Day Thirty One - FINALE

Leslie of course has arranged for us to end with a flourish, the collages.

30 Paintings in 30 Days, 2015

This month has been an important experience,  I've come to realize how many things I must decline if I am to be in the studio.

Day Twenty Nine - Adieu to Appledom

This will be my last posting for January.  This is my second 30 in 30 event and as last year, a fabulously enriching experience.   Given my physical therapy schedule, I knew before I started that 30 paintings was far too much for me.  Nevertheless, this was a fantastic opportunity to return to the easel after five months of not painting and eight months of not using oils. The support of working with other virtual artists is absolutely enormous.

Since there was a brand new operating system on my computer and a new-to-me camera, for which  there was no time to read the manuals, I was forced to blunder through as best I could.  Time saving in any event.

This last painting was done mostly at my weekly painting workshop, pulling out the traveling oils after a long time.  The apple is a bit fussy, having difficulty understanding the light in a different studio.  The background, as in the other apples still needs something, but I don't know what it is, remnants of an old Bob Dylan song.  But there is an improvement in the plasticity of paint and volume of the apple from the first apple of the Year.

I've made new online friends whose work I plan to follow in this New Year.  Unending thanks to Leslie Saeta who makes this all possible, what a gift we all have in her.

This weekend I am off to the Penland School of Crafts to make glass beads at the flameworking studio for a week.  Although I know I should devote myself to only one endeavor,  I haven't been able to give up the glass, which is so seductive.

Apple Eight
Oil  on Gessoed Paper  6" x 6 "

Fond regards to all my painting pals, see you online soon.

Day 25 Sunday - Back to One

Really exhausted by the multiple apple exercise, it was a relief to return to the single apple today.  I decided to work on the shadow inspired by Jiyoung Kim's wonderful Crescent painting of yesterday.

The shadow didn't turn out to be the star, but the apple has a presence that I like.  It was easier than the previous apples so the work in Carol Marine's exercise has paid off.

Apple Seven

Oil on Gessoed Paper 6" x 6"

Day Twenty Four - My Days at the Apple Factory are Numbered

Today in finishing this sheet I decided to mix the violet rather than use the transparent and expensive cobalt violet.  Also decided to make the brush marks less aggressive to see that result.

What I have learned from this exercise is that the apples can be painted more swiftly if there are individual brushes for colors and values.  One for the apples, another for the shadow and yet another for the background.

What else I have learned has yet to be revealed.  It's ironic that in another week I'll be at a glass beadmaking workshop where the work is repetitive and progress is measured over a period of time.

Carol Marine's Ten Minute Apple Exercise
Oil on Gessoed Paper  3" squares

Day 23 - More Ten Minute Apples a la Carol Marine

This is a new page of ten minute apples.  The previous set of apples ( see the post before last)  was left unfinished at the suggestion of a fellow artist.  We both like it that way, still not sure why.

This time the background is a warm color which I was fighting it while painting, because the cobalt violet is so transparent.  The previous apples utilized a tube of London Winsor Newton cobalt violet, which may be student grade, and opaque. This time a very old tube of Grumbacher (circa 1968) with absolutely beautiful pigment.  In the last two squares I added titanium white for opacity.   I think I'll mix the violet and save the Grumbacher cobalt violet for later. Who knows if it can even be purchased anymore.

Just finished watching Wet in Wet painting video by Michael Chesney Johnson which inspired the use of black, a forbidden color.  It looked so easy to gray a pigment when he painted, I couldn't resist.  So with totally illicit feelings I pulled out my Mars Black and quickened the painting process.

Ten Minute Apple Exercise
Oil on Gessoed Paper,  3" squares

Day 22 - Figure Drawing

A new event here, figure drawing once a month.  Had to set the apples aside for that.  And what a surprise a mother with a 10 month old baby who was stunned by all the attention, not a peep out of him for two hours.  The poses were short.  I wish I could have captured the endearing facial expressions, so fleeting, only a few seconds.

Pastel Pencil 

I was delighted to meet a group of young women who come to this rural area to serve as interns on the local organic farms, one from as far as Sweden.   They jokingly are planning a reality show called "Interns of the South Toe" (which is the name of our mountain stream, a good part of the humor).

Day 18 - Ten Minute Apple a la Carol Marine

In her new "Daily Painting" book,  Carol recommends an exercise that entails ruling a paper off into 2 or 3 inch squares and painting an apple in each with a time limit of ten minutes.  She said that progress will be seen.  Well I saw progress in the first three apples, when the fourth looked liked an olive I stopped.  More tomorrow.

Another person in this challenge confessed that she took fifteen minutes for each apple while doing this exercise.  I premixed much of the paint, but I did hold to the ten minutes.  However using my phone as a timer didn't really work.  As the screen went blank I kept poking it, soon it was covered in paint.  Who has a clock these days?   So I hit upon this art project made by son many years ago.  Just perfect for timing apple paintings.