Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Painting Good Time



As a kid, I took art lesson and painted pictures in oils.  I really enjoyed these lessons, but as times passed and I became busy with life, I put my art aside.

Every few years I get the itch to paint once again and some years ago I changed to acrylics because the clean up was so much easier.

The itch has been itching the last few weeks and it has been YEARS since I have picked up a brush.

I have been saving pictures on pinterest to paint one day and I thought today would be the day I would do one.

WRONG, in so many ways.

I am out of practice.  I haven't even done sketches or coloring in a color book.  I really need to think these things through.

So I dig out my easel, my bucket of paints and paint brushes.  Sit up a table and realize somewhere along the way I have lost my painters tray (you know the thing painters hold in their hand with their paint on it).

Had to think for a few minutes and decided to use one of my white plates.  Acrylic paint should wash off easily with soap and water.  I will not be ruining a plate.


First, the only tube I have of brown feels soft, but I can't squeeze the paint out of the tube.  I guess it must have turned into rubber. DARN, DARN!

I hook up my lap top near where I will be painting and bring up one of the pictures I wanted to paint.  I had the dickens of a time deciding which one to do.

Finally I settled on one and squirted the colors of paint I would need and left room to mix the paint to make other colors on the glass plate.

Pulled a blank canvas out of my closet and I am ready, but remembered I needed a container to hold water to put the brushes into when I finished with them.

Dug through the trash, because I remembered there was a can in there.  Washed it up and filled it half full of water. 

I AM READY TO BEGIN!

Did I tell you usually on an easel there is a chain that keeps the three legs from spreading too far apart from each other and the ledge that holds the canvas?  Mine is missing, but I figure I can still use it.  I mean really, why should the legs spread apart on my laminate floor?

Painting away, having a merry old time when suddenly the legs spread and the picture falls against my breasts.

Thank God I am still wearing my pajamas, which no one ever sees.  Because now I have a painted pajama top.  UGH!

Removing the canvas from my lap, I hold it with one hand and with the other I pull the legs back to the correct position.

Sit canvas back on easel and realize now I not only have the impressions of my breasts on the painting, I also have my thumb print.

Grabbing a dry brush I try to smooth out the damage.  Problem is acrylic paints dry quickly.  I knew there was a reason in the back of my mind I was wishing I had oils.  They are so much easier to blend and do a number of little things you can do with acrylics.  The problem is oil brushes are more work to clean and you have to use smelly things to clean them.


Needless to say Van Gogh does not have to worry.  My picture looks like a kindergarten painted it.

Grabbing more white I paint out the whole canvas and decide to start over.  I mean why stop now, I have paint all over me.

Second painting looks horrible and I don't like it.  I started dipping the brush in the different colors on my plate and paint out the scene I just painted.

Now the canvas looks like a crazy colored sunset.  I grab my painter's knife, the paint is thick and I figure I will sketch in some trees.  I love trees with their twisted branches.

I stare at my sketch and decide it needs something.  When I step back you can't see the sketches.

I grab my fan brush and dip it in the remaining colors, adding leaves to my skeletal trees.  It's interesting, but my what I really wanted and I continue to dab more paint until I have a MESS.

I grab my blending brush and blend all the paint, obscuring the trees I had sketched in.  Looking at my canvas I now have a muddled mess of colors

I think it is time to call it a day.  My foot is itching to be put through the canvas.

I clean up and put everything away.  Hopefully next time I try this, I will have a more concrete idea of what I really want to do and I am capable of doing it.

Yeah, I know, I live in la la land.


I really need to practice!

What is happening in your world?

See you around the block.






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