Day 39: Monday, February 28

Worked on a portrait over the weekend - actually for several hours on Saturday. Like what I've done so far....any one who would like to critique, go for it.  I need some washes? need to tone it down? need to tone it up?  Had torn this man's photo out of the newspaper months ago. He's a felon! who shall remain unnamed.

Day 38: Friday, February 25

Painting off an on since Tuesday on more of the Conversations we're having in our painting class.  (See prior posts as to "The Conversation"). Added a panel to the conversation I'm having with our teacher Peggy Reid.

Jill left    --   Peggy right

Peggy left    -   Jill right

And then continued to work on the conversation I'm having with Patty Smith. We're up to panel 4!!

Patty left - Jill right

Jill left - Patty right

Patty left - Jill right

Day 37: Thursday, February 24

Today I had lunch with a first cousin, Philip, and my two sisters. Philip it turns out has been living most of his life about 2 hours away from us and while wasting time one day, googled my older sister who still has an interior design business where she uses her maiden name. Voila! The cousins reunited.  Here's a painting of him that I did not too long ago.  Love that wicked smile!

Day 36: Wednesday, February 23

To continue all these various and sundry "conversations:

 Conversation #1
between Jill and Patty Smith:

and Patty painted a darling clown as the third panel, holding some daisies.

I had also given her a possible other middle panel:

so Peggy Reid, our teacher, took the goldfish panel and is going to start a new conversation.  More on that next week.

and then the other half of Jill and Patty's conversation:

Conversation #2

between Gail Storti and AnnMarie Thomas



and then the other half of Gail and AnnMarie's conversation:
 (and then for some reason the format changes on the blog - white background, different size type..........what gives!!!!!)

Conversation #3:

Peggy Reid and Jill

Jill painted her son with a fancy hat and lots of patterns. Peggy took the fancy patterns and slowed and gentled the patterns down.  I had given her a hard challenge with the extremely patterned hat on the right hand margin. She took the hat pattern and turned it into a cupcake wrapper. Clever that teacher!!

 



Day 35: Tuesday, February 22

 

And to continue "The Conversations".  Besides the class project, several of us paired up with painting friends to have our own "Conversation". As I mentioned I paired up with Patty Smith. We both painted a first panel for each other and then swapped. We're on our third panel this week. Here's what it looks like so far.

I am having so much trouble with formatting.

Excuse the appearance!

Day 34: Monday, February 21

Wow, have I been quiet or what. Re-entering the land of the living after what was supposed to be "drop by" surgery. 

There's an interesting new challenge site out there, a woman who gives full credit for her idea to Carol Marine and her Daily Paintworks Challenge. The latest site is the Rookie Painter, run by Jen Smith.  She posts a picture every 3 weeks, asks you to paint it however you want, and then upload it to her.  This challenge, due tonight at midnight: apples and their reflections.

I had a wonderful time yesterday painting away on this challenge and on The Conversation challenges from our Tuesday painting class. Felt good to paint for hours!  Above is my entry to the Rookie Painter Challenge.

Here's the photo that was posted.

    

Here's the panel I painted for the class "Conversation". AnnMarie Thomas gave me a skateboarder and some clouds. My job was to continue the right hand edge of her panel.....ergo: her clouds became the tails of my fish.

Here is the sequence of paintings. I've put 2 panels together to show the continuation from panel to panel.



Day 33: Monday, February 14

Well I heard from Carol Marine, finally, about the portrait of her that I painted and entered in the Valley Watercolor Society show. She was pleased and said "no problem" that I had "stolen" her photo from her website several years ago in hopes of being able to paint a portrait of her.  Ergo: permission given.

Take a look at the weekly painting challenge that she has mounted. Could be fun for all of us to try?  This week's challenge is a rose, by any other name? Still a rose. 

Look at all the entries from the exact same posted photo of a rose! 

Thank you Carol for taking up Karin Jurick's challenge of a painting a week? a painting a month. Hard no matter how you look at it.

Day 32: Friday, February 11

Left the house for 2 "social" things, both of which I find very important; lunch with a wonderful group of women friends and an afternoon of "Knitting for the Cause" where our local knit shop, "Stitch 'n Time", provides all the materials,  yarn, needles and patterns for  anyone (yesterday there were two men knitters) to come and knit hats and scarves which are then donated to our local Wellness Center.

I'm involved with "The Army of Women" and the incredible project that Avon Products and the Susan Love Research Foundation started. They are trying to enroll the women of America, all women, all sizes, all colors, all ages, into a massive study of breast cancer, possible causes, possible cures. There are research projects going on all over the U.S. and they need people to volunteer to be part of this research.  I receive about an email a week asking for very specific volunteers.  Last week's email for example asked for: "If you are a Black/African-American female breast cancer survivor living in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area and currently undergoing treatment (radiation, chemotherapy, and/or surgery) for breast cancer, OR you have finished radiation, chemotherapy, and/or surgery within the past 6 months, please read on and consider signing up."  I emailed this to my wonderful black friends asking for their help, asking them to ask their daughters and their daughter's friends.

I personally am part of a project that's taking place in Indianapolis but which involves blood sampling which will be done right here in Pasadena at a specific lab.  If we don't get involved when will we ever be able to help those we love overcome and those we don't know yet to be cured.

I rant vociferously asking for everyone's involvement in this project.

And then I came home and went back to bed.

Day 31: Thursday, February 10

Jill's waking up. This damn "day" surgery thing was surprisingly difficult. No classes this week obviously so no continuation photos of the "conversations" some of my painting friends are having.  That will be updated next Tuesday when next all of us convene.

In the meantime, Karin Jurick of the incredible, absolutely incredible, 100 Faces in 100 Days Project resurrected her blog of "Different Strokes From Different Folks" long enough to talk about Carol Marine's offer of a painting challenge. Whoopee! Carol's a fabulous painter and one of the very few who actually commit to publicly painting and posting a painting a day.  I think her challenge is a great one and one that could be done in watercolor or oil or whatever.  Take a look and let's give it a go?

Day 30: Wednesday, February 9

Jill's resting.

But her friends are painting on and on. "The Conversation continues between Gail Storti and AnnMarie Thomas. I'm going to try to post all three photos horizontally across the blog, but I don't think I know how yet......Gail painted page one of the paints and brushes. AnnMarie picked up any lines on the right hand edge and continued those lines and colors onto her page of the child's fist and toys. Gail picked up those lines and painted the head of a child with braids....such clever work from two very, very talented painters.

Day 29: Tuesday, February 8

Jill's resting.

But since her friends know that she has a pretty whacked out sense of humor they send her strange things via email.  Here's was today's huge, huge burst of laughter.

Day 28: February 7, Monday

With a brief hiatus from the world, I got myself out of bed long enough today to paint my portion of  "The Conversation" that I am having with my painting friend Patty Smith.  As stated earlier, she painted the colored circles on the first page. I, using whatever lines spilled over onto the second page, created a second painting (or page), using the same colors, etc.  And now I'm going back to bed.

Tomorrow, she will have created a second page from the very complicated drawing I gave her of the coffee cup........She had a real challenge in that I had, I think, 9 different lines going on to the second page which had to be incorporated into the painting. Sorry Patty!

Day 27, February 6, Sunday

I feel like Lee Brown of a Day Not Wasted.  I went into the local hospital on Thursday a.m. for not-so minimal day surgery. Note that word: day.  And today, Sunday, 3? 4? days later? I emerged with a prescription for pain pills and an anxious husband.  I'll be a bit behind this coming week needless to say.

Day 26, February 3, Thursday

Whoopee!!  I got one painting into the Valley Watercolor Society Show that's going to take place Thursday, Feb. 17 starting at 2 p.m. until March 13. It will be held at the Gallery 800, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., Historic Lankershim Arts Center, No. Hollywood.  For those of you who so kindly commented on my paintings and voted? Your vote was the one that the judges liked. Whoopee!!

Day 25, Wednesday, February 2

In my watercolor class our teacher Peggy Reid brought in a book "The Conversation" by Milton Glaser.  An incredibly interesting art project: the two watercolor artists involved, Milton Glaser and Jean Michel Folon, neither of whom spoke the other man's language, decided to converse via paintings. One of the men drew the first page, kind of a watercolory sunset.

The next man took all the lines and shapes from the right hand edge of the sunset painting and started a second page/second painting. I wish I had photos of the pages. I found a copy, used, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Peggy decided to make this a class project. She painted a first page with a coffee cup and a bagel and the class drew numbers to see which page of the conversation we would be painting. The 2nd painter took the edge of the bagel and created a two wheel bicycle using the same colors of paint. The 3rd painter is now working off of the lines of the bicycle. We'll see her results next Tuesday in class.

Here is Peggy's starting painting:
 

Here is the 1st addition to Peggy's painting (the 2nd page of the book). The edge of the bagel had to be carried over onto the next page, ergo the wheel of the bicycle.

Some of us, since the project sounded so interesting, paired up on our own. I'm painting opposite a friend. We both painted a first/cover page and swapped it. This week I'm to paint a second page.  This is the cover page I painted for the swap.  The painting is supposed to have shapes and colors going off of the right edge so that the painting may be "continued" on the following page. So I tried to put a lot of shapes/colors/designs on that right edge.

I had painted 3 paintings so that my partner could choose and then the teacher, Peggy, came by and chose one and offered to paint a "conversation" with me. I was thrilled. This is what she chose to work from this first week:

Here is the painting I received from my partner:

I am supposed to attach my painting to any shapes, lines, etc on that right hand edge so my only connection will be the portion of that red ball that's missing.

I made a couple of sketches of possibilities last night. Been thinking all day about it. Possibility of a bottle of bubbles being blown? Or turning the whole thing into a caterpillar in a forest of grass could be possibility.



Day 24, Tuesday, February 1

Google Earth is into something wonderful. Yesterday Google unveiled the Google Art Project, a website that sllows visitors to see more than 1,000 works by 486 artists, take virtual 360-degree tours of galleries, and zoom in for extreme closeup views to inspect a great artist's brushwork.  The zoom in feature is fabulous. Get ready to waste some time!

Day 23, Monday, January 31

Spent another hour or two and got the blog up and running again in a different format but at least the followers and my favorite blogs showed up again. Whew.

Had been looking for watercolor blogs that I liked and had come across two different listings of the best blogs to follow. So for your perusal at your leisure?

http://www.webdesignschoolsguide.com/library/50-best-blogs-for-watercolor-artists.html

And then from Donna Zagotta's blog where she asked for nominations, the best 29 blogs.