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!

Paint with me: How to paint clementines in 10 easy steps!

Clementines are so tasty this time of year, I wanted to paint some.  Peanut loves them so much she made an I Love Cuties sticker book.  The synopsis on the back cover reads "In this book I will tell  you how much I love Cuties by colecting the stickers on each page.  There will be a difrent kind of stickers from a Cutie."  She's a little cutie herself!  Although she could work on spelling and grammar... 

I planned on painting a large bowl of clementines, but we ate too many for that, so I adjusted my composition a little.  I entitled it "Outcast" and I'm sure you can see why...  poor little clementine on the left!

Outcast 8 x 10

I'll show you how it's done in just 10 steps. Grab your supplies and paint along with me!  Don't forget to post your finished painting...  I'd love to see it!

First of all, I set up my still life.  Don't you just love how professional it is!  I uses boxes, baskets, or whatever to get the still life to the height that I want.  So classy!  I usually prefer my subject close to eye level, rather than looking up or down at it.  Also, make sure you set your easel up so that your canvas is eye level, regardless of whether you are look up, down or straight at your subject.

The above photo on the left is my setup before turning on my spotlight and the one on the right is with my spotlight on.  You can see just how much light is coming in my little "window" that I cut into the box.  The clementines look much more vibrant and the light really brings out their form and the reflections on the table.  Much better!  My painting isn't exactly from this angle, but it's close.

Again, this is the pallet that I use.  In the steps below, the "dark mixture" is a mixture of half Ultramarine Blue and half Burnt Umber.

In a prior post - Paint with me:  How to paint a pear in 10 easy steps - I described the sames steps, but it more detail.  Check out that post if you would like additional information about any of the steps.

Click here for Paint With Me - Pears!

Step one:  The Basic Shape

This is just your basic geometric shape painted with your dark mixture, thinned with odorless mineral spirits or whatever you're using for cleaning brushes.  Again, this step is so quick that you might be tempted to skip it, but it's very important.  For this painting, I initially pulled out an 11" x 14" canvas.  I realized after painting the basic geometric shape that the clementines would need to be the size of oranges or I'd have too much negative space.  I wanted them to be clementine-sized, so I switched to an 8"x10" canvas.  Making changes before you really even get started saves you time - and who couldn't use more time!

Step 2:  Draw the Shadow Areas

Using your thinned dark mixture, paint the shadow areas with straight strokes.  Even though my clementines are round, they're going to look like a part of an octagon here.  You are painting the shadow side of your subject, too, not just the shadows that they cast on the table.  You can see on the right that I got carried away and went on to Step 3 before I could snap a photo.  Oops!

Step 3:  Paint the Shadow Areas

Paint your shadow area with cadmium colors added to the dark mixture.    I used Cadmium Red Medium.  The canvas in these areas should be more smooth, so use just enough paint for the white canvas not to show through.

Step 4:  The Background

Paint your background with black, white and whatever background colors you want.  I chose to add ultramarine blue and I usually add a little raw umber to warm it up a bit.  Crisp edges around your subject will make it look cut out, so keep the edges soft and loose.  You want some of your background color to get into your subject and vice versa.  Check out the clementine on the top...  I got quite a bit of blue in there and that's okay.  I blend my background just enough to look right to me...  still loose enough to give you the sense of atmosphere.  The only time I use a flat background of just one color is if the background is black.

Step 5:  The Light Areas

Paint the light areas, loading up the brush for texture.  You can see that the most textured area is toward the center of the light area, getting smoother toward the edges of the light area.  I used Indian Yellow and Cadmium Yellow for my lights.

Step 6:  Reflected Light

Add reflected light, which is light bouncing back onto the shadow side of your subject.  The reflected light is pointed out below.  You can see that there really isn't much of it.  (My colors are a little wonky in this photo.  Sorry!)

Step 7:  The Midrange

Now add the midrange (areas between the lights and darks), using brighter, more saturated colors just a bit darker than your light areas.  I love this step, because then the canvas is now completely covered and you can start to hone in on some of those delicious details!

I'm sure you've noticed that more than the midrange changed here.  Once I put in my midrange my clementines were looking much too yellow and most of my shadow areas were too dark.  I lightened the shadow areas and added a bit more "orange" (cadmium red and yellow).  I also worked on the reflections on the table.

Steps 8 & 9:  Cast Shadows and Highlights

Add the cast shadows using your dark mixture, lightening them as you move away from your subject. Paint highlights using a brush loaded with white and/or Indian yellow, gently placing thick paint. Don't blend the highlights!  I always think they look so goofy close up, as you can see in my enlarged photos below.  Remember to take a few steps back and see how they look.

Step 10:  Details

The last (and most fun!) step is adding the details.  Details include -

•  Adding anything that hasn't been painted yet -  I added the stem to the clementine on the left.  

•  Darkening some areas and lightening others to better focus on subject -   I usually darken the outside edges of my shelf so your eyes don't wander off the canvas, but instead go toward the subject.  If the light is coming from the left (I almost always have it coming from this direction.  It just feels better to the OCD part of me!), I usually darken the bottom left and upper right of the background.  I do the opposite with light coming from the right.  I didn't choose to direct the light in the background of this painting, which gives it a softer look and is also why the dark areas I initially painted just didn't look right.

•  Throwing subject colors into background - Here I added some cadmium yellow in various places in the background.  You can best see this in my finished painting way over on the right hand side.

•  Adding "halos" around your subjects -  These are added to the light side of your subject.  I went a little halo crazy and added them to 3 of the 5 clementines.  Sometimes there is only one halo.  It just depends on how I feel about them that day.  I feel like they give a little life to the subject.

• Crisping up some edges and blending out others to create lost edges - I smeared out little bits of my cast shadows with a scrubby, dry brush to create lost edges.  This gives you the sense that the clementines are connected to the table and to each other.

Here is a closeup of the clementine on the left (poor outcast!).  You can clearly see the highlight, halo and lost edge.  I hope you enjoyed painting with me!

The Best Harry Potter Birthday Party! Part 3: The Hogwarts mystery and wizardry classes.

Because only a few of Peanut's friends know the Harry Potter stories (Yes, there are kids who haven't read these books.  Shocker!), we decided to add a mystery element to our party that all the guests could enjoy whether or not they know anything about Harry Potter.  We also wanted them to attend "wizardry classes", so we needed to link the two.

Making potions and reading tea leaves were just a couple of our activities.

Setting up the Mystery

Just before the feast, McGonagall (me) asked all the new "students" to leave their pets and supplies in the Gryffindor Common Room (our living room) during the meal, explaining that it's not sanitary to have dragons, owls, and cats on the table while you are eating.  I told the kids that The Fat Lady (The painting which is the door to the Gryffindor Common Room) retired and that we now had The Thief and a new password, which I whispered to the first girl, then she whispered it to the next, and down the line.  Every time they passed the painting, the girls said "Lucky Charms".  They kept it up even once the organized part of the party was finished - so cute!

After the feast, the girls found their pets locked in an enchanted cage (not even McGonagall could open it!), so we looked around for clues.  They found a letter from Hagrid hidden in the room which explained that there was an imposter (which apparently is more commonly spelled impostor, although both are correct... who knew?) at Hogwarts and that he had left to meet with the giants.  They were instructed to find the four founders items:  Helga Hufflepuff's cup, Godric Gryffindor's sword, Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, and Salazar Slytherin's ring (Oops!  My bad!  This was supposed to be a locket as Peanut pointed out to me after the party.) to get clues on who the imposter is and how to defeat them.  He also said not to trust any of the Hogwarts staff, to go about their normal business.

Click Here for Hagrid's Letter

Once the girls read not to trust the staff, they immediately ran to the bathroom (now the "Girl's Bathroom", home of Moaning Myrtle), and we could hear them plotting and giggling.  They ended up spending quite a bit of time in there throughout the evening - that was their go to place whenever they needed to talk to each other about the mystery.  Seriously, I think they spent half their time in the bathroom!

After they emerged from the bathroom, we started the wizarding classes.  Here is a brief (hopefully!) summary of each class and what the girls found:

Professor Bins (Middle Child) - History of Magic

Bins droned on for a few minutes giving a very boring history, then gave the girls a quiz.  The answers gave the clue "Find Myrtle".  Guess what - the bathroom again! I put a picture of Myrtle on the inside of the toilet lid while they were with Bins with voice bubble that read "Really!  Of course it's not hidden in the toilet, but the item you seek is in this room.  Close the lid now - I WANT PRIVACY!".  I just didn't want anyone searching the toilet!  Gross!

They searched the room and found the ring (or locket, if I didn't goof up), which said

Clue:  You have seen them today
Spell Part 1:  Expelliarmus

At this point, the imposter could be McGonagall, Binns, Trelawney, Snape, or Dumbledore.

Click Here for History of Magic Exam

Professor McGonagall (filling in for Hagrid) - Care of Magical Creatures

McGonagall told the students Hagrid's Doxys (squishy light up aliens from Dollar General) were loose in the Gryffindor Common Room.  So that each girl would get only one, they were told that Doxys are gentle unless you pick up more than one, then they bite!  Each Doxy had a tag with a number and letter on it, which the girls arranged in order to spell "D office".  In Dumbledore's office (the study was changed over from Gringotts), they found the cup, which said

Clue:  Not a woman
Spell Part 2:  Stupefy

Now the imposter could only be Binns, Snape or Dumbledore.

Professor Trelawney (The Oldest) - Divination

The Oldest was great as Trelawney!  She talked to the girls about calming down, getting centered, and finding their inner eye.  She also played a wooden flute while they sat with their eyes closed. Once they were "centered", it was time to read tea leaves.

We chopped herbs from the garden and glued them onto paper plates in various shapes.  More "tea leaves" were then piled on top of the glued leaves and an overturned cup covered all the leaves.  The girls were instructed to gently shake off the excess leaves and "read" the design.  Our Trelawney was very disorganized, so she had her drawings and meanings written on napkins and various scraps of paper.  The girls had to look through them to find their picture.  Some examples were heart = love, moon = imposter, cup = drink, teardrop = candle, fish = food... you get the idea and can see examples in the photos above.  The girls pictures meant imposter, together, food, candle, steal, four, star - all of which led them back to the great hall where they found the sword taped under the table which said

Clue:  Not a ghost
Spell Part 3:  Petrificus Totalus

We're down to Snape and Dumbledore as the imposter.

Professor Snape (Dear Husband) - Potions

The last class was potions, where the girls measured out and made the following potion:

1 ~ Clear Cauldron

1 ~ Measuring Spoon

1 ~ Medium Measuring cup

1 ~ Small Measuring cup

½ oz. ~ Lobalug Venom

1 spoonful ~ Wartcap Powder

1 oz. ~ Horclump Juice

Pour Lobalug Venom into clear cauldron

Add spoon of Wartcap powder

Stir 34 times

Add Horclump Juice

Horclump Juice was vinegar with yellow food coloring.  Lobalug venom was water with blue food coloring.  Wartcap Powder was baking soda.  You guessed it - when mixed together they got a green fizzy mess!  The girls all added the Horclump Juice at the same time, so all the bubbling happened at the same time.  

Snape then showed them a solution to make messages appear (Dear Husband used Middle Child's chemistry set to achieve this).  I believe the message was something like "Snape is great!" or "Slytherin is the best!".  He let them try it on another paper, which revealed the message "Ravenclaw hang out".  The girls ran to the Ravenclaw Common Room (basement family room) and found the Diadem which said

Clue:  Not a teacher
Spell Part 4:  Accio key

The imposter is Dumbledore!

After practicing the spell a few times, the girls confronted Dumbledore who was disarmed, froze, fell over as if petrified (he was near a couch), and the key was flipped to the girls.  They saved Hogwarts and freed their pets.  Hooray!

We ended the party with cake and ice cream, presents, and a showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Everyone had a great time and Peanut said she felt like she was actually at Hogwarts.  That's just what we wanted and we put it all together in 5 days - Success!

The Best Harry Potter Birthday Party! Part 2: The Hogwarts Express and Sorting Ceremony.

Here are more photos from our Harry Potter party for Peanut.  All the details of our Hogwarts Express and sorting ceremony follow the photos.  Enjoy!

Our Hogwarts "Great Hall", complete with house banners and house points.  We made the banners and purchased dollar store vases that we filled with colored popcorn for the house points.  During the party, points were added to or taken away from the 4 houses...  Professor Snape (Dear Husband) kept finding excuses to reward Slytherin and penalize everyone else. The girls loved teaming up against Snape!

Check out the sorting hat I made!  I found the directions here:

http://littlefuryous.tumblr.com/post/99683184657/paper-bag-sorting-hat

I think her paper was thinner than mine and her sorting hat turned out more wrinkly, but I love the way mine turned out.  I added a paper pocket (about halfway up, on the inside back) for my cell phone, so that the sorting hat could talk.

After the guests purchased their supplies in the shops on Diagon Alley (quill, notebook, wand and pet- see my prior post on this), they were instructed to go to platform 9 3/4 where the Hogwarts Express would be leaving shortly.  They made a "train" line behind the conductor (You guessed it - Dear Husband again!) and wound around the house making train noises, periodically being interrupted with "Aaaanything from the trolley?".  We made a "trolley cart" with a laundry cart, tablecloth and large tray.  They could buy Licorice wands, chocolate frogs, lemon drops, jelly slugs and Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans with their remaining wizard money.

Upon arriving at Hogwarts, the girls were taken to the great hall for the sorting ceremony. Dumbledore (Middle Child) greeted them and after a short welcoming speech, turned the floor over to Professor McGonagall (me!).  One by one, the guests sat on a stool and had the sorting hat placed upon their heads.  The sorting hat commented on their attributes (bravery, wisdom, dedication, ... or whatever) and called out their house.  

[While the guests were on the train, I called Dear Husband's phone, put mine on speaker, then put it into the pocket in the hat.  That way, he could sit in another room and be the voice of the sorting hat.  We "sorted" the kids based on a short quiz that they took as they arrived at the party.  There are many sorting quizzes online and we just modified one to work for the ages of our guests.]

After the sorting hat called their house, McGonagall fastened on their house tie (felt ties we made). We ended up with 2 Hufflepuff, 3 Gryffindor, 2 Ravenclaw and no Slytherin which worked out well. Peanut was thrilled to end up in Ravenclaw...  she was so worried!

Once the sorting was done, Dumbledore announced the feast (pizza).

Stay tuned for part 3 - attending wizarding classes!

The Best Harry Potter Birthday Party! Part 1: Diagon Alley

I don't have a post about painting today because I've been totally immersed in planning (and recovering from) Peanut's Harry Potter birthday party.  We finally settled on a date the Friday before Thanksgiving, which was the following Wednesday.  That left only 5 days to plan and prepare - Yikes!

The family really came together in making this event amazing!  The Oldest had 4 costume / character changes and Dear Husband even wore paper goblin ears (which looked awesome!) to play a goblin at Gringotts.  Middle Child was fabulous as Ollivander, Professor Binns and Dumbledore.  We left Peanut out of the planning and numerous run-throughs of the characters, plot, and behind the scenes changes, which left her plenty of time to fret over which house she would be put into.  

I'm getting ahead of myself...  Today I'm only posting about Diagon Alley.  If you're not into Harry Potter or birthday parties, you can skip all my babbling and just take a peek at the pictures.

Our version of Diagon Alley - complete with a dementor!

The line-up of wands that we made for Ollivander's Wand Shop.  I'm particularly proud of these!

A few days before the party, an "owl" dropped letters onto everyone's porch saying that they had been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and to meet at Madam Malkin's in Diagon Alley at 4:00 the following Wednesday, rather than platform 9 3/4.  That way the kiddos could shop for their school supplies together before boarding the train.

Click Here for our Hogwarts Letter

The stops the party guests made were:

Madam Malkins - Our coat closet was cleared and filled with any robes, capes, hats or gloves we could find.  Madam Malkin (The Oldest), measured each girl and helped her find a robe or cape to wear.  Because they hadn't visited Gringotts yet, she told them they could borrow the clothes for the day.

Gringotts - The next stop was Gringotts (aka the study), which the girls LOVED!  As I said, Dear Husband wore paper goblin ears, plus a sport coat and glasses at the end of his nose.  One at a time the girls approached the goblin and he gave them a hard time about why they were there, a lack of identification (an ID or a wand), and not knowing their account number.  Eventually, he dug into his desk drawer and pulled out a fabric bag filled with wizard money (poker chips).

Flourish and Blotts -  Once they had their wizarding money, the girls proceeded to buy their school supplies.  First on their list was a notebook and a quill, which they could purchase for 5 sickles at Flourish and Blotts.  The quills were made using cheap pens, ribbon and craft feathers and the notebooks were ones I had around the house that I covered with scrapbook paper.

Ollivander's Wand Shop -  Of course no wizard is complete without a wand, and for 7 galleons (or 7 blue poker chips) they each purchased one.  We made the wands shown above by sanding down the tip of a wooden dowel,  adding handles and designs with hot glue, and painting them with acrylic paint.  The Oldest and I got better at making them as we went along, eventually adding more elaborate designs like vines or a snake twisting around the wand.  Of course we had to go further and add tags with the wands' specifics - birch, veela hair core, 12 ", slightly bendy.  They were so fun to make!  The girls were told by Ollivander (Middle Child) that the wand chooses the wizard, so each girl put on a blindfold and approached the table of wands and let the wand choose them.  

Eeylop's Owl Emporium - The last purchase was to choose a pet from Eeylop's.  We had unicorns, dragons, owls, and cats.  We purchased Beenie Boos - a favorite of Peanut and her friends - which the girls could purchase for 5 galleons.  The dragons were particularly popular!

With their armfuls of supplies and a few extra knuts, the girls were ready to board the train to Hogwarts.  They were so excited when they realized that they could keep what they had just "purchased"!  

"Use Your Isolator"

Dear Husband gave me a wonderful Christmas present after Middle Child was born.  His gift of "painting lessons" got me started on my artistic journey.  I'm using quotes around painting lessons, because in this type of class everyone chooses their own subject and the instructor walks around giving pointers - not step-by-step instruction with everyone painting the same thing. This particular teacher was fond of saying 2 things:  "Use your isolator" and "Add yellow ochre". My next instructor basically said to throw away both your isolator and yellow ochre. Various workshops later and I've got a whole slew of tips from instructors, some of which are conflicting. Some I've incorporated into what I do and others I have not.  You just have to find what works for you.

What is an isolator, you ask?  It is a tool to help you see very light and very dark colors.  I haven't used an isolator in years,  but with the basically black Yashica and white Shaylee, I thought it might come in handy.  

Back in class, my isolator was just a note card with 2 holes punched in it.  Around one hole, the card was colored with black sharpie.  You use the white hole when looking at very light or "white" colors and the black hole when looking at very dark or "black" colors.  When surrounded by white or black, you can more easily see the true colors in your subject.

I made a fancy isolator the other day which also includes a gray and creamy color using scrapbook paper (pictured below).  Wow!  That is high tech!  Don't laugh - it works.  Look at when I compare the white to the light tones in Shaylee.  Now you can see that the color is a little gray with a hint of pale peach.  

So, if you're only seeing black and white, you might want to try an isolator!

A Portrait for a Piccolo

Two summers ago, we went on a family vacation to New England.  Before going on our trip, we planned to buy a piccolo for The Oldest to play in marching band, but ran out of time -sadly, a common occurrence.  In this case it actually worked out for the better, because when visiting Dear Husband's family, his niece offered us her piccolo that she hadn't played in years.  Fabulous! She wouldn't let us pay her for it, so I planned to repay her with a portrait of her baby - an English Setter named Shaylee.

Fast forward a year and a half and I'm finally working on her portrait...  Here are a few steps along the way.  After painting the background, I stopped taking step-by-step pictures because the fur required me to jump all over the canvas (with my brush, not literally, Silly!) instead of painting in steps.  My two younger kids had the day off school today, so I didn't get as far as I would have liked - imagine that!  But I think Shaylee looks pretty good so far.  I didn't realize that Middle Child took a picture of me painting (believe it or not, that is actually my arm), but I liked it so I decided to include it.  So, here I am painting in my kitchen.  Don't you love the classy way I taped my reference photo to a piece of torn, ratty cardboard - nice!  It does help help with light coming through the back of my photo.

Hopefully I can get back to her on Sunday while my paint is still blendable.  I've got a good start but still lots of fine tuning to do and details to add.  She's going to be so beautiful - just like in real life!

I have conquered the Yashica!

So I didn't get a chance to post on Saturday like I usually do because I was helping my girl scout troop make crafts for the upcoming holiday bazaar and because  I was still recovering from my prior fight with the Yashica and was having trouble making myself get in that ring again!

First the girl scouts -

Our troop chose to make American Girl doll accessories, bottle cap magnets, and barrettes to sell at the bazaar this Saturday.  If you're local, consider checking it out - feel free to contact me for the details.

One of my favorite doll items is a camping set, which includes a sleeping bag, campfire, marshmallows on a stick and s'mores.  It's so cute!  Here's Kit camping in my front yard, rocking an outfit that my mom made (I just love the little details she puts in all her clothes!).  I really hope the neighbors didn't see me taking these pictures.  They'd think I'm nuts playing with dolls while the kids are at school!

The campfire was made with sticks and orange tulle and we used polymer clay for the marshmallows and s'mores.  Half a wooden skewer was the perfect size for the marshmallow stick and we brushed the clay with pastel dust before we baked it to give the marshmallows a toasted appearance.  What's pastel dust you ask?  It is the powder produced when you run chalk pastels (which are not the same as oil pastels) back and forth on a paper.  We used orange and brown mixed together on our marshmallows.  Simple!

The girls had so much fun making these bottle cap magnets.  I just love them!

To make your own, you need:

Bottle caps, Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, paper, clear tape, magnets, Gorilla Glue, and small trinkets (aka junk).  First, you cut a 1" circle from your paper.  If you are using something like wrapping paper or images printed on your printer, you need to cover your image with clear tape before cutting it out so that it doesn't run.  We used scrapbook papers and stickers so we could skip this step.  Squirt a little Mod Podge Dimensional Magic in your bottle cap, add your paper and trinkets, if desired.  Let it rest a few minutes so your paper won't "float" when you add more mod podge.  Once your paper looks like it will stay in place, fill the bottle cap with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, making sure to squirt it over your trinkets.  Let it dry overnight and glue a magnet onto the back of the cap using Gorilla Glue.  Easy and fun!

Now on to the Yashica -

I'm relieved to have finished "The Yashica".  This painting required so much precision - especially the letters.  I found it a bit tedious and really struggled against the texture of the canvas. The next time I face a subject like this, I hope I remember to use a wood panel instead of a canvas.  The smooth surface should make it much easier.

Here is the finished Yashica painting.  I do like the end result, so I guess it was worth the fight!

Painted Halloween Pillow Covers

Happy Halloween!

Last year I was in the market for some Halloween pillows for the rocking chairs on my porch.  I knew just what I wanted - one that says "trick" and one that says "treat", made out of burlap.  I couldn't find them anywhere so I decided to sew covers for my summer outdoor pillows and paint my design.  I think they turned out cute!  A couple of bonuses:  They take up much less space in the off-season, because I just have to store the cover.  Once Halloween is over, I flip them over and use the bare burlap side for the rest of the fall season.

They're really simple to make - basically just a tight pillow case.  If you want to make one of your own, here's all you have to do:

What you need for one 18" pillow -

19" x 45" piece of burlap
19" x 45" piece of off-white cotton (This is used because you can see through the wide weave of the burlap.  I used a curtain-liner fabric that I had laying around.  You can really use anything, but just remember that bits of it will show through so you might want to avoid bright pink, etc.)
Acrylic craft paint and brushes (Gasp! Though I paint in oil paints, I use acrylic craft paint for projects like this because it dries quickly.)
A piece of cardboard or shirt box

1)  Cut your fabric - My pillows are 18", so I planned for a 1/2" seam allowance and left extra length (9") to tuck the bottom of the case up the back of the pillow.  If your pillow isn't 18", add 1" to the width and 9" to the length and cut away.

2)  Pin the cotton to the burlap and fold it in half so that they cotton is on the outside.

3)  Sew the long sides using a 1/2" seam allowance.  Leave the bottom open.

4)  Turn the cover burlap side out and insert the cardboard (to keep you paint from going through to the other side).

5)  Plan and paint your design.  If desired, paint a different design on the back.

6)  Once the paint is dry, stuff your pillow it and tuck the excess fabric up the back, as shown in the bottom right picture below.  Enjoy!

Paint a portrait in a day?

The portrait of the dancer and violinist below took a few months and caused a minor crisis in our home.  My family endured numerous dinners of frozen pizza, a house in shambles, and clean clothing shortage.  I'm proud to say they managed to persevere through these first world problems and even rose to the occasion!  As I got closer to my deadline, summer break began and I was painting 10 or 12 hours a day.  "The Oldest" was so helpful, making lunches for her siblings and for me.  That way, I could just stop painting for 5 minutes to shovel the food in.  (Asking her to feed the lunch to me while I painted seemed a bit extreme.)  After months of "hardship", the painting was finally finished and everyone lived happily ever after.  That is, until I take on my next portrait!

For our nutritional health and mental well-being,  I decided to try a new technique to portrait painting.

I usually start by painting a full underpainting, complete with all the details.  As you can see below, it just looks like a sepia version of my finished product, even including the violinist's bracelet and the sequins on the dancer's dress.  Color is then added, transparent in some places and opaque in others. Finally, I touch on the little details again and I'm finished!

This time, I decided to entirely forgo the underpainting and use the same techniques that I showed in a prior post when painting a pear .  The reference photo of "Peanut" is from a recent family vacation to Colorado, which I cropped to just show her head and shoulders.  I thought this would make a good portrait, because the viewer is left to interpret her expression.  Is she thoughtful? sad? concerned? suspicious? In reality, I think she was just tired because we were hiking on the Boulder Flatirons.  

(Just a quick word of advice for those thinking of hiking the Flatirons - don't send all the snacks and water with the slow group that only plan to go halfway up!  Those hiking all the way to the top get very thirsty and hungry.  And I know from personal experience, because that's what the rest of the family texted me after "Peanut" and I sent them photos of us eating ice cream while waiting for them to finish their hike.)

Okay, back to painting...  Below is the reference photo with the first 3 steps:  1. The Basic Shape (top right), 2. Draw the Shadow Areas (bottom left) and 3. Paint the Shadow Areas (bottom right).  The canvas is rectangular, but it's cropped here to a square, so that's why she looks so high on the canvas.

Next, I moved on with 4. The Background (top left) and 5. The Light Areas (top right).  On a still life, I would now add the reflective light; however, I didn't really see any obvious reflected light so I decided to skip this step and moved on to 6. The Midrange (bottom left).  Next, I would add the cast shadow (like the shadow under her nose and lip), but I had already painted those in step 3 so I moved on.  The "highlights" would be next, but many highlights, such as in her eyes, couldn't be painted until after the details, so I combined the highlights step and the details step into 7. Details (bottom right).

Did I finish in a day?  Not quite.  I still need to do some work on her hand and a little bit of fine-tuning. Did we eat take-out?  Sorry to say that we did.  Did the house look like it had been ransacked? Most definitely!  But it was only for one day, so that's not too bad, right?

Garden Harvest painting - from ho-hum to fabulous!

Check out what Garden Harvest looks like now!

How did it get from this....

To this! 

Oil paint is great, because if you don't like what you see, you can change it.  This applies to your subject or what you have already painted.  For example, if  you're painting a portrait of a pimply teenager (or even an adult - why do we still get them?), you can choose to leave the acne out.  My first version of Garden Harvest was looking a little pimply to me.  There were two HUGE, pre-prom zits - the composition and the lighting.

The Composition

In my original version, the subject was much too high on the canvas.  The dispenser felt squashed and there was too much empty space at the bottom of the canvas.

Remember Step One of my pear demonstration - painting a simple shape and look at it?  Well, I painted it, but I obviously didn't look at it.  If I had, I could have changed my composition and avoided the problem before I got the painting started.

To fix the composition, I removed the dispenser's cap to give it a bit of breathing room.  I also added those adorable garlic cloves to the foreground.  I'm kind of glad that I made this mistake, because the garlic cloves are now my favorite part of the painting.

The Lighting

The lighting in my original version was boring.  Everything and nothing looked lit up.  In other words, it looked like all parts of the still life were lit the same.  The dispenser and tomatoes just didn't glow!

To show that the light was moving from the upper left, over the handle towards the basil, I darkened the background on the left side of the painting.  I also darkened the tomato and leaves on the left and created some beautiful lost edges (where you can't really tell where the tomato and basil leaf end).   The bottom half of the dispenser was distracting to me, so I put that in shadow and added more shading to the right two tomatoes and the basil leaf on the right.  I highlighted the clump of basil leaves to show that the light was directly hitting them.

I did add a little bit more color to the dispenser's design, but the white areas (like the handle) were untouched.  See how it sings now with better lighting!

Now if you could only change what you don't want to see in real life that easily!

Want dramatic light? Just think inside the box!

When I first started painting, I would photograph my subject near a window to get the dramatic lighting I liked.  I would then paint from the photograph.  Of course, at that time it would take months to finish a painting, so painting from life wasn't usually an option.  A few-month-old apple doesn't look so appealing!

Once I began painting from life, I struggled to obtain the correct lighting.  I tried painting in an unlit room with a light on my subject and another on my canvas.  The problem was that if I had enough light on my canvas to paint, there was too much light on my subject so that it lacked drama.

The solution was to use a box!  Now I could paint in a well lit room, but limit the light to my subject.  Hooray!

We just bought a new printer, which wasn't so exciting, but it did come in a nice box!  Because this box is deep, it keeps too much light from reaching your subject from the front.  I cut a section out of the side toward the top, which is where I placed my lamp.  I use an adjustable photography lamp, which is great, because I can direct the light from any angle.

I chose to paint some basil and tomatoes from our garden.  I thought the olive oil dispenser we purchased in Italy would add some height and I balanced the white of the dispenser with some garlic.  Unfortunately, I only had a half head of garlic, so I had to lean it against the tomato and improvise a bit.

It looks pretty good, now let's turn the light on...

Wow!  What a difference!  The tomatoes glow and the basil has become translucent.  Much better!

Hint:  If you are painting basil under hot lights, put it in water.  Next time I will try the little water tubes florists sometimes use for individual flowers.  My basil wilted fast, so I needed to improvise and change my composition a bit.  

After a half day, "Garden Harvest"  looks like this.  Hmmm....  Not my favorite.  I think it needs a few changes.  Check out how I improve this painting next time.  Too bad I can't count it as a completed painting yet - still only at 2!

"Apple-Shaped"

I painted an apple using the same method I used for the pear.  I can relate to the shape!

Paint with me - How to paint a pear in 10 easy steps!

I'm going to create this painting in 10 easy steps.  I hope you join me in painting your own pear and post your finished product!

I started with an 8" x 10" canvas and my palette of colors (shown above).   You will need more Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, and Titanium White than any other colors, so put 3-4 times more of those colors on your palette.  Make a mixture of half Ultramarine Blue and half Burnt Umber.  I refer to this as your “dark mixture”.

Using your dark mixture thinned with paint thinner, paint the basic shape of your subject with straight brush strokes.  My pear will be leaning a little, so its basic shape is a leaning triangle.

This step might seem silly, but it is really important because it gives you an idea of where your subject will live on the canvas.  Step back and decide if the shape is too big or small, too high or low, or too far to one side.  It is much easier to make a change at this point than later on in the painting process.  Trust me!

Again using your thinned, dark mixture, establish the shadow areas of the painting.  In this step, you will paint the areas of the background and subject that are in shadow (for example, the darker side of the pear), not just the shadow that your subject is casting. Continue to only use straight strokes at this point.  I like to paint both the right and left sides of the shelf or table edge in shadow, so the viewer’s eye doesn’t follow the shelf edge out of the painting.

Paint your shadow areas using your dark mixture and cadmium colors.  Here I added cadmium red to my dark mix to paint on and under the shelf and in the background and I added cadmium yellow light for the pear. Keep the paint smooth and thin, but you can use curvy strokes now! 

I’m into blue right now, so I wanted a mainly blue background.  I mixed thalo blue with black and white, for the background and for the grayer areas on the table.  I added my cadmium yellows to paint the reflection on the shelf.  I like to allow the brush strokes to show without making the background too busy.

Using earth tones (Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre and Indian Red) and white, paint the light area of the pear.  I also used a little bit of my cadmium yellow light in the mix, but be careful not to add too much.  You don’t want your light areas to be the brightest, most color-saturated areas of the painting.

When painting the light areas, I use thicker paint and more prominent brush strokes.  I load my brush, paint a couple of short straight brush strokes in a circular pattern, then reload the brush.  As I reach the edges of the light area, the paint becomes thinner and smother.

I added a bit of reflected light on the bottom right side of the pear using my light color mix.  Add just enough reflective light to tie the light and shadow areas together, but not so much that it is distracting.  This usually looks a bit odd to me when I first add it, but looks good by the time the painting is complete.

For the midrange, I used brighter, deeper colors just a tiny bit darker than my light area.  I’m always tempted to blend too much at this point.  I try to just tap back and forth between my midrange and light area, then with a clean, dry brush tap between my midrange and dark area.

At this point, it is starting to look like a pear!

Using my dark mix with a little cadmium red light, I cleaned up and darkened the shadow cast by the pear.  A solid shadow line underneath the pear can make it look like it is floating above the shelf, so I used a broken shadow line to keep it connected with the table.

I loaded my brush with a mixture of white and Indian Yellow Pale and gently placed in the highlights.  I hold my brush almost like I would hold a knife when frosting the side of a cake.  When I first put in the highlights, I’m tempted to blend them (and they look a little blurred because this photo isn't the best); however, I remind myself that they will look good once the painting is finished.  Don’t blend them!

This is the really exciting part when the painting comes together!   To complete this painting, I

•  Added the stem
•  Darkened the shelf edge and where the shelf meets the back wall
•  Threw some cadmium yellow light into my background 
•  Added a "halo" around the pear 
• Crisped up some edges and blended out others to create lost edges

These details make quite a difference.  Voila!  My painting is finished!