The Rest Of The Story.......

The previous blog dealt with the central image of a violinist for a suite of ten paintings requested by a collector.
In this blog I will put together the rest of the images. As I chose the pictures I had it in my mind that they should all face toward the center image.....as if he were the Soloist and the rest of the musicians were in the symphony. Here is were I had one problem....aside from just putting paint on canvas in a mature and direct way.
My client had requested certain instruments. So I looked through my file of what I had and traveled the internet for inspiration. I would say all of the paintings came out pretty much the way I wanted them to......except one. I had found a picture of a trumpet player. I really loved the image and could see it translated into paint immediately. There was only one thing wrong....he was facing the wrong way. What to do....I flipped the picture.....problem solved....right??? .......Nope...wrong! What happened was he ended up playing the trumpet in an impossible way because the instrument cannot be played that way....and I had completely painted it and thought it was fantastic (if I do say so myself)! As I brought it downstairs and out of the studio for Max and I to gaze upon and contemplate it's beauty.....Max, a trumpet player, noticed something. Yep....that's when I got the word....! Darn...darn...darn! What to do know? Only one thing....find another image and do it right!
I sent the image and an email to my client and explained what happened...in good conscience I couldn't let it out of the studio with it so wrong. My client emailed me back and said whatever I wanted to do was fine with him.....but he really like the painting anyway....felt it was very strong and I would have to agree. Well.....two weeks later after I had finished two more pieces for him......and what do you think happened? He still had to have the painting because he liked it so much! What's an artist to do??? Well....for me the truth never hurts, first of all. I did have another person interested in it...but explained the issue....and her son was a trumpet player also. So, of course she declined. In the long run...it all worked out. Everyone is happy!
Lesson learned......if you are going to work from photos.....check everything twice and beware.....there really is no substitute for painting from life. I have done my fair share and still do paint from life or studies from life for the most part. I just didn't think about how most musical instruments (I am aware of a few left-handed instruments...but not many) are only played one way. It won't happen again!!! I have added the rest of the images in the progression they were done below. Let me know your thoughts!


The first painting and the inspiration for the suite was sold several months ago. When I painted this I had not thought about a series.
My client was inspired to order several more paintings in a symphony series.


The second piece...a pianist.....One of my favorites.



The third....there must be a conductor! Hands....arrgh!
I need practice....so good to have someone who has faith in the fact that I will just get better!

I next decided to get the big one out of the way. This is a 16x20 the rest are all 8x10.
This makes the fourth piece.


The client was anxious for a classical guitarist....this may well be the best one!
This is number five. I believe I am getting better!!!

Before I got to this one I had to stop on the series and produce a few other pieces and some other plein air activities. I did a still life with a stuffed turkey....more on that turkey later!!
The client requested woodwinds...I chose the Bassoon...I just like the shape of it! This makes number six.


My client then asked for a trumpet player. This is the painting that was wrong.....but sold anyway! He should be reversed. Number seven.


This is the replacement for the backward trumpet...also sold. I like it!!! Learning a lot!
Number eight.


Tuning the Timpani....number nine.

One left the harpist...she is giving me fits......:)
See you later,
Theresa

Success....The Beginning and the End....or Vice Versa..

Gospel Singer 11x14 oil
This painting was done on the 13th....the day I threw out the failed landscape. I really needed to prove to myself that I could still paint. It took about 3 1/2 hours to complete and my feet did not touch the ground the whole time I painted it! What I mean by that...is...I was in the zone. You know...that feeling when your left brain stays out of the way and you seem to be on automatic and the decision making process is a snap. You know exactly what the next stroke is you know exactly how to simplify when it is needed...all the color choices and values move in the right direction.....and.....you know exactly when to stop...without someone standing right next to you trying to break your arm so you don't mess it up! Now before you start thinking I know everything...I don't! I am sur there are some things that may need to be fine tuned.....but for myself and my eye....this is what I want! This is how I intended this painting to look. No tight detail in the cloth, or much of anyplace else for that matter. I believe I have gotten the strong values and confident brushwork that I so love. The color is a tad on the warm side but that seems to happen when transferring a painting to the computer...and of course there is always a certain depth that escapes ones viewing a painting on a screen in the digital world. The darks are thin and not clumsy and dead and the lights are thick and applied with a knife and then manipulated with the brush in some areas. I have tried to loose a lot of edges where I find it important and keep the stronger ones where they also need to be. So yes...I am pretty damn happy with this one. The practice is paying off and I will soon begin some larger ones for my upcoming solo show.

Here is the loose start so you can see some of how I begin. There is a quick sketch to make sure proportions are accurate and then drawn with paint using lines rather than curves. Below the painting you will see my color charts that I made some years ago.....I still use them but find that I intuitively know the colors I need more often than not...but keep them handy to check back to. The charts are from Richard Schmids book "Alla Prima; Everything I Know About Painting". By the way I am anxiously awaiting his new book, out in 2009 "The Landscape Book". His first book was somewhat expensive....but so worth it...and I expect the second one will be equally as good. There is...in my mind...no greater all around modern master than Schmid! He can paint anything!
I always start at the center of interest and move out from there...painting little pieces of color and value and making sure the shapes and temperatures are right. I paint in the background on portraits very soon in the beginning to correct any shapes in the features that might be off. The small bottle of liquid is a glazing medium and works very well for keeping the darks from being obnoxiously thick. It also keeps the paint from drying flat and dead and keeps the paint open for a longer amount of time as I try to paint Alla Prima (all in one sitting) mostly. The small box with the oriental design is a magnifying glass to look at reference material when I need a closer look.
So there you have it...let me hear what you think..!
Loving the continuing challenge,
Theresa

Under the weather..

There is cotton in my head and
Tissue clouds beside my bed...
Hazed over thinking through
Overcast eyes....
Variable high pressure head storm brings in
A rainy disposition......
Hands as damp as the Fall leaves outside
Forecast turning chilly and no longer sunny.....
Lethargic movement stalling
Atmospheric activity....
A mottled nose followed by
frost tipped digits...
Three days coming...
Three days staying...
Three days going....
This is the forecast...
I'm sick....and.......
I am sick of being sick..........

LOL!

I am making light of my condition today and doing it in an attempt to be poetic....or is it prose? I am not a poet although I would love to be able to paint with words. ( My apologies Lori and all other writers for my abysmal attempt at what you are all so good at!) But I had fun trying!
Inez is home and is becoming used to her handicap of a broken wrist. Her dance studio gave her a little party for her birthday last night and she valiantly attended before promptly going to her room to rest. Poor thing, she is annoyed and I don't blame her one bit.....I have never broken anything...and pray I never do. I have had some serious events and surgeries in my life but my hands were never afflicted. I thank God for that!
Today is her birthday....so HAPPY BIRTHDAY INEZ!!!!!
I will probably putter around the house today before going to be abused at the Women's Center in Joplin. Today I have a mammogram and bone density scan. Doesn't THAT sound like fun! Which brings me to a request I have of the ladies who read my blog.
I joined the Army of Women the minute I heard about it.....a month ago. It is a website devoted to curing breast cancer by Dr. Susan Love during her lifetime.

Excerpt from their website follows:

The Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and the Avon Foundation, a global leader in breast cancer research, joined forces to launch the Love/Avon Army of Women.

Our revolutionary initiative has two key goals:

• To recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity, including breast cancer survivors and women at high-risk for the disease, to partner with breast cancer researchers and directly participate in the research that will eradicate breast cancer once and for all.
• To challenge the scientific community to expand its current focus to include breast cancer prevention research conducted on healthy women.

I lost my Mother to untreated breast cancer and have an Aunt who had it also....fortunately she recovered. Because of my heredity it makes me what they consider a high risk. I have had exams regularly since I was 41 and hopefully all women do this regular preventative program. I urge you to join this month as it is Breast Cancer Awareness month. You may join here.

In a strange way the painting posted today seemed apropos to what was discussed in this blog. It is painted on textured canvas. I use thick gesso and make it thicker in some areas than others. I also try to give it an interesting surface texture by using a house painters brush and jabbing at the canvas to remove some of the gesso. I will also use a knife to give an almost Spanish stucco wall appearance. It was painted last year.
Love, Theresa

When it rains it poors.....

Inez, Max's daughter, came home night before last and.......my gosh....she had a broken wrist. The really sad thing besides the fact this will interfere with her work, life and just about everything..... is... she is a dancer. She has been dancing for a very long time about 20 years...it is part of her life...and she is very good. She was trained in classical ballet and dances three times a week and teaches occasionally also. I feel so bad for her. She had surgery yesterday and they reset the bone and added pins and a plate. It will be six to eight weeks before she is healed. She will be allowed to come home sometime today depending on her mobility and the doctor's schedule. Max and I cleaned her room and I washed all her clothes and making cinnamon rolls for her. She had great plans to go up to Kansas City and party with her friends.....she will still go....but obviously must be very careful. It is also her birthday on the 28th....not exactly the present she was looking for. We are all hoping for a quick an easy mend.....and that it won't interfere with her dancing.
Well Halloween is almost here and Max and I are invited to a Halloween Costume party....I think we may go as Deadwood....if you never saw the series....it is a hoot. I will let everyone guess who he and I will be. Some more suggestions would be helpful, too!
I have been looking at Eldon Warrens blog which is fabulous and very descriptive. He is showing the progress of a landscape painting he is working on. Please take a look!! He has some beautiful work.
Along the same lines I subscribe to Empty Easel and who do I find that writes there....Diane Mize...another fellow blogger and fabulous artist. She has a great article on edges....my trouble spot....and her entry is fabulous!
I plan to do the same as Warren soon......put up a progression of work. I will also put up the Profiles magazine article too. But for now....I am a little overwhelmed with duties. So all I have to offer is some work that was done a while ago. One is a plein air and the other a portrait. I sold the 8x10 plein air for $2000 at the Richard Schmid Auction and the 12x16 portrait could have been sold ten times over....but as of yet I want to keep it because it has some things in it that I like how I painted them. In particular the roses, the dress and the hand. Less is more....I am still struggling with that!
That's about it for today....off to make cinnamon rolls!
Love, Theresa

Alls Well That Ends Well....No Pun Intended!!

A Winters Evening 30x24

Yesterday was a busy day!! Thank goodness I have Max to help drive me around while I do some of the things I really do not like to do in regards to my art....the business side! We started out by dropping off a new painting at my gallery that Cherry has framed beautifully. Then on to the bank where I was asked to display a painting, some handouts, business cards and my bio in regards to the upcoming Midwest Gathering of Artists. Then over to Sandy Higgins house to pick up invitations for my clients and posters and handouts to put up around town. I finally delivered about 20 posters to the businesses in town and met some great people along the way. Max said I was a "good little soldier" about getting this done....I occasionally have an aversion to interacting with people that I don't know. I like people...a lot...but I get pretty nervous. It was good practice and it all went fine. Even a few prospective clients! I know it's silly to be that way....but I "soldiered" through. LOL! After we got that done...we were in dire need of groceries, etc. so onto the supermarket and finish up that chore. After we got everything put away...we remembered we had a dinner invitation with some friends. Sooooo....a comb through the hair, a dash of lipstick and changed my top and off we went!

It was a delightful evening...a few drinks and some pretty good pizza...talk of politics, books and just generally catching up. Susie has brand new baby canaries.....not an easy thing to raise. The are cute in a rather ugly way...ha! Little hairless bodies...great big yawning mouths waiting for food...wobbly....but really adorable! She has done a great job getting them that far and she also has some juveniles from hatching's also!! One guest was someone Max worked with many, many years ago...TV repair...with tubes....imagine that!! We had a real nice time...and then....went home...lights out immediately....boy was I tired!
It seems there are a few people who need to have done what Max had done the other day. As the doctor said their is no reason for people to have colon cancer with these regular examinations. Some have mentioned they need to "git 'er done"!! Here is a brief description, that hopefully will ward off any fear that some of you have about this. Although the preliminaries of cleansing the system are a bit uncomfortable....no food, only clear liquids, drinking Phospha-Soda to help clear the intestines....it is a small discomfort that lasts about 4 to 5 hours. Nothing more to eat or drink after midnight. The next day you go to the outpatient surgery...you are given something to relax you...sedated with Versed (which causes you to forget most of what happened that day...for instance Max was relating to the attendant that they are now powering the Hallmark Card Company in Kansas City with recycled natural gas....pumped in from who knows where!!! not true...but this is what happens with that kind of short term sedative. LMAO!!).....you are examined with a camera scope and polyps found at the time are removed. In Max's case two were found and removed. The problem is when they are not removed....that is when they become cancerous. You will also find out if you have the beginnings of diverticulosis..(diverticulitis is when you already have the infection) something that does happen with age and a low fiber diet. He was 100% back to normal the next morning and their are no after effects...except that you are pretty hungry after the anesthesia wears off. You will also need someone to drive you around that day and are cautioned not to make any decisions or sign any papers. He has been eating much better since he met me...my Mother was a Jack LaLanne fan and health fanatic. I myself did not get to have sugar until I was 6 years old and we ate mostly whole foods. (Not even Wonder Bread!!) I have since made up for the sugar thing...but I try to keep it in moderation! I had mine done a while back and everything was fine. But, alas, I am about due to go again! So if this is something you have been putting off...I encourage you to git 'er done!! It really isn't that bad considering the consequences!
The painting I have posted today is a studio painting...the one that I am exhibiting at the bank...and one I have been asked to sell several times....but I like it...and do not know if I will sell it. I have a few like that. Well I am off to another busy day!
Best to everyone and git 'er done!!!
Theresa