So this one I started about 2am this morning, painting the base canvas all the same shade of green. Green seems to keep coming back to me as a surprise. The reason I painted this is actually for Mother’s Day, I did another painting which Mum liked a similar color, and this really is her favourite color.

But what happened after that pretty much came as a surprise. I knew I wanted to try painting by cardboard dragging – you basically use cardboard as the brush. Two episodes of the West Wing played in the background from about 4pm-5:30pm, while this painting magically happened.

The yellow, orange and red, which I just can’t stop looking at, was a last minute decision. I was going to stick to all greens, blues and grays (which was silver mixed with white, I was hoping it would be more silver than it turned out) but I’d done some sponge painting with the orange and decided to try a little bit of it, then the lighter orange and yellow happened, and I love it. For now.

I may not love it once it’s dry, but I think Mum will like it.

Up till now, I have been using fairly cheap art stuff, mainly because you get a lot for a little bit of money.

But yesterday The Other Half and I went to the art shop where I picked up a little something I’ve had my eye on for a few weeks now.

I’m about to crack open the orange cadmium jar because I have a canvas all ready for it. I hope it smells better than the cheap paints do.

Also yesterday we went looking at new places we might want to live. Number one in the running is a sleepy little village where most houses are walking distance to the sea. Number two in the running is the same. And there’s quite a few of these sleepy little villages to choose from, most of them a short drive from where we live now. Of course we would rather have something which has a fairly large block – a buffer zone, if you like.

We found one house which we wanted to look at but when we went to the real estate agents it said no pets. I asked did that mean cats because a lot of times when they say no pets what they mean is, no dogs. However in this case it apparently meant every animal under the sun including goldfish, but the person I was speaking to clarified they didn’t actually know, because they don’t do the rentals. I said, well my cats are my kids, I’m not having any children, and if it said no kids then they’d be in a lot of trouble! They did not even offer to *ask* the landlord for me.

Clearly they must have an awful lot of people queueing up to rent places there – oh hang on, it’s been on the books for a couple of months with nobody living there? Oh, it’s just you real estate agents don’t really care about it and would rather sit on your arse than try to get it rented. Ok then.

We found some very nice real estate agents in one of the towns we are looking at, so we might just go in there and say here’s what we need, let us know if and when you get anything like it. And we did find one which we’re wanting to look more closely at, in a quiet street within close walking distance of a very nice river and the ocean.

It’s ok, we’re in no hurry. We’ve got plenty of time, and I have plenty of real estate alerts emailed to me.. ;)

We interrupt this internet security series to bring you this art moment.

Recently at art class, we had a life model come in to pose. Yes, naked. I spent two hours looking at a naked woman. But she wasn’t a woman, she was a confusing mess of shapes and lines which somehow would not translate to my page very well.

I found it extremely frustrating actually. I ended up throwing out *all* of my sketches, I didn’t like any of them. In fact I only kept one thing from the session which was an experimental paint thing we did. I like it so much I am going to frame it, but it made her look like just a blob. That’s because it was the best way I found to actually get across what I was seeing in the short space of time we had for each pose. It was even worse because I am actually in the middle of a canvas painting at art class right now, and that is what was in my head, that is what I wanted to be working on, but I had to put it aside for this life model instead.

It was a very odd experience. I’d like to try it again when I’m not in the middle of a painting, but I really didn’t enjoy this session, I just felt limited by my lack of talent. Most of the others in the class have had a full year of art class and I have only had one term.

So, as long as you promise not to mock, here is my painting.. and remember it was done in less than 20 minutes. Yes, she has no face, no hands, no feet, but those things are extremely difficult to capture in a short time, and now that it is the way it is I’m not inclined to add them, I just like it as it is.

Of course when I look at this, I see the model and where the details *should* go.

Here’s an update on the current state of the painting. Sort of like the state of the union thing the US president does from time to time.

1. Peaches [Completed]

This painting is named after the song Peaches by the Presidents of the USA which is about moving to the country and eating peaches.

2. Sunset [Completed]

Well, it’s obviously self evident what this one is?

3. Name It [Completed]

I have no name for it. If you can think of one, comment the name and your thoughts on why it should be called that, and the best one wins. However I will let you know when I look at this I think of Project Runway because that is what I was watching when I painted it, mostly.

4. Flowers [final stage]

I think this will look even better when it is sealed, the colours really come out when you use the sealing stuff on paintings. And no, Anna Falactic, it’s not having anything at the top. ;)

5. Entourage [first stage]

This painting is inspired by a painting I saw in the background on Entourage while waiting for Project Runway to start. When I saw it I finally figured out what to do with all the extra brown paint I seemed to be accumulating. I really like it but I have to fix it.

There you have it, now I’m off, I got some work to do ;)

This is where I’m at with the flower painting. I have to paint over the reddish colored one next to the orange, it was too dark. The idea is kind of to graduate in colors from yellow to orange to red. maybe with pink in the middle, I dont know yet.

It’s like meditation or something, sooo peace inspiring. I think I need to be painting every day. No wonder people are artists. I completely get it now.

I’ve been thinking of how to achieve the effect I want to get with the following painting for some time. This is steps one and two so far – I used a stamp to make the flower shapes because I had no idea how to do it otherwise yeah I’m completely unco but remember they kicked me out of art? ;)

Then I filled in the petals with a pale yellow. This is just the start for these flowers because I’m going to fill them in with other colors – they need like a layering effect with the paint. It’s kind of a copy of a painting I’ve seen. So they won’t all be yellow, they’ll be red and orange and pink and various other combinations.

I feel a little like my mind is being bent into a pretzel at the moment. ;) There’s a lot of stuff on my to do list, and things are getting a little overwhelming and out of hand. So what better time than to finish my paintings? I’m going to seal this one today – click for a larger image –

Do you see how I put some red over the top of the darker purple? That was an experiment that worked, I like it. I don’t love the black over the blue at the top, but next time I’ll know better. That’s what it’s about, trying stuff to see if it works. I was going to paint over it and also two little brushes that got stuck in the peachy orange, but the other half said no, don’t be such a perfectionist. Accept what is. :)