I admit I love painting faces!

I have to admit that although I can paint almost anything, I absolutely love painting faces.  This summer my goal is to do a painting every day.  Yes, I mean do the whole painting from start to finish. By not taking my time, it encourages me to just get down only what I need to say.  When I take more time, my brushes get smaller and I put in more and more detail and often I overwork my painting.  Not that detail is bad but I am attempting to stretch myself and, hopefully, in the process take my art to the next level.

Naming paintings

Sometimes I find that applying paint to canvas is the easiest part of the painting process.  Where I find difficulty is in naming my work, especially when a painting has come out of my head and imagination rather than from a live model or location.  This cowboy is a perfect example.  He still remains nameless.  Any suggestions?

First Nation Man

I am a juried member of Vanguard Artists and we just held a show, "Forty Years of Excellence" at the West Valley Arts Council Gallery in Surprise, AZ.  I was fortunate to have my two entries among the 80 painting juried into the show and one sold.  This painting, "First Nation Man" now has a new home in Vancouver, Washington.  

"First Nation Man"

16x20 oil

Working with Three Primary Colors

Using a very limited palette of colors can be both challenging and rewarding.  Although expensive one can purchase almost every color under the sun but where is the fun in that?  If you are new to a medium, one way to see if you like it without a lot of cost involved is to choose a warm and cool of each of the primary colors.  Since I will be soon be offering some classes and workshops in watercolor, I chose Hansa Yellow, Red Rose Deep and Phthalo Blue as my cool primary colors and Arylide Yellow, Vermillion and Ultramarine Blue as my warm primary colors.  With this combination almost every other color can be mixed.  The first workshop, "Painting Faces - Animal or Human" will be held on January 18 and 19th at the Sun West Art Club in Sun City West.  Here are a few samples of paintings done with these colors.

Let's Make Faces

I have discovered I have a passion for faces.  I love human faces, animal faces, flowers or rock faces or the face of a mountain.  I love them all but especially the human face.  Each face holds a myriad of stories and emotions and through my paintings, I hope to catch a small glimpse into those stories.

Unlike photos that fade with time or computer hard drives that store our many digital photos yet eventually crash or get replaced by newer and better technology, I hope that my paintings may long outlive me and so the stories behind the faces get to live on, too.

Here is a small sampling of some of the faces I've been painting.  Is there someone you would like to have a painting of?

Where did the time go?

I can't believe it has been a year (actually a bit longer) since I last posted anything.  WOW - where did the time go?  To make a long story, short.  I have been painting.  I have not been blogging but I have been painting.

Today we celebrated the life of a good friend who suddenly passed away last week.  Death is always hard.  Knowing that someone is no longer physically with us is especially difficult.  I wanted to find a way to help his wife through these hard times and what else could I do but try and capture Steve in a painting.

This is an 11x14 oil of Steve

Here is another one I did this week.

Portrait studies

This 8x10" life portrait study was done last night with finishing touches put on in my studio today.

8x10" oil on linen

These past few weeks I've also done studies of my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, husband and a friend.

I have really been enjoying painting especially portraits.  It blows my mind that in spite of the billions of people on earth, no two people, even identical twins, look exactly alike.

I Found My Heart Song

I was asked recently what I liked to paint.  I said that I paint everything.  This is true but that question stayed with me this past week.  What do I really LIKE to paint?  I sat for a long time with that.  I pulled out some paintings and reflected on feelings I had when I painted them.  I realized that there are times when I paint I get an inner joy that is beyond description.  It is a feeling of being high and it is as if my whole body were smiling.  I have it when painting some things and not as much when painting others.  So, I put those paintings next to each other that had memories of feeling like I was "in the zone" when I painted them.  What did they have in common?  They were not all of the same subject.  They were not the same colors.  Some were high key and some not.  Some had a lot of contrast while others not so much.  There had to be something that weaved them all together.  What was it?  Then it hit me.  They all had faces but not necessarily human faces or even animal faces.  It could be the face of a mountain.  It could be facing fears.  I found faces of flowers and faces of people or animals equally exciting.  Ah, I finally found my heart song!  I finally discovered what made me sing inside.

22"x28" oil on canvas

America West Heritage Center - Smitty

Utah State University runs an American West Heritage Center here in the Cache Valley of Utah.  It is a way to sample what life was like during the days that the pioneers traveled west.  I don't go there nearly as often as I would like to but the times that I have gone, I've left inspired.

"Smitty"

10"x12" oil

Almost Plein Air

A little over a year ago, I joined a group of artists painting plein air - outdoors.  For me, it was a combination of painting outside and taking reference photos.  Today, although beautiful enough to be outside, I chose to paint this from one of my reference photos.

Life gets in the way of painting

Do you, like me, find that often life gets in the way of doing the things we really love to do.  My husband loves to fly fish though he doesn't do it very often.  I love painting.  I've titled this blog Painting Almost Every Day more as an incentive rather than a fact.  I would love to paint every day but life does get in the way so I cherish each hour that I do take.  I'm beginning to let go of the guilt and recognize that like breathing, I need to paint.  Here is a quick sketch from life.

Back to painting plus some sketching

It is easy to get side tracked because I love doing so many different things - watercolor - oil - sketching - photography.  (notice I didn't say housework)  I've put my pencil and charcoal aside for a little bit and have gotten my paints out again.  Here are a few examples of what I am working on.  None are finished so look for future postings.

These charcoal sketches were done a week ago during a figure drawing workshop.

My first love

I've been spending a lot of time drawing which is something I don't usually do.  Drawing is really the foundation of good painting and I'm finding that taking the time to draw is really helping me loosen up when I paint.  I did the cowboy yesterday and the flower today.  I am limiting myself to one or two brushes rather than my usual dozen.  

"Red Flower

"

10x12 oil

Homeless

Last night we watched Secret Millionaire on tv where a wealthy man took to the streets for a week to volunteer helping the homeless on skid row of L.A.  He didn't tell those he met that he had money but gave a story of losing his business and being on the down and out himself.  After a week, he not only revealed he was a multi-millionaire but he also gave sizable donations to the various organizations or people he had "volunteered" with.  The faces of those many homeless has stayed with me today and is obviously influencing my drawings.

More sketching

Rather than do 18x24" sketches while in my studio, I kept my family company today and sat in the family room and sketched in a 9" x 9" sketchbook from various images I found on the internet.  I usually paint or draw from my own photos unless invited by a friend to use theirs but today I have to admit I wanted the challenge of sketching quickly from photos taken by someone else.  On some, I went for speed and did each of these in just a few minutes.  All in all I did about a dozen sketches today.