9/21/2011

Finished the t-shirt design. I hope that it is reproducible. Had the best time working this one up. Changed the contrast from the previous version so that there was more difference in the gray. Once I had the ink down it painted much like a paint by number.

So, still working on Deb. It has been fun playing around with the paint. I decided to do a version in gouache that is inspired by the silver surfer, Deborah is a smooth rider who hides her cycling strength under a cool reserve. Will probably do another version that has more contrast and I am undecided as to the background and border. Would love to do an art nouveau inspired border. More to play with!

8/10/11

Well, the scans are not in the order I drew them, but you get the idea. Portrait of a Pittsburg cyclist. Work in progress.

7/20/2011

Still looking for that special something. So, I've been fantasizing about comic books and their bold lines and colors but afraid to really commit to trying my hand at creating one. So I applied the bold lines and really red to my favorite subject, circles! Had to invent some rules for me to follow, you know this math person, always need some guidelines. Everything with no intersection has one set of lines, the intersections of two circles contains (you guessed it) two sets of crosshatched lines and the third has three lines to fill the space. As with any rules there has to be some rule breaking. I decided that the little circles were independent of the rules and the final red piece that is reminiscent of a triangle on the sphere has four intersecting circles followed suit.

Oh, by the way, the size of this one is different than the other paintings this year. This one is 11.5 by 5&7/8 inches.

Read While You Ride

This is the set up my sister has for her indoor trainer. We adapted it to work with two riders. Let's see, Cyn was reading a Diane Mott Davidson and I had the first Harry Potter. We actually rode for 1.5 hours. It seemed to fly by and we were not loafing. No excuses!

7/19

Yes, it has been a month since last posting. Life in that month has been full, full of travels, family and laughter. This past few days has seen me lost and adrift. Seeming with no thoughts to pin down or even act upon. So these two color sketches are a result of needing to do something, anything to find direction.

A Full Week

Off to the KLN workshop for school. Father's Day weekend is busy also. Not only are we hosting the Kansas State Time Trial Championships on Saturday, we are off the Cub Scout camp on Sunday for a few days.

Will be back to painting in a week.

6/10/2011

Grandma's Horse Lamp. A picture I have sketched several times and will many more in the future.

6/9/11

Decided to try out the lines. Used my handy compass to measure out the distances. It was funny on the 6/8/11 pic I was looking all over for a ruler to measure out the widths of the vertical lines then realized I could use the compass to create units. Todays work is with raw umber, yellow ochre, azo yellow and titanium white. Getting antsy about reds and blues, but those tubes are almost gone. Cannot wait to get some more paint.

Starting to think about some pieces that will involve more work and more days. Will also have to move to the oils for more colors.

6/8/10

Went a little more complicated today. Used yellow ochre and cerulean blue and titanium white. Decided to use vertical lines to divide the plane vertically. I repeated the vertical lines about three quarters of the length of the painting. The circles with no intersections match colors with the first two vertical lines, the parts of the circle with one intersection match the third vertical lines, so on and so forth. the cerulean blue circles are the fourth intersection of circles. Any questions?

The extra was fun and a blast from the past. In the early nineties my art was mostly in the form of abstract expressionism. Lots of colors, lines and layers. I will try to post an example later, not finding one right away on the computer. Maybe need to take some pictures of that work.

6/7/2011

Finished the two flowers from May, this being the second. Now I feel better being caught up. The extra is interesting. It is nice to let the paint do the work.

6/6/2011

A little change of pace. These are sketches drawn in May that I never got around to painting. I let the circle sketches and the extras influence the way the color was applied. The dots were a last minute addition. Cadmium yellow holds the spotlight with titanium white and a dash of ultramarine blue.

6/5/2011

Raw umber, titanium white and a hint of alizarin crimson. They made me think of chocolate.

6/4/2011

These are burnt sienna and cadmium yellow. This brown color is a contrast to the cooler brown color created with the raw umber on 06032011. This has a nice golden warmth.

6/3/2011

Took a little break from the world in Pittsburg and took off to Branson, MO for the Leaming Family Reunion. Had a blast visiting with the relatives! At any rate we are back in town and life goes on. These two are raw umber and cadmium yellow. The 2nd intersections are nice with their yellowness. I have to fight the urge to use some way out there color to contrast the interesections.

6/2/2011

Payne's Gray and Cadmium Yellow. Not that you can tell there is yellow. For some reason I find Payne's Gray fascinating. Is it the touch of blue? Is it the sensation of being pulled into the color? Not sure. There was enough leftover paint to get the "extra" postcard. The edges are interesting.

6/1/2011

Today's was a practice in no intersections. I like how the vertical lines are a touch not perpendicular to the edge. Paynes's Gray and Cadmium Yellow.

Do you ever wonder when a color stops being a particular hue? These little paintings have me pondering. I like the idea of starting with two out of the tube colors, making a mix and then have the intersections of the circles move to one of the out of the tube colors.

5/31/2011

I love this postcard size! The pics are quick sketches that are playful and let me run through ideas in my head then to paper for a quick look. Today's monochrome is alizarin crimson and azo yellow. Yesterday's was Cadmium yellow and cerulean blue. These are definitely giving me some ideas for some more in depth paintings.

5/30/2011

School is out for the summer!! First painting of the summer is out also!

Decided to go with a series of monochromatic postcard sized gouaches to start things off. This works well because all of my favorite colors are almost out. So I will work with the colors left for a little while and see what happens.