Painting Projects Done for 2011

Okay, finally got the painting projects done.  Back room done in a goldenrod I picked up at a garage sale.  I was surprised when Dan didn't want it mixed with a white base to lighten it.

When we got done it resembled a Chinese restaurant.  I had some gold paint, so decided to fix those big, empty closet doors.  Dan liked it so much, he had me do more on the blank walls with the north window.  Now it looks like a grove in here.  I was going to do small birds or doves, but we thought with the gold paint it was fancy enough.

It's just fast and freehand, but it is rather like reading in a grove before we turn out the lights.

Who's in charge here? Me or the house?

For anybody wondering why I am not plugging ahead on art and stuff as fast as usual, I am a home-owner, and it is summer.

Before it rains, much maintenance must be done. Including getting six years’ worth of dandelions out of the yard and replacing it with the white dutch clover that will crowd out the grass, which cannot survive without extra water. The clover will hold available water, including dew, in the soil. It is also very low-growing, and never produces hard stems that our reel mower can’t handle. It stays soft and low, and offers masses of nectar to bees and other insects.

Yesterday, Nearest ripped out the back porch stairs and I whipped in a new set — and was wiped for the rest of the day. I can do anything I did as a kid, but it takes longer and longer to recover. Even got the walking surfaces on the steps and stairs stained and weatherproofed, so we can hit the rest when we can and not be held up using the steps. Today I traded off pulling weeds if Nearest would get the rest of the porch painted, or enough to make it look Intentional.

I have many art- and publishing-related things to do once the rains close in, but for now we’re racing the sun like vampire-hunters.

Next year’s whole plan is to fix one corner of the house’s siding, clean off all this moss, get rid of these stupid shutters the previous owner put on, and paint the whole outside.

Maybe, if I can, I can pull up all the yard tiles, lay down the plastic the neighbors ripped out of their dead swimming pool, and then re-lay the tiles. The previous owner went to the trouble to make and lay these tiles; why lose them?

Earlier this spring, ripped up and re-built the shed floor, built a scrap greenhouse. And got in all the winter’s wood.

I’m almost summered out, I tell you what.

How I Use Color

Another artist visiting my Deviantart page -- who usually uses a computer to color -- asked how I handled hand colors. I thought this answer belonged in the creator blog:

"Hm. Well, the obvious answer is practice. I picked out a close range of cool colors and a cool brown. That way it didn't get too noisy.

I don't think much how I do things any more; over 50 years of practice has dumped all the process into the hands and lizard brain.

Negative space is nice -- don't fill up too much, leave some air.

My color sense comes from a lazy brush style. I never used a palette when painting with acrylics -- I mixed on the brush, a bit at a time, and "cleaned" a brush by sprinkling the color across the painting, binding the design together, sometimes just wiping the brush dry on a cloth before tipping the brush in the next tube. I would slightly roll part of the brush in one tube, and part in the next, being careful not to muddy the tube. Then I had a mixed color that wasn't too smooth; there were flashes of both colors suggesting the final impression of color. My own version of pointilism or impressionism, I guess.

I'd choose 3 or four colors for the painting, maybe add some touches of others at the end. A small selection of flat brushes, whose corners I used like chiseled rounds.

It partly came from wanting ease of travel. Three small tubes, a couple brushes, a rag, a canvas -- ready to go.

It ended up forming my color use and eye."