Hello!
My proposed endeavor for 30dayartist is to paint 25 sewn canvasses, and 15 other things... a bit of life drawing, and outdoor paintings on paper, etc. I also have several stalled paintings in the studio which may be re-born this month.

So here we have my 25 sewn canvasses, ready for action. You can see that 4 of them are already gesso'd - I had planned to photograph them before I began preparing the surface, but in my eagerness I forgot.




Here they are all primed. I have laid them out on strips of wood so the edges don't touch the floor - to avoid them sticking and/or getting dirty.


I have numbered them for my own reference, but will not be painting them in numerical order; I hope this will not be confusing for viewers.


Canvas #17
ahhhh, yellow.... yellow is a lovely beginning colour.



Then, green.




Canvasses #13 & 14 - Here I began with green, then added yellow. Don't like the effect as much as #17. However, it's only just the beginning, no worries.







My plan with the 25 sewn canvasses is that they will be all worked up more-or-less together over the course of this month. Therefore I will not be neccesarily blogging a completed work every day, but rather taking the viewers through my painting process day by day. Hopefully it will be interesting to follow...

I lost track of the days this week & thought last night was May 31 - I was going to be right on time with my first blog but due to mental confusion I was a day late. *sigh* How typical of me...

My studio is on the 5th floor in a building downtown. The first 3 floors are offices, then the 4th & 5th floors are all artists' studios. The building is very old and has only a heavy-duty freight elevator, so the buisness people won't rent up there where they & their clients would have to climb all those stairs to get to the office.
Consequently the management rents these top floors to artists, who are willing to go to all sorts of lengths & climb great heights in order to indulge their life's passion. I think there are about 20 studios in the building.

I spent an hour & a half drawing from a model in one of the studios down the hall from me last night, then went back to my own space & worked on my wee paintings for a bit.

Unfortunately I can't seem to upload the photos of my life drawings!

At any rate, here is a bit more of the progression of #13 & 14 - the colour looks a too dark in this photo, but you get the idea:


I had begun painting my 25 sewn canvasses with acrylic paints.
Now on these two I have added another layer of yellow, but using oil paint this time. Oil paint is much more luminous than acrylics, I find. The yellow was too solid-looking so I wiped a bit away - you can see the blue/green underneath where I've wiped.



Detail - on my computer the colour here looks fairly accurate.


I will attempt to blog the pics of my life-drawings tomorrow & hopefully it will work then.

verna

Hooray! I figured out a way to post my life drawings!
I changed the file format from jpeg to bmp, just for reference if anyone else is having problems blogging images...

These are the first sketches - 2 minute poses.
I left my guache paints & 60x90cm paper at home, so just grabbed 2 pencils & a ball-point pen plus a small 20x25cm sketchbook and went to the session. At first it was frustrating using these unfamiliar tools to draw. Tried using the pencil but didn't like it. Started using the ball-point pen & didn't like that either, but at least it was better than the pencil.
(I learned to draw with non-erasable tools, figuring that if I can't erase my lines I have a greater chance of learning to get it right.)



This is a detail of the above photo. Real size of this portrait is about 4 x 3cm. You can get quite a fine detail with a ball-point pen!



The drawing on the left was a 10-minute pose & the one on the right, 20 minutes.



This one was also a 20-minute pose.


I have used the photoshop to correct the colour because my photos tend to come out rather darker than the real image. This last one came out yellow-toned & I like the way it looks. Like an old drawing from a century ago, maybe.
The model's name is Melissa.

I did almost nothing but figurative works for maybe 3 years or so. Then, when I got to the point of being able to do it really well, I got bored & stopped. I started painting semi-abstract urban lanscapes instead, & other more purely abstract things.

Except for once last month, it has been almost 5 years since I did any kind of figurative work. That first session was a little frustrating - I had forgotten how to draw hands & feet, and it all felt very rusty & awkward. During the session with Melissa, things seemed to be going a little smoother & I began to remember some of my old habits of drawing the figure.

I am finding that it's fun to re-visit life drawing!

My digital camera has kaputzed. Bummer. Well I do own an ancient, completely manual camera which I haven't used in a long time - this evening I took photographs of my work with it. How lucky to still have this old camera! The cool thing about it is that because it is totally manual it requires no batteries. Ah, the good old days.
I cannot get the film developed until tomorrow, however, so I am posting some pics which I've taken in the last couple of days - at least there will be some visuals, though not what I had hoped to post tonight.
Worked in the studio for almost 7 hours tonight, after a 6-hr shift at my "real" job. Tomorrow I will post updated pictures.



My studio. Well, I say "my" but actually I share it; this is my half.





Canvasses #19-20-21
So far I've been painting my sewn canvasses by covering them completely with layers of colour; here I decided to try a different way. Tonight I added some blue & green & a wee bit of purple. This way of painting them almost negates the textures of the sewn surface & I'm not sure if I like the effect.





Canvas #17 again... kinda liking the way this one is progressing.





This pic from June 2 - all 25 canvasses are now painted to some degree, and 3 of them may be close to finished...!



The plan for tomorrow is to do some outdoor sketching - my boyfriend wants to go fishing in a positively lovely spot he's found, so I'll follow along with my sketchbook. Hmmm.... maybe we could have a picnic too.

alizarin crimson, ahhhh -
there is no red more pure, more clear, more beautiful.




glazed, wiped, dry-brushed




...maybe almost finished

maybe not...

first layer: blue
second layer: yellow & purple watery mix over the blue




Tonight I am very tired. Long day at work. I feel the odd man out in workplace, crazy artist painting in my studio evenings, compulsive making of beautiful objects more important than watching tv.
Don't know the names of movie stars, sit-com shows, brand-name advertisement. Don't care what's on sale. Don't believe the news broadcast is truthful or objective. Pro makeup job.

& the women complain how fat they are, how they hate their bodies. Verna, how do you stay so slim? they ask. I'm neurotic, I answer, excellent calorie-burner. If only they would love their bodies - all humans are beautiful, just look at your hands...
So speaks the crazy artist again: tolerant smiles.


rant rant rant
it's really not like this - well, only sometimes.


Good thing I keep a studio where I can paint & indulge my belief that to focus on the beauty in life is to improve the quality of living.

Ha - well I'm certainly not focussing on the beauty in life at my workplace today! Guess I'm not perfect after all...

& tomorrow is a new day.

this is canvas #26:




Found some green plastic mesh at work & want to try it for texture...
It is now stretched & gesso'd & ready for paint.

Very awkward not havng the digital camera to take more immediate pictures!
Have taken some with the old manual one, just want to finish the film before taking in for processing.
Should have the digital camera back from the sony fix-it shop by friday at latest... can hardly wait.

Ha ha, never would have thought myself so dependant on technological gadgets!


Umm.... maybe I ought to mention that there are more pics of my works - completed works for the most part - at my blog site: vernavogel.blogspot.com