Not many new things really...

The weather today has been fantastic. And guess what? Instead of going in the garden and enjoying myself I stayed at home, doing work on my boards and spending hours in front of the computer. Don't get me wrong, I love my friends but this weather wasn't for miss. Especially after the horrendous floods in the South, but anyway I missed it.

On the painting front there has been only one word and it is- fear ir maybe hesitation.I have always been hesitated to start, scared to paint. I have been procrastinating for over a week, finding excuses, but from tomorrow, I promise, things will change! I promise!;)

I am posting the "finished" picture of the last bird. It looks rather red which is from the camera, but I admit I did't like the end result massively. I do not think that this glazing technique can be done successively with acrylic.

So my next step is to do the same birds in acrylic, but up to the glazes. The glazing I shall do in oil.

Pics

Hello to all who have been reading my bloggie. I finaly came around to transfering the pictures from my camera to my PC so here they are.

Here I've painted a robin using just titanium white and burnt umber. This style of painting is called " grisaille". I am pleased with the result but have decided to leave it like that as I think the "colouring" will ruin it. I have drawn the robin from a picture taken by my brother-in-law who is a keen birdwatcher and a photographer. http://www.blueskybirds.co.uk/ If you want to use some of his pictures for non comercial use, please feel free to contact him. Otherwise he will be more than happy to sell you an image. He is very much against piracy on the net. That's why I am using only his pictures as I hope to sell some of paintings in the futute. He assured me that birdwatchers know almost all of the published images and I don't want to get into copyright troubles.

Enough talking, here's the robin.






From what I've read what is important for a good old masters' grisaille is that the light comes from a single source and this picture was ideal for that.


Right. So here's my second attempt. The original picture is just beautiful. Here is the unfinished painting of a bird, I think it's a finch but I am not sure.
You can see that I am a bit cautios but not as precious as with the robin. I think that most of the bird paitings will work best in alla prima but I feel more confident this way. I shall see how things will turn out in the fiture.




It looks a bit " dry" but it is still unfinished. I do not like photorealism but I enjoy trying it on these pics.

My next one will be a lovely dog for a change. I have a beautiful picture.

Acrilyc-what a nightmare!

Oh well. After many years painting in all kinds of mediums I finally tryied the acriliyc. How shall I describe it? It feels like having to light a cygarette while driving a bicycle for the first time. It is that awful! I mean you have to work that quick! It can almost give you a heart attack. I prefer it to oils though. I can not stand the smell of any organic solvents nowadays....
You can see the result in my first grisaillle soon. I am thinking of exploring some "waterbased OIL colours!. If That's not a miracle of physics then I am a bad scientict! Well, I am.

Really, really cold feet. First grisaille

I got such cold feet that I decided to rethink the whole concept of going back to painting as therapy as thought in the beginning. I am not going to post too many details what went through my mind but in short: there will be a change of plan. I am going back to what I know how to do well- painting icons and in the meanwhile I will experiment with being a painter. I do not have the nessesary drive as Paul (http://www.learningtosee.co.uk/) to immerse myself in it fully. In the end I am a conservator and this is what I love best! I would love to have the opportunity to get BACK to conservation but while this IF BS (That's for the sworn to secresy ladies) lasts I will try and be creative. I do not want to get discouraged (don't need this emotion at the moment) so I am going to stick with the icons.

I did my first grisaille little paiting today. Or just the intial stage after this http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=794 and I must say it produces rather satisfying results. Remember I concider myself "color lame". Nut sure such expression exists, but here you go. My bulgarian addition to the English language.

I shall post it later when I figure out how to do it.

Preparations

Still having cold feet, but getting better. As my DH said- "there is nothing which you can't do when you have set your mind to do it". I asked if that was a compliment, or observation. He said : "an observation", I replyed : "Thank you for the compliment.". That was so uplifting.

I have gessoed my hardboards with simple acrilic gesso. I've decided not to use the canvas I brought from Bulgaria. Stretching it and painting on it would have been more stressful for me as I would have thought that I had to produce some " Chédeuvre artistique" and that would have frustrated me even further. So I'd better leave it aside for now.

I keep getting my inspiration from Paul's website http://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/ and waiting for him to reply to my last 2 emails......I hope he is not finding me intruding.

Here's a website which confirmed to me that there was nothing wrong with me or my aversion to painting but how bad my teachers were. http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/08/05/frank-reilly/

I hope to find some instructions on how to proceed in the way Paul has because I like being methodical and I know that there aren't many steps one can miss along the way.

My books from Amazon haven't arrived. Getting anxious.

Cold feet

Oh gosh, where do I start?
It took me a while to sort out how to post this one, before realising that I needed to LOGG IN first! Dou! I need to clear my mind of everything that is going on and to concentrate on what lays ahead and what I need to do in order to achieve my “goal”. What is my goal? I’d like to learn to paint good, sound still-life paintings and/or pet portraits and/or babies/children as an ultimate expression of myself as an artist. I think those 3 are easy comparing to the fine art of doing life portraits, like these: http://www.williamwhitaker.com/.

I have to keep reminding myself:

1. I need to learn more about values (tones)
2. I need to learn how to underpaint.
3. I need to learn about colours and their application over the underpainting.

After reading for a week or so on different forums I feel totally overwhelmed. No one ever taught us about Mussel values, the importance of tone and its relation to the colour. I doubt that most of them actually knew the theory behind it. We were taught that it came "from the inside". I got the idea that one needed to be touched by the Gods to know how to paint properly. That it came with lots of work but kind of by itself. We have been taught that art had nothing to do with craft and couldn't be taught as such.
Off topic: I am so angry with our educational system and all the incompetent teachers, most of whom in my view now were failed painters.
The only person I am grateful for teaching me properly is Ludmil Bonev (http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Bonev_Ludmil_399952609.aspx). He taught us in a simple no nonsense way how to draw portraits from life. In pencil/charcoal. This was the only person whose classes I actually enjoyed. The other one who was interesting but didn't teach us a bit of theory was Vihroni Popnedelev. An interesting painter who turned out to be more interested in flirting with his pupils than teaching us how to paint. I guess he had more things to prove on the ladies' front. I hear he has become a "Professor" now. That's enough ranting for now.....

It feels overwhelming to start from scratch though . It will not be totally from scratch but after reading this wonderful site http://www.learning-to-see.co.uk, it feels I have a log way to go. And I do NOT want to do it. But on the other hand I know there is no other way and indeed there is no shortcut.

The other website which made me rethink my "idea" to come back to painting was this one: http://forum.portraitartist.com/. There are some really amazing artists and I felt really overwhelmed, encouraged (by what they've achieved starting relatively later in life) and discouraged at the same time (from the amount of knowledge, practise and above all achievements they had).

Maybe I should change my priorities as follows:

1. Take one day at a time and do not think about the "goal", which ultimately is to support myself by painting.

2. Think about what lays ahead for today. For ex. today my goal was to gesso some boards and get ready to start.

3. Start by doing simple exercises and aim to do them as best as you can. For ex- learning the values. I need to get hold of a good book to do that first.

Well, I am off to the library and see if I can order A. Loomis's book on illustration, as recommended by Paul.

First posting

Hello to my readers from the sunny UK. (Yes, you've read it correctly!)
I am probably not a great person to start a blog, as English is my second language but will try and do this here as I want to be able to follow my progress in the art of still-life painting. I am starting this blog in order to try and focus on my creative side while dealing with this horrible IF BS. I hope that this pursuit will give me back the joy of life, the passion for art and the satisfaction from an achievement. Thank you for reading and any comments will be appreciated!!!