That's more like it!

` Does anyone remember seeing my very first painting? If you did, you may recall that the shadows of the jug and teapot were entirely inconsistent with one another.

` So... I fixed it.

` Do you think that's an improvement?

Five Color Oil Paintings - my first ever!

` This is what you've all been waiting for!! (Yes, all three of you!) I've finally been able to sit down at my computer, edit and upload these babies.
` While Rockstar / Superhero / Manly-Man Lou Ryan goes off scouting for shooting locations with Director / Cutie-Pie Nathan Lee, I've decided that, since I've already cleaned the Faucet Leak Cat Litter Sludge off the bathroom floor and picked a soccer ball-sized wad of cat hairs out of the carpet with my fingers (because I've just discovered the reason for the cat hair buildup is that the vacuum has stopped functioning long ago), I can take a break long enough to indulge you with a new post, which took two hours of my time:
` Behold, my first color oil painting, done with a pallet knife!

` Sure looks like it, don't it? Just like frosting a cake! The interesting coloration of the background is actually just the mud I made trying to mix the right colors for the little fruits. Instead of just wasting all the paint, I might as well put it to good use, right?
` Onto my 'rough brush' version, I made the fruits bigger so I could actually focus on figuring out how to make the right colors. (For the record, the red thing is a tomato, not an apple or a peach as so many people have declared after saying; "And I can even tell what it is!")

` On my third try, I was supposed to blend the colors in order to make them more realistic and detailed, so I made the fruits huge. Not lifelike, but not bad - although still, many people identified the tomato as a gigantic peach.
` Speaking of which, the tomato's vivid red color is due to my discovery of something called 'plain linseed oil', which you can mix with regular oil paints to create a transparent glaze that you can use to make your colors a bit more bright and consistent.

` You may not believe this, but when I first stood back from the finished painting I was surprised to see that my diligence resulted in the pear and plum showing reflections of the apple and tomato. I was not even aware of these details in front of me; they 'appeared' because I was focusing on getting the colors exactly right!
` And about the shadows... does anyone remember the problem with the first painting I did? Well, I screwed up with the shadows here, too, so I made the surface more uneven-looking in order to compensate. So, do you think that's even remotely convincing?

` Well, I didn't fix the shadows of my first painting like I was going to (yet), but I did try 'wet' painting, where you mix turpentine with your paint so it takes a really long time to oxidize. That way, you mix your colors as you paint, and they change with each stroke of the brush!
` I employed this technique to do my self-portraits, using a limited palette of black, white, Naples yellow, Prussian blue and fake burnt sienna: Since I could find no burnt sienna, I had to wing it by mixing raw sienna, brown and cadmium red.
` I started by sketching a self-portrait of myself in a mirror....

` Hey... guys! Not to sound ungrateful for this wonderful painting opportunity, but I can't work with people standing right in front of me, holding a conversation that I can follow perfectly! I've just screwed up my third sketch and I'm not going to be able to get one right unless I'm not being distracted constantly by the sound of human speech.
` Thank you.

` ...Wow. That sketch conveys some real negative emotions. Yay for stress! But pretty cool nonetheless. The question is; could I translate it to canvas? Only time would tell... three hours to be exact!

` Uuuhhhhh.... Let me just say this; not one person I showed it to recognized it as being a self-portrait, despite the fact that I was standing right beside it in the same pose - so I didn't bother telling them that's what it was.
` So, let's just say, he's my cousin Lenny! That's the thing with drawing a picture of something and then painting from it - it's more freakish than making a photocopy off another photocopy! All the little 'deviations from the original' that you made in the drawing are magnified about ten times.
` Then again, it's nice and twisted. And I like twisted! In fact, I like twisted so much that I really took great pains to try to make my next sketch as weird-looking as possible.

` There! That doesn't quite right at all because the different facial features are from slightly different angles! Now maybe if I do a painting, I thought, it will look more normal! So, I got out my paints - this time with real burnt sienna and Paine's gray instead of blue....

` Nope - now it's just more exaggerated than ever! Not that it looks bad. And what's the story behind the painting-eating-the-artist thing, you ask? (I'm pretending you ask questions, okay, because I can do that in my own little world!)
` What happened was, in my sketch, which was done two days before the painting, I forgot that I was wearing two shirts and that one was showing through on the left side. So, I mistook the undershirt showing for the collar of the overshirt and painted it that way.
` That kind of screwed everything else up and the rest of that side all went to hell, so I decided to be 'creative'. What better thing to have happen to a weird and twisted artist that their own creation appearing to be consuming them?
` Why not? And then why not have the other arm being squished by the painting? Perfect!

` And that, my friends, is that. Have a good New Year's! (For our New Year's, we're hoping that an old movie star friend of Lou's calls us when she gets back from her ski trip over on Mount Baker!)

My last weeks of Fall Quarter...

` Hooray for Fall Break! It's that magical time between Fall and Winter Quarters! While I was sad that my trip to the Seattle Art Museum was delayed once more (*shakes fist at weather*), I did nevertheless complete all of the paintings I shall put up here.
` But before I do so, I thought you might enjoy this photo I took from my little corner in the art studio....

` On the left is a sketch I did, then my second self-portrait I was doing from the sketch (with one eye all wonky), then Fruit Painting #3 (which I just touched now up at home) and my first self-portrait (with the chin and other eye all wonky).
` I also thought you might like to behold my bestest art-oriented classmate this quarter, Igorina, who is best known for doing drawings similar to the ones by this fellow here.

` I also thought you might want to gaze upon four of my lovely artificial assistants....

` I'll have more stuff up this month. You know, because I'll have time. Just let me take a bit to recover from my natural body chemistry vs. my G.I. tract....

My First Oil Painting!

` My World Art instructor, Sandra Lepper, is so awesome! I came to learn about the psychology and sociology of art and she declared me 'born to paint' and gave me some paints and brushes and a little setup in the art studio! Apparently, it's open on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 30-45 minutes of my available time. (I wish it was every day!)
` Therefore, my first painting took two weeks to paint, though the actual painting time was two hours. By last Thursday, it was finally dried (or rather, fully oxidized), so I took it home. Only then did I notice that I had forgotten to make the shadows match.
` So here we have a jug that's lit from a light source somewhere above the handle and a little teapot that's lit more from behind and off to the side. Or maybe, they're on a curved surface?! Personally, I like that explanation better.

` Sandy was really impressed. I think I'll take it back and fix the shadows, though... it only would take a minute of my valuable painting time.

` Anywho, that's my first assignment - broad brushstrokes in black and white. My next three are color paintings of fruit.
` The first one was with palette knives (which is like trying to paint pictures with different colors of cake frosting) and I'm almost finished with the broad brushstroke one. Next will be my 'realistic' one, and when they're all finished, I'll put photos of them up!
` After that, I get to go into self-portraits! Gee, I hope there's enough time in the quarter... I've been working in the art room for increasingly long periods of time, and then get paint all over the piano keys in my music class!

` Next quarter I'm going to take a painting class, that's all I have to say. What will I accomplish there? Perhaps I'll paint my fuzzy aliens - who have increased in size 700%! One thing I was really planning on is making a much better version of the only watercolor I ever did, which was when I was sixteen.
` I was actually working with watercolor pencils, and they were very hard to mix, so my color palette was very limited. As a result, the scene has no depth, and instead of looking like it's during a sunny day, it looks like a cloudy day with bizarre, dull-looking sparkles.
` Then, when I paint that, I'll show you the difference between the two.