Day 32 addendum

Here is the ebay address, to see the One Day paintings for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120471896862

Day 32

Not good news on the Weight Watchers' scale this morning. Gotta get back on the wagon. Goal today: write down everything I eat.

I did a One Day painting today. I set myself up on my deck on this gorgeous Sunday, and I enjoyed doing this little study. I can't call these paintings "one-a-day", since I am not doing them every day, but I will call the small ones I complete in a day, One Day paintings. Today's painting is called, "Italian Flavors". I'm going to put all my little paintings up for sale on ebay.

Day 30, Evening

I more or less finished the painting of the twins at the beach, (my aunt's great grand daughters..very sweet). I'll bring it tomorrow for Aunt Edith. She has always been a very dear aunt and my only living relative from the last generation. She lives far from family in Florida, and I'm happy I'll be able to visit with her and our little family tomorrow, when she is visiting with my cousin in NJ. Signing off til next week...

Day 30

I had my second session of figure class this week. Here are a few figure drawings I did in class. The small ones are 'gesture drawings', intended to capture the movement of the figure.
Today I hope to finish the little painting of the children at the beach, so I can bring it with me to a family holiday get together...and give it to my aunt. Happy New Year!

Day 28

Almost a month has gone by since I began! The good news is that I have done more art work than I can recall doing any previous month, but the bad news is that I need to do more! I had a bad week with my health; an old car accident injury has really messed up my neck and I have been having such pain, even down through my chest, that one night I thought it might be a heart attack and went to the hospital. It wasn't my heart, so that is good, but still, when it is bad, I can hardly sleep, and I'm tired and miserable.

All that notwithstanding, I have started to take the figure class, and I am in ecstasy!! Twice a week for two studio classes with a model, and for a modest fee, as an 'older person'....I am so happy for this opportunity. I have high hopes of seeing great improvement over the semester, and maybe I can continue with it for the whole school year. This afternoon is the second session, so I have to make this short. In the evening, I'm taking my dog to agility class..so it's a busy day. I wanted to post a couple of my figure drawings. In the image with the extra head drawing..I was working on drawing the tilt of the head, which is difficult.

Other news: ISRAEL PROJECT: I have been doing research on line and finding a lot of like minded people blogging and posting images of the sort I want for a painting...and trying to contact them for permission to use the pictures, but so far, no luck. A lot of dead ends. But I'll keep trying.
Meantime, in my mind, I am developing an idea for a large painting of the twelve soldiers who were cremated alive during the summer war, while they were eating lunch, not even in combat!, just sitting on a stone wall in a Kibbutz, when a katusha rocket crashed into the paved road in front of them setting a car on fire and killing all the men. I am going to do some prelim. work on this image this week. So it's off to school now.....

Day 20

Starting with health, not so good. Nothing serious with a capital S, but muscle spasms and stuff like that really slow me down. No more on this...just to make a note that I am spending time feeling miserable and don't feel like painting. BUT, I did do a One a Day yesterday, which is posted here. Tomorrow will be a better day, I hope, and I do have a plan.

I'm going to work on a small painting for my aunt in Florida, of her twin great grand daughter...a real sweet beach scene. One of my interests is painting people on the beach, so this should be good practice. The catch is, one, a resemblance is critical in this painting, and the proportions of children are tricky for me...but, as I said, good practice.
I also have in mind to do an Israel picture, but in the charcoal I used for the scene of the river at the mill, posted on Sunday. I am beginning to think that is a strong medium for me and could have the kind of impact I am looking for. I hope to have those both up on the blog before the weekend.

Our self study program: Barb and I don't live too close to each other, so we are having some phone meetings and sharing our progress on the phone and internet for a couple of weeks this month. Our assignment is to work through the book called 'Brushwork Essentials' and chose one of the painting projects at the end to copy. Deadline is the third week of Sept. Tomorrow, I start going to the advanced figure drawing class at the state college. I'm pretty psyched about that too! See you soon with more updates.

Day 19

I did a painting today of tomatoes...what else?? They are coming fast and furious, and we feel lucky to have them at all, with all the crazy rain we had this summer. The painting is too wet to scan. I hope to have a photo of it to post by tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my friend, Erna, who owns a very handsome daschund named Samson, said that she has gotten many compliments on a drawing I did of him. She suggested that I post the image here, since I do pet portraits as commissions, and people might like to see another example of my work. So here is a picture of Samson, done in graphite on paper.

Day 18- Open House at the Brookfield Craft Center

Today was our once a year open house at the craft center where I teach drawing and painting. I was asked to draw outdoors, which I did with pleasure! It was a perfect day! Our location is wonderful, in an old grist mill with a river flowing by in the backyard...and we had a terrific turn out at our open house. Many craftspeople who teach there demonstrate their skills and show prospective students what they can create in the classes. I had a good time drawing, practiced my perspective and used a medium that I now know is a top pick for me: vine charcoal. I must do more work in charcoal. It is so soft and malleable, it almost feels like I'm sculpting with it...I love it! Here is the drawing I did while people came by and visited at the Center.

I am also uploading the painting of the pond we visited several times in RI, and another small painting of the lake near my house, Candlewood, in Connecticut.

Another bit of news. I just found out that a former teacher of mine is teaching Advanced Figure Drawing at the Danbury branch of our state university, and now that I am of a 'certain' age, I can take classes for a very nominal fee....so I have decided to take the class. It's twice a week for a semester, so I'll count those class sessions as my art work for those days, and will post my drawings from the classes here too. I think that improving my figure skills can never hurt. It makes pictures interesting to have people in them!

Day 17 Back from Rhode Island

Will post more tomorrow...I'm tired! But here are three of my 'one a day more or less' paintings I did in RI. These are three 6x6" or 6x8" oil paintings. They seemed dry enough to scan, but there is another not finished and one still too wet that I can try to shoot a pic of tomorrow (it's too big for the scanner anyway). As you can see, the topic is FOOD!

We rented a little two bedroom house near the ocean, took our dog Deus (short for Amadeus) to a wonderful pond in Burlingame Park to swim almost every day, went to the beach with him in the evenings after the life guards left (we brought picnic food for dinner), ate in a couple of great restaurants and had a day at the beach in Narragansett sans doggie. I painted every day! I am very proud.

I took about 400 photos last week, and am looking forward to painting a lot of ocean paintings, boats and beach-goers in the near future.
I'm also going to post my little paintings on ebay soon, and put them up for sale.