after mulling things over and looking. More looking. Pondering and then a critique from my husband (who is not an artist but has a really good eye for art), I decided I needed to change the background.  It just wasn’t working and would definitely not work with the flute and horn players. so now they will appear as it they are about to make a bit announcement.  I have only just started making this adjustment as you would think this will entails some adjustment of the drummer figure as well as the background.  So far I have only worked on the background.  Think this is going to work!

At the moment I am concentrating on Still Life subjects as with 100f weather outside, indoor work is the only viable option. Drummer will a series of 3 with a different character for each painting but with the same background. It will be interesting to see how different the pictures will appears with the same background. Presumably, although the colours of the background will be similar, the tone will be different due the colour of the ornament. Any way here is the finished Drummer Whilst working on the drummer, I was looking up info on different palettes and different coloured grounds to start with. The typical ground to start with is a brownish one with burnt Umber and white mixed together.  However, I came across a painter who used black with a very limited palette – 6 colours plus white.  This suited my plans as one of my problems with Drummer was my control over tone- often I just ended up with mud.  So using the black ground and a limited palette , I worked on the following paintings.

My first mistake with both paintings – they were too small!   The bird is about 6×4 and vase with flowers ,is about 8×6.  Just because the subject matter is small, I have learnt, don’t assume you need a small work surface.  It made me way too fussy, getting lost in the detail and not seeing the whole.  That is why the vase is still floating in the air.

I liked working on these though as working black on black, I really had  to work hard to define the objects and think about the tones.  I don’t think I was completely successful but I was close.  Hopefully the next in the drummer series, will be more successful.

For me this is a good effort, hopefully it will become a daily practice with my new work schedule next week.  From next week I will only be working 4 hrs instead of 8 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Plus my shift on Thursday I have altered my shift to 4-8 like Tues and Weds.  Hopefully the regularity  will help me to keep focus.  Also I need to explore different themes in the evening.  When I was at college, I combined observation with my personal feeling plus graffiti. At the time it was a natural progression in my work and I was full of angst then.  These days my life has flatlined so much, it hard to have any feelings about it all.

the coffee table which I can see as I watch tv at night

I was walking through Gillieland Park, Pflugerville and it was last school day before summer. In the car park there were several school buses waiting as the kids spend the day in the swimming pool.

A five min drawing as we walk along the trail at Lake Georgetown

A short stop as I walked Angus, our dog

Not a flattering view but until the phone went, Gordon was pretty still as he slept on the sofa after work.

Since my last post I have been struggling to get to grips with drawing. In that effort I have scoured my books and done a few exercises  but nothing really helps other than to keep drawing.  The one thing I have learnt is that I cannot drawing a straight line to save my life. However that appears to be the least of my problems.  Hereare a couple of examples:
this was an exercise from ‘drawing on the right side of the brain’ using a plastic view finder where you draw directly on the plastic and then you transfer the image to your paper. Its a bit of a cheat really. I have tried using the view finder before where you place in front of you and translate the image you see onto paper. I cannot work with it.

This one was about working with negative space which was fine for the bottom half but then I lost it trying to find the space for the seat. I was getting there but was grateful for the need to move the chair for dinner.

As I was concentrating on improving my drawing, the painting I started a few weeks back has been rather neglected.  I must admit I thought this might be easier with the grid in the background but really all it has meant is that I have concentrated on the background rather than the object, a drummer.  However this afternoon, I think I made some progress with it although it has a ways to before it is complete.  Hopefully this will be the first of three.