Derailed by Disney World...

My birthday was last week and you know what that means...  Yes, I failed miserably to meet my 50 paintings by 50 goal.

I'm trying to think of where it all went wrong and all I can come up with is "Disney World".  There are few things scarier to me than spring break crowds at Disney World, but my sister and I still decided to take the kids to Disney World over break.  I'm just a bit of a planner and I''m all for crowd avoidance, so this meant hours spent on fast passes, dining reservations, parade routes, wait times for rides, etc.  Maybe I do had too much time on my hands!  Had I just accepted the crowds, I might have stayed on track.

We did have a blast on the trip and my crowd avoidance techniques worked like a charm; however, my painting was derailed.  After Disney, I was planning an event for Peanut's elementary school, then a trip to Ireland, then summer already.  Next thing I knew it was my birthday.

I guess you could say that life got in the way again.  Now that I'm 50, I'm older and wiser (yah, right!) so I'm not going to sweat it.  I'll just set a new goal!

Temper Tantrums, House Guests, and the Flu

I haven't posted for over 2 weeks due to a temper tantrum, house guests, and the flu.  So, I'm not the one who was sick, but having a sick husband and kid distracted me from getting any painting done... or was it having house guests two weekends in a row.  Don't get me wrong...  both visits were lots of fun and I really appreciate friends and family travelling to visit us, but it meant getting the house "company clean" (which is quite different than our "regular clean") - twice!

I suppose if I'm honest,  illness and guests contributed to my procrastination, but the real reason I didn't paint was because I was having a temper tantrum. Let's just say you shouldn't wipe paint away with a cloth that has thinner on it.  Instead of removing the top layer of paint from the face, you will remove the entire face.  Bummer!  After making that blunder, I was really frustrated and needed to pout for a couple of weeks.  I'm over it now and have finished the underpainting to Peanut's angry portrait.

I having a little trouble getting the face right because so much of it is in shadow and I was working from a rather small photo.  Here is a little cheat that I sometimes use if I can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

I copy the photograph in black and white, adjusting the size of the face to be the same as in the painting.  I then slip the photo into a plastic sleeve and trace the major areas with a sharpie.

Once you remove the photo...  voila!  You've got a roadmap.  (I slipped a white paper in the sleeve just so that you could see the outline better.)

Using this as a quick guide let me to see that the face I painted was too squashed.  Her eyes needed to be higher and closer to the brows and her mouth needed to be brought down a bit.  They are unusually close together because she is tipping her face forward a bit.  I needed that facial tilt to add to her pouty face.





Here's her cute little face now...  ready for some color!

My Crabby Child and Another Way to Paint Portraits

Those of you that know Peanut have probably seen her looking grumpy at one time or another. On the flip side, you've probably also seen her literally jumping for joy.  Seriously, when she is really excited or happy about something, she jumps up and down.  [I wish I was compelled to do the same - just think of how many calories I'd burn jumping up and down throughout the day.  I'd be thinner, but I doubt I'd have many friends left as this isn't "normal" behavior for an adult.]

The photo of Peanut below was taken when she was about 3 years old, although we've seen this expression of her quite often.  She and The Oldest had these great, old-fashioned looking dresses that gathered on the sides.  We had a little photo shoot while visiting my parents.  After awhile Peanut had enough!

For this painting, I'm going back to a full sepia underpainting.  To do this, I start with a toned canvas. Usually I use burnt umber mixed with white, but this time I chose to use raw umber and white.  Raw umber has more green in it, while burnt umber has more of a red tone.  Sometimes I feel like I fight with the brassiness of a painting, so I'm hoping that going with a grayer, greener brown will help.

My big easel has clips that I can use to hold my photos when I paint, but since we moved I've been painting in my kitchen and using my portable easel.  I had been using masking tape to fasten my photo alongside my canvas, but it tends to droop after awhile.  Using binder clips to fasten the photo (taped on a folder) to the back of the canvas works much better.  No more drooping!

With this painting method, I use only brown (in this case raw umber) and white for my underpainting. Before I get too far down the line, I spend a little time laying out my subject - grumpy Peanut. This saves me time in the long run.  It's such a bummer to have a beautifully painted face and then realize you need to move it!

A couple of hours later the kids are coming home from school and my underpainting looks like this. I've still got some work to do -  I couldn't get my whites bright enough because my canvas got too wet. I also need to figure out what I want to do for the background, but I like how she looks so far!

There's something about Mary...

Yes, there is something about Mary.  She's scary!  Who is Mary, you ask?  Mary is a creepy old doll that belonged to one of my sisters-in-law.  Imagine that you bring your beautiful, innocent 1 year old baby to your in-laws and they bring out this eerie doll for her to play with.  That's how I first met Mary, but the most disturbing thing was that my sweet little baby loved her!  I guess she looked past Mary's fused-shut eye, chewed off fingers, and hospital gown style dress...  she just didn't see a creepy doll that would try to kill you in your sleep, like I did.

A couple of years ago, the oldest child jokingly changed the background on my phone to a photo I had taken of Mary.  Guess what?  Mary is still on my phone!  And it's not just because I don't know how to change my screen saver...  I don't, but that's beside the point.  I kind of like scary Mary.

I've been wanting to capture Mary in all her eerie glory for some time.  She was fun to paint, but it was even more fun to see everyone's reaction while I was painting her.  A friend of mine who is afraid of baby dolls asked what was in Mary's hand that you can't see.  Hmmm....  That's a good question!  I think I'll leave that up to interpretation.  The kids all found her disturbing and we joked that they worst-behaved kid of the day was going to have Mary's painting put in their room that night.  Settle down...  I would never really do that!  Although Dear Husband and Peanut tried twice to wake me up with Mary's painting next to my face...  luckily I was already awake.  I anticipated years of finding Mary in a cupboard, on a chair as I pulled it out, in my trunk, as I pulled back the covers on my bed, in the closet, in the dryer, even when I lifted the toilet lid...  you name it.  They're all good hiding places for Mary.

Alas, we never got a chance to scare each other with Mary and the fun has to stop before it's begun. Peanut has started having nightmares about Mary's painting, which  has been drying on our living room mantel.  Oops!  Sorry, little one.  I hope you don't have PTSD because of Mary!  After taking these photos she's moving to the basement, or better yet someone else's house.  Anyone else want to traumatize your kid?

You still have time to send in your pet photos and maybe get a Free portrait!

I will be choosing the subject for my FREE pet portrait at the end of February so you've still got time to submit photos of your pet.  Photos should be sent to CathyFitzsimmonsArt@gmail.com.  Check my prior post on how to take good photos of your pet.

Mural progress: I finished the 2nd mermaid!

I've made some progress on Peanut's mural.  The second mermaid came together so easily.  I just love her for it!  I also added a little clownfish which is one of Peanut's favorite parts so far.  By the way, clownfish look really grumpy - seriously, they look nothing like Nemo!  I painted mine with a little more neutral expression, although it does look a bit vacant.  I finished the treasure chest and added a seahorse where I had planned to have a lobster.  Have you ever really looked at a lobster?  They're scary!  I didn't want Peanut to have nightmares about her bathroom, hence the seahorse.

Do you want a painting of your pet? For FREE!

I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse..  So I've never seen The Godfather (Gasp!), but Dear Husband quotes a line similar to this.  Okay, back to my offer...  I will paint your pet for FREE!  That is, if your pet's photo is the one that I have chosen from all photos submitted.  When finished, I will send it to you.  My normal rate for a pet portrait is $500, but you would only have to cover shipping.  It sounds too good to be true...  when do you ever get something for free?