detail. (You'll soon see.) Lately I've been developing a new series of artworks that combine photorealism and abstraction - a combination that I'm finding quite fun and liberating!
Today's been a sheepful day. I've been working on two different paintings with sheep in them. Both are still works in progress. Like a true Gemini, I tend to work on several different pieces at once. So to make things easier, I'll number each one as I go along to keep better track, since they'll be popping up again and again until they're finished!
Artwork #1 is the fifth in my recent Synchronal Variety series. So far I've got a little lamb amidst green clovers. You can see the reference photo I'm working from in this picture. Also you can see the messy wall where I paint! Tomorrow I hope to finish the lamb and also finish the top yellow-orange section. You can see a little bit of my process here. I start with three sections, different colors, slightly different textures. Then I usually work on the background of the middle section, filling it with some kind of pattern or motif. Usually by this time I have some idea of which animal I'll paint, and what the overall look of the painting will be. I plopped the lamb right on top of the green, and you can still see some of the green peeking through the lamb's chest area. When working on the body, I quickly brushed in some paint to create depth and form, and then I started going over it in more detail, starting with the head. I'll provide a close-up shot when I'm finished. This painting is 18" x 24", acrylic on canvas.
Artwork #2 is 6" x 6" acrylic on masonite. As in Artwork #1, there is a lot of texture in this piece. I used a generous amount of Light Modeling Paste. I love that stuff! It makes blending acrylics a lot easier. This painting features a realistically painted sheep head, with a colorful abstract body. The body kind of reminds me of a funky retro sweater. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with the background. Something abstract. I hope to finish this one tomorrow.
So that's my first day of March in a nutshell!I just noticed Ming's post about the time zones. I'm in EST and I'll probably be posting every night around 9 or 10pm my time. Just FYI!
I meant to finish the small sheep painting today. Sometimes things don't work out the way you would like, when you would like. And that's okay.
The weather has gotten so nice that I've taken to sitting outside with my colored pencils for several hours during the daytime. It's nice and peaceful. I sit on a lawnchair under the sun, with lizards for company. The lizards can be distracting because they are fun to watch. There were three today that seemed to be paying attention to me. At times they looked right at me, which made me wonder how aware lizards are of their surroundings. I also had a visit from a ladybug.
But anyway, that's not why you called. Here's what I was working on while I was outside. I started this drawing a few days ago. A rooster, 6" x 6" done with Prismacolor Colored Pencils. I am almost done with the rooster, so next I've got to focus on the background. The first pic shows a scan of the drawing. I stopped right before finishing him because I wanted to show a little bit of the process. The area marked #1 is the part that is the least finished. I don't know how well you can see it, but what I do is lightly mark in the light spots and dark spots. Then, as you can see in the area marked #2, I go over with more layers of color. This section isn't quite done yet either. So I will keep going over and over it again with more colors until it looks done.
The background right now is very blank. I am thinking it will involve Japanese math. You'll see! So this Artwork #3.
Now here is a picture of the drawing taped to the wall, along with the reference photo:
After dinner I started working on the small sheep painting again. What to do with the background was my big conundrum. Then I started thinking about the background of the rooster drawing, which will involve very esoteric-looking Japanese math equations. So I decided to start these artworks as a new series, involving animals and random esoterica. Deep Thinkers will be the title of this series. I want to paint and draw realistic animals in front of abstract backgrounds, similar to what I've been doing in my Synchronal Variety series, only these backgrounds will involve complicated mathematical formulas, academic quotes, philosophical queries. Well, not all of them. I'd like to make the animals appear to be thinking about simple things too, like cake or candy.
Anyway enough rambling. Here's what I've done with the sheep painting (Artwork #2)
Not sure how I feel about the color of the background. It's kind of a dirty yellow. I added some geometric shapes, as well as colored circles. Next I'm going to add a layer of text, and maybe that will make me like the background color more. If not, I can always paint over it. Now I swear I'll finish this one tomorrow!
I woke up today at 7am, which is abnormally early for me. I was restless and couldn't sleep, which means I also couldn't concentrate very well after I got up. So I spent most of the morning taking care of business stuff, then after a cat nap I was ready to tuck into some art.
As tempted as I was to go outside again with my colored pencils, I felt I should stay inside and start finishing up some of these loose ends. I finished Artwork #2.
For the background I decided to go with a section from the dictionary defining theoretical, theoretician, and theoretics. I blew up the dictionary definition so that you can't really read too much of it, but you get the gist. And all the words that do show are rather abstract in meaning. I painted the words in with black and then went over it with a metallic copper. You can see the nice effect of the copper better in this photo:
So to recap, here is how this painting evolved over the past three days:
Artwork #1, the lamb painting, is coming along nicely. I finished the lamb:
But I think tomorrow I'll paint in some green blades of grass underneath him. I also finished the top section:
So this painting should be done tomorrow. I'm pretty happy with it. I need to come up with a design for the bottom maroon part. I spent a lot of time today looking at it and doodling designs in my sketchbook, but nothing struck a chord yet.
Lastly, I started a set of floral abstracts. These are Artworks #4-6, acrylic on masonite, 9" x 12".
They don't look like much at present, but when they're done they'll be funky and colorful. So it's been a busy day and productive after all!
Has it really been 4 days already? I guess so! I finished the sheep painting today (Artwork #1).
I need to take a better picture of it in better lighting, so I'll do that tomorrow and repost it in all its glory. The color is kinda screwy in this photo, thanks to indoor lighting, and Photoshop can only color correct to a certain extent. I must say I'm very pleased with this painting.
I also worked on the set of three floral abstracts (Artworks #4-6). I tried to take better photos of them, but again ran into the indoor lighting problem.
I hope to have these finished tomorrow, or near finished. When working on these floral abstracts, I build the flowers color by color. I have all three panels in front of me and I squeeze out a certain color and use that color on each of the three panels, then I add some white and add that new color to each panel, etc. Then when I'm out of that color, I squeeze out another color. And so on. It is repetitive and my deepest concerns are centered on what color to put where and in what shape. It's really a rather intuitive process, based on my personal preference of color palettes and my knowledge of how the colors will interact. So in a sense I can zone out a bit more when doing these paintings than I can when working on a realistic painting. Since I've been spending a lot of time lately on realism and composite realism, which require a lot of thinking and concentration, I've been enjoying the mental respite that these abstract paintings can provide. It's nice to create paintings that are just pure fun.
It's 9:30 pm now. I think I'll go clean up and maybe resurrect the rooster drawing I first showed you two days ago. I think I'm done painting for the night. As much as I enjoy it, my mind and body can only take so much. It's funny that when I'm sick of painting, I can still switch tracks and work on a drawing. I think it's that I find drawing to be so much more intimate, cause it's just me curled up with the paper and the pencils.
I took a better picture of the finished sheep painting today (Artwork #1). Still have to come up with a title for this one!
I also made a digital piece titled Maestro (Artwork #7). I created the piece by scanning a drawing of one of my whimsical creatures into Photoshop, then playing with the background. The sheet music is a composition by Beethoven, although I don't recall which one. I like the expression of this creature, and the way he's chewing on the stem of the daisy, as if he's mentally conjuring some masterful new compositions. I played around with giving him some color, but I think I like him better in black and white. I think it makes the piece more powerful.
And I also worked on the aforementioned three floral abstracts (Artworks #4-6). They are coming along, almost finished, and definitely will be finished tomorrow. I present them here in the same order I showed them yesterday:
I will be working on the rooster drawing (Artwork #3) tonight while watching the Oscars. I normally don't care about the Oscars, but I like Jon Stewart and I'm in the mood to veg (whilst being productive, of course). I picked out a page from a Japanese math textbook which I will be incorporating into the piece. I'd like to have some other patterns incorporated into the piece, so I'll have to do some sketching and brainstorming on that. I need to get a new pencil sharpener. The blade on the 80-cent one I got from Target is kinda wonky and gets pushed out of alignment and stops working. I have an electric pencil sharpener but I prefer the simpler handheld variety. I like my sacapuntas to be portable, for easy outdoor use.
And on that exciting note, I will catch you again tomorrow!
Today I finished the three floral abstracts (Artworks #4-6) I've been working on. I decided not to even attempt to take pictures of them now, knowing that the indoor lighting situation will cause them to look unsatisfactory. So I'll wait until tomorrow's post to show you how they turned out.
I finished adding the Japanese math to the rooster drawing (Artwork #3):
I did the text in dark green and made the middle background a layer of canary yellow.I still want to add another pattern layer to the middle section... still don't know what yet! Then there will be a 1/4" burnt orange decorative border along 3 edges, and some kind of something on the left side. Again, I don't know what. When I work in this style of art, I usually trust that inspiration will hit me at some point, with the right elements to put where. I try not to force things. If I feel stuck, I move onto something else. Usually the artwork sort of reveals itself at a time when I'm receptive enough to take notice. The blank strip along the left edge is 1" x 6". So not very big... I keep seeing circles. Something crimson. And cerulean. I was thinking of a column of clocks, showing the times in different time zones... but I don't know if that would fit. It would certainly fit in with the numbers theme. If not clocks, maybe rocks? I have some small stones that I picked up from the beaches in Hastings and Brighton. Small and smooth. Maybe I could have symbols on the rocks, like runes. Actually I don't think that would fit well enough to look good either, so I'll have to save that idea for another piece.
I also started a photorealistic still life. This piece is a commission from a collector. She sent me a box of toys and I arranged them and took lots of photos of different compositions for her to choose from. She wants two paintings, and this is the first one. This is the very first layer, the underpainting if you will.
She wants the background bright, bold, and colorful, in tandem with another still life of mine that she owns. As you can see in this scan, I started out experimenting with a bright orange background. I found that with the shadows, it kinda went blah because there's already so much red in the piece. So what's the complement of orange? I went over the orange with a light blue, and immediately the piece looked better. I'm not sure how I feel about the bright green foreground. I think I may darken it just a tad. Make it a bit more green than such a greenish-yellow. So anyway, this is what the first layer of my photorealistic paintings usually look like. The colors and ideas are quickly painted in, to establish their presence and relationships with one another. Next comes the details, one by one.
After having spent the last couple of days doing abstract stuff, it feels good to be doing realism again. The difference between working on abstract art and realist art is like using two different sides of my artistic brain. One is immaculate and careful almost to the point of scientific precision, while the other side is free-spirited and flamboyant and sometimes messy. I need both sides, I could never do just one type or style of art. Switching from one style to the other keeps me fresh.
Here's those pics of the completed floral abstracts, as well as the work-in-progress shots...
Artwork #4
Artwork #5
Artwork #6
I'm not sure how well shows in these photographs, but my final step was to add some metallic highlights in silver, gold, copper, and turquoise. They add a nice reflective quality which makes these paintings seem even more festive.
I worked a little on the photorealistic toy still life that I introduced yesterday (Artwork #8). I finished the light blue background and shadow as well as the head and blue hat of the wooden toy sitting on the Play-Doh. I hope to finish this piece tomorrow.
I also worked on another whimsical digital piece using one of my doodles as a starting point. This is Artwork #9.
No deep meaning here, just a bit of quirky fun. I got to use my Japanese math again. I like how the thought bubble means that you can see his thoughts, but when you look at his thoughts, you realize you're not really sure what he's thinking. Or why. Or what he's doing hiding behind some leaves in front of a bunch of bamboo. So the thought bubble purports to provide a window, but what does it really reveal?
So I've made it through one week so far blogging as a 30 day artist! It is strange to sit down every night and recap on the art that I've done throughout the day. Usually I just make art and then forget about it, I don't dwell too much on what I've done... instead I'm always looking ahead and thinking of what I'd like to do next, what I'd like to do tomorrow, what I'd like to do someday. I feel like I'm always gathering ideas for the future. There will never be enough time to manifest all the ideas I have in my head... but I guess endless inspiration is a blessing.
