Total Art Soul - For Artists

I had a fabulous idea yesterday: what if I paint one 30-minute portrait a day for a…week? I would have 7 paintings, 3.5 hours of painting practice, and possibly an unnoticeable improvement in my work. What if I do a month? 30 days x 30 minutes gives me 15 hours and 30 paintings! Tangible, eh? You can even do a show with 30 portraits.

And then I was looking for a good number of days to commit to, between a month and a year. I found the number 206 – which is the number of bones in the human body. It ties nicely to my focus on portraits and will also remind me to turn to my anatomy book more often. Here is the math (and prepare to be impressed : 206 days x 30 minutes x 1 painting = 6180 minutes, or 103 hours of painting, and 206 portraits to show for it!

So here is the project: I will paint 1 portrait every day for the next 206 days!

I will post the results here. I also invite you to join me in on this journey if you would like to improve your painting/drawing skills or just need something to work on. The rules are these:

1. The project will run for 206 days. I started yesterday Sep 2nd and will continue until March 27, 2011. Feel free to join at any time and continue for however long you decide to. You can do every day like me or every week, or twice a week. It’s up to you. For best results and for peer pressure, I recommend every day

2. I will paint both from life and from photographs. Right now, my sources are my own photos, those of my friends and relatives, Julia Kay’s Portrait Party, WetCanvas reference library, and Flickr Creative Commons. If you would like me to paint from your photo, please email it to watercoloredhands AT gmail.com

3. I can paint the same person more than once, use any technique and any size. If taking pictures is your thing, I welcome photography, too.

4. I intend to spend 30 minutes plus/minus 10 on each painting. I found that for watercolor, it makes sense to break the 30 minutes in 10-minute intervals  to let the painting dry in between – and to give me an opportunity to step away and take a look at my work from a distance. Plus, I can rarely have 30 minutes straight of uninterrupted me-time. So, the idea is to spend 30 minutes total a day.

5. Art is not about following the rules, so…take it easy

Depending on how it goes, I might post other people’s submissions here or include links, or maybe create a Flickr group.  I also intend to take an occasional video of the painting process and post a mini-lesson on anatomy for artists.

And so, the question is, ” Can you find 30 minutes a day to spend on something that is enjoyable, useful, and is NOT physical exercise?” 

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…who is another architect addicted to watercolor and whose influence I can now clearly see in Rebecca Elfast’s work (Rebecca is an architect, too. I feel like I’m not that unique in having an architectural background and a burning passion for watercolor. I only hope they aren’t doomed to sitting in front of a computer screen wishing they’d rather be painting). Amstrand’s paintings make me think of the so-called Scandinavian design and of quiet places that are great for things like pondering and reminiscing.

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This is pretty much a continuation of the previous post. I worked on two paintings at the same time, and it was a very interesting learning experience. Here are the progress pictures of the 9×12 almost three-quarter figure portrait of a lady in Icelandic national costume.

As usual, I started with sketches. This one was only one sketch that I altered many times trying to decide on the background (the reference photo, taken in a studio, has a very boring tan-beige-taupe-bleh background). On a totally irrational impulse, I made the background red. Maybe as a response to the boredom of the background in the photo?

Mark's Icelandic Mom - red

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold, direct light

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold diffused light

Well, this was the “fire” part of The Land of Fire and Ice, and most people I consulted (including those of you who so kindly left a comment to my post about it) felt that the figure disappeared in the intense red and/or gold background. So I tried the “ice” side of it, together with a mossy-medowy green:

And we finally settled on the background above, a hint at the glaciers and the grasses. On to the drawing:

(and no, I don’t like masking.. or doing details in general. I like splashing paint.)

And the completed painting:

In addition to learning a couple more things about working small in watercolor (hands were hard!) and spending hours figuring stuff out with an anatomy book (granted, I love doing that), I expanded my knowledge about Iceland beyond Bjork and volcanoes a little.

Question: how do you change a large area in a watercolor painting (like the background in those sketches) without painful scrubbing out and washing off?

Answer: Cover it with acrylic gesso and paint on top!(that’s what I did) Or use gouache. Or acrylics. Or pastels

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Its just gone midnight but I've just discovered this place for bogging so thought I'd give it a quick try.  I have just finished the second in my sailing in silver and am so pleased with how they have turned out I want to show people.  I live right by the sea and go past it every night on my way home so its only natural that it would feature in my collection.  Ah - so now I have a problem - should have read the instructions first - where do you upload images?

Ok, just figured it out!  (read the instructions Sue!!)

Anyway, as I was saying - silver lends itself perfectly to moving elements catching the light, so in the first one It was more abstract though the sea was depicted, in the second, it is more pictorial than impressionist.  The first was to show the vivid colours from the yachts ailing in the solent race, the second more imaginary.  I hope from the pictures you can see the 3D idea.  Anyway, now I've figured this out, I'll be back, now it's time for bed!

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There aren't that many things that I have phobias about. I'm not a big spider fan but I wouldn't say I have a phobia about them, and birds, bats, bees and other crawly, feathery, scaly things don't bother. The two things that do bother me are killer whales and lifts. Now.....in my day to day life in not so sunny Scotland, killer whales don't really feature all that highly however, lifts do. In fact, I work in a building with 8 floors and I work on the 6th. Once upon a time climbing up 6 floors would have been totally possible, but these days once or twice is enough......it was during one of the times I HAD to get the lift that my worst fear was realised. It stopped. With me in it. Alone. With no phone.
I was in there for an hour - safe in the knowledge that a hunky fireman was on his way to rescue me - that thought was soon bashed on the head by the arrival of an overweight, balding and slightly sweating lift engineer from.......and I swear I'm not making this up....Schindler's Lifts.........no wonder I'm traumatised!

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