by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Life |
This weekend I learned a valuable lesson. I learned to paint like Matthew. He’s one of my students and you can read about him here. Go ahead. Read all about him. You need to do it to understand what I’m going to say. Do it now, I’ll wait.
CAN YOU STAND THAT SMILE??? OMG, I get PAID to hang out with him. Little emoticon hearts here. Lots if I knew how.
And by the way, that wonderful art program is a non-profit agency. Always strapped. Just sayin’…in case that smile made your give o’meter start ticking.
Now back to my weekend. I had the itch. And the only cure was STUDIO TIME. I needed to paint SO MUCH that I willingly braved rain and snow and a wind so fierce trees and birds were falling out of the sky.
I HAD to do it. There was a big canvas calling my name. And when a canvas speaks, it’s best to listen.
This one was 40×40, that’s inches for my Aussie friends. I’d done a number of layers on it a week or so ago. I didn’t have a plan, just knew it was time to add some definition. So I did.
Now, about painting like Matthew…I hooked my laptop to some speakers. Opened up the R&B folder in iTunes. Cranked up the volume ’till the walls shook.
I danced like no one was watching.
I sang like no one was listening.
And I painted like no one was home…
I. Did. NOT. Think.
The bird up above? He just evolved. As did the other shapes.
Evolved into this. Which is still a work in progress. Very much so.
My ego began kicking in around the same time the light got bad. Figured it was time to call it a day. Don’t know if I’ll be able to get back to it until next weekend. The night lighting in Studio Grande sucks. Ahhh, but the soon-to-be-new-Studio-Grande will have lighting conducive to working all through the night…if I’m ever so inclined.
So after a day of music and painting I curled up on the sofa with Mr. Spouse and a couple of dogs. Basketball. March madness. The Final Four playoff. He was very much into the game. And I was very much into the players. Umm…hmm… Sweaty young men…great shoulders…. What’s not to like?
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Porterosa |
Helloooooooo, my sweetums! Been a long time. Took the weekend off from posting. Oh man, what a vacation that was. Channeled my creativity into painting. Yes indeed. Got some ART to show you.
But first…the weather report.
Remember all that rain I bitched about rejoiced over last week? Sumthin’ like 12 inches by the Friday evening news. That’s a whole lot ‘o wet. Indeed.
But Saturday we woke up to SUN! Blue skies. Big yellow orb. Heaven. Pure heaven. For a couple of hours.
Walked outside and it was like an enchanted forest around here. All that water going back up to the sky.
But it came down again. Only colder. Next morning we woke up to a different kind of enchantment. The kind that makes the dogs crazy happy.
But that’s enough about weather. Happens one way or another, every day. So let’s move on to ART! YAY!!! Let’s hear it for studio time. YAY!
I can’t hear you. Let’s do it again. LOUDER!
YAY!
Much better. Okay, so here are some works-in-progress. All acrylics. 12×24, (2) 24×24, 40×40. The closest one to being finished is the one with the woman.
'In Her Dreams' by Susan Lobb Porter. Acrylic on canvas, 24x24
Pretty close to being done. Might be, in fact. But until it walks out the door to a new home I always reserve the right to make changes. Just because I can.
Oh, how I enjoyed being in the studio. Enjoyed being productive. Did some thinking while I was painting and realized I need to do more of that. But since there’s only so many hours in the day something’s got to give. So I decided to cut back on the blog schedule. Instead of posting EVERY DAY (Is that nuts or what???) I’m cutting back to three days a week. At least for the time being. To make things easy to remember, I’m thinking Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
So I’ll see you Wednesday. Remember, that’s Random Acts of Art day. If you’ve got a link to share, there’ll be a link up on my blog. You can also send your photos to me and I’ll post them here. If you’re sending photos, be sure I get them by Tuesday afternoon, Pacific time (California). Can’t wait to see what you have to share!
Until then, my sweetums…xo
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Ponies
Ponies yesterday…
Ponies today.
This one was photographed in natural light and is closer to the right color than the one from yesterday. Maybe it’s somewhere in between the two. There will be some glazes but other than that I think this one is done.
Now…studio news. Mr. Spouse spent a good deal of the weekend walking around the roof. Hammering and sawing. Getting ready for Mr. Bob who will install the skylights this week. I helped by keeping out of his way. At his request. We make a good team, Mr. Spouse and I. A good team.
Next weekend it’s the roof.
Here’s an interior shot. Stuff going on, wires. Gas pipe. Nothing dramatic as far as photos go…but necessary boringness.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art |
I loves me my layers. Layers and layers and layers of random paint. It’s a good thing, you know, something to do in between muse strikes. Something to do with left over paint.
Eventually I get around to finishing them. Today I did another for the ‘Feather’ series. I seem to like feathers these days.
Here’s the original 12X12 canvas. Got a couple of layers going, don’t know how many. And yes, the workspace is a mess. It’s embarrassing. But as long as there’s room to work and I can find things it’s okay.
Decided to make some marks.
More marks. More color.
More glazes to tone down the marks. Then I block in a feather. But not in the obvious place, not over the quazi feather that’s still visible under the glaze.
I really don’t know where this is going but I’m following the curves indicated by the breaks along the upper edge of the feather. Which gives me two orbs. Two globes.
Needs some contrast. I fill in the back ground so the orbs pop. Throw in some gold accents. More glazes.
The final result…’Peace’.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Process |
See those three guys to the right, the birds? True confession: I go through stages where I use that image a lot. Three fat little birds, always blue, tweeting and twittering throughout my work in a non-social networking sort of way.
That particular painting has been hanging on my studio wall (ok, pinned to the studio wall) for ages. I’ve never been moved to move ’em out.
Earlier this summer I decided to paint them again, this time on plaster. I made a cradled board roughly the same size, coated it with plaster and painted the birds.
The end result was flat as day old beer. Wasn’t worth keeping. Wasn’t even worth photographing.
They had to…go away. But I wasn’t giving up that board without a fight. So I sanded it. Gave it a base coat of dark blue to bring out the cracks. Oh, and by the way, when working on plaster I prefer to use the cheap craft acrylics. Doesn’t have much binder and the plaster soaks it up, giving everything a chalky appearance whereas the good stuff just sits on the surface like plastic. And they’re so cheap you can buy armloads, truckloads, for next to nothing.
This is where I realized I’d scratched boxes around each bird. I could’ve filled them in with more plaster but that would’ve added another day for drying and I didn’t want to wait. And I would lose the cracks.
Warning: The next couple of photographs are out of focus. Squint. You’ll be fine.
I added some color as an undercoat. Don’t ask me how I choose color, I just do. And I guess this would be an over-undercoat since there was already a (mostly) blue base.
Toned it down with more paint to even things out. Sanded just a bit to bring out the under-colors. The texture is coming through and I’m happy with what’s happening.
I scratched some marks and filled them in with contrasting paint. Then I threw in some dots because I like dots. This is what it looked like before wax.
And this is what it looked like after. I incised into the wax, rubbed oil color into the scratches. Rub. Wipe. Rub. Wipe. Working this way is hands on down ‘n dirty.
You can see more of my plaster and wax work here.
