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Then I do the work of getting it down on paper, because I'm the designated typist, and I'm also the person whose job it is to hold the lantern while the kid does the digging. What is the kid digging for? The stuff. Details and clues and images, invention, fresh ideas, an intuitive understanding of people. I tell you, the holder of the lantern doesn't even know what the kid is digging for half the time - but she knows gold when she sees it.
-- Anne Lamott
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The Story of "Waiting"
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 I got out the brushes this morning and decided to see how I liked them. I like natural bristles for watercolor, but I definitely like synthetic bristles for acrylics. I noticed two things in this morning's little exercise:
- I like big brushes for acrylics, where I didn't for watercolor at all.
- The paint goes very fast.
I'm looking forward to class on Tuesday night.ETC: Bought more brushes. I need to get into work today to catch up on a couple of things, but think I'll play "hookey" (it's Sunday after all) and paint instead. |
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Feeling the urge, I scanned Google images for an image of people in a restaurant and found one. So I set up camp in my bedroom.  I started in with my new brushes, big one first, which I like a lot.  When you first start a painting, you kill the effort if you have any self-consciousness at all because it looks ridiculously 1st grade-ish. At this point, I'm only blocking in basic shapes - but through documenting the process, I can see that I need to be even more rudimentary in my approach. I need a stickmen-like simplicity. I missed the angle of the main guy. Check it out.  And the real thing:  Notice that the real guy leans more to the right. That lean makes him more interesting because there is more movement. Had I gone for stick figures and angles with my initial strokes, I might have caught it and gotten it right. Obviously, I'm just getting started with this painting, but it's a useful sketch to help me learn what I can and can't do with acrylics. And it's gets me excited for oils... ETC: I'm stopping for the night.  |
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I decided to keep working on him, the main guy in the painting.  I've still got background to do, but the essence of him is there. I don't mind so much now not getting the angle of him right from my source picture. He's telling his own story... |
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Nice thing about acrylics is that I can wash over a section with new paint and essentially do it over. I have a nasty habit of ignoring the background and painting the foreground objects first, which of course leaves me in quite a pickle later when I have all this white space in my painting. So tonight I resolved to just say "what the hell" and go for the background first, which requires me to paint over some of my previous work. You know, in fiction writing class I learned that no matter how cool the paragraph, if it doesn't help the story, it has to go. So here's where I stand right now with this one. You can watch a little video of me working it over by clicking on the picture.  |
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 A little further. It's fun to explore the colors in acrylics, even though this is like painting with white out. It's harder to paint thin lines, I've discovered. It goes on thick. But I'll work on that. You know, we're always amazed when someone writes a book. They conceived a story and characters and wrote it out. Is it good? That almost doesn't matter - we're still impressed. It's kind of like that with painting too. Hundreds and thousands of brush strokes go into a painting, like hundreds and thousands of words go into a book. I'm not sure that the talent matters so much as the simple fact that it was begun and then finished. Cool if the talent is there, but wow - the commitment to finish the work. I once worked in a company that coined the phrase "BIC Time." That's the time when money is made. It stands for "Butt In Chair." I think that might just be the only talent that any artist truly needs to impress others. Just getting the butt in the damn chair. If that happens, then art happens. Today, I've spent my 14,973rd day on this planet writing a web site at work, managing a project, talking to friends and co-workers and my kids, attending meetings, eating, playing HALO, cleaning my apartment, installing new software on my home computer, and painting. Painting was maybe an hour of it. It's amazing how much time there is to do things in a day, and yet it seems short. But this November 2nd was good. |
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I'm getting the feel for acrylics, and I'm starting to get anxious to finish this painting, which is a good sign. I could be done by the end of the weekend. I did the windows in the background and I feel like I captured the light that comes in them. I also softened the guy in the foreground. Next stop, the people around the table.  |
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 Got one guy done and it's a good rendition. Might not get it all done this weekend, but... oh the joys of cling wrap. I've discovered that I can walk away from the paint and keep it wet by laying cling wrap over it. That's the hardest thing about acrylics - you get the color for a patch of skin just right, and then you have to walk away from the painting to, oh say, make dinner, and then when you get back you have to try and get it right again. But cling wrap will save you, sisters and brothers! Can I get a hallelujah? And the big news: I'm painting. I have balance instead of an overload of busyness in my life. Austin and Cub came over last night, as they always do on Fridays, and this morning Jacob's first words were, "Can we paint, Dad?" So I set his chair next to mine and while I worked on the dart board, he stroked out a blue and green collision and titled it, "The Blue and the Green." "Dad, can I have chocolate milk now?"
"Absolutely." And the rest of the day was pretty much tickling and walking and playing games and I even managed to clean my kitchen. Gosh... I like this lifestyle. |
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I love painting peple. As I work, I wonder what their story is. And faces are interesting to paint... they have colors and shapes in them that you don't really notice until you forget that it's a face.  I have some work to do on the guy with glasses - his face turned out harsher than I wanted, but the basics are there. I softened the look of the main guy (looking off into the distance). As much as I enjoyed my bit of abstract, I enjoy equally this painting. I want to finish it. Alas, I have to work today... I have a database to be moved to a new server and then changes to be driven into some of the web pages before people come back into the office tomorrow. Aaron saw a hawk outside this morning and so Nick grabbed the camera and managed to get quite close.  He was after a rabbit. Breakfast, you know. Me, I had orange juice - lol. |
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