The Intuition

Ink: Private Reserve Black Cherry

The boats are out!
As the weather turns warm, I like to sit outside and draw the boats in the marina.  Boats fascinate me, from the lowliest kayak to seafaring giants.

Anything that will take you somewhere, really.  Boats, planes, trains, etc, etc.  You get inside, and it takes you somewhere.  Trains don't stand still long enough to draw them and planes, well, the TSA wouldn't like me loitering in airports...

So I draw the boats in the marina.

Easter Painting WIP

Second pass on the painting I started last week.  (Missed it?  Here's the post.)
It's coming together pretty well, I think.  I introduced two new colors and added some depth to the mug/coaster situation.  The handle's a bit wonky, but I can fix that after it dries completely.  Don't like your acrylic painting?  Wait ten or twenty minutes and paint over it.

If you're wondering about my weird paint palette, it is a Fage yogurt lid.  Funny story about that...

I have spent literally hours of my life, possibly even days, scraping paint off a glass palette just to put more paint on it.  One day I got so fed up with it that I grabbed a clear tub lid out of my recycling bin and used that instead of spending another hour in the sink with the glass palette that I'd come to despise.

The yogurt lid worked like a charm, and when it got too cruddy to continue using, I tossed it out and got another.  I still have a bunch of them hanging around, but I've since stopped buying yogurt because dairy isn't Paleo.

So what can I use that is similar to a Fage yogurt lid without buying yogurt...

Clear plastic disposable plates.  The best disposable palette money can buy is 40 cents a pop at most grocery stores.  Take that, "palette paper" pads.


--

Now, it's Easter, and I love everything about peeps except eating them.  Sugar coated sugar with so much food coloring you can actually taste it?  Really?  Why do I like these things?  I usually buy one pack, eat three or four of them, and toss the rest out.  This year, I got a tiny peep plush instead.  He's so nice.  He even stands up on his own.

When I went to move my hydrangea off the glass table (I buy them every year... love the smell) before I could start painting, I noticed a funny lump on the outside of the pot.  I pulled back the paper and found a little green shoot there.

There's a secret daffodil growing out of the hole on the bottom of the pot!  I have never seen a plant do this before.

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you're having a wonderful holiday.  If you don't, there's no reason not to enjoy the chocolate!  

I'm Alive! + Painting WIP

Greetings!  

I started a new painting... in acrylic!  I'm going to do a second pass in acrylic with my limited palette, and then finish it in oils to add depth and interest.  It's obvious enough that it's a painting of a coffee cup on a thing with an abstracted background, but my end goal isn't quite so straightforward.  You're just going to have to check back later and see what I do with it.  ;) 

This is the first "direct" painting I've done in a long time; I normally fall back on the Venetian technique.  It's also the first acrylic painting I've done in a long time.  You can tell how much love I've given my acrylics by the fact that I'm still using the long discontinued Finity line.  I also purchased these before I learned enough about pigment to know that Naples Yellow is a pointless color.

Exactly a week ago, I rediscovered my acrylic paints in the middle of a spring cleaning escapade and wondered if I shouldn't just throw them out. I'd become an oil paint convert partway into art college and hadn't touched acrylic since... but then I remembered why I bothered investing in a full set of artist grade acrylic paints in the first place.

It dries in ten or twenty minutes.  It cleans up with plain soap and water.  It handles best with cheapo nylon paintbrushes that I don't need to care about destroying.  I can finish a painting in one sitting if I want to, and if I make a mistake, I just wait for it to dry and paint over it.

I decided to keep the acrylics.

Now, here's why I've been off the artistic grid for so long.
Last fall, I transitioned from working part time with no commute to full time with an hour commute each way, and it has actually taken me these past several months to arrive at a time management routine wherein I can get all the "domestic stuff" done and still have time for my personal pursuits.

I stopped painting because oil paint takes forever.  By the time I set up, it's almost time to put it away again.  Cleanup takes twice as long as setup, and then there's the drying time.  Considering the lack of winter daylight and the fact that I now typically get home from work around 6:30-7pm, I just plain didn't have time for that.  

I got so wrapped up in my love of oils that I forgot why I'd initially foregone them for acrylics.  With a simple change of medium, I suddenly have time to paint again.  (Although daylight savings time also helps.)