Daily Painting Practice - Can Artists Keep a Schedule? Part 2

Last week I wrote about the new work schedule I developed with the goal of becoming more productive.  After the second week of trying to work with this new routine I have to admit a few adjustments were in order. ( no surprise there!) I thought showing my process in picture form might help explain what it is I am after... Originally, I wanted to have a new painting completed each week by Sunday afternoon. I missed that goal the first week and realised it is not a realistic target for me .
However, my goal is still to work on each of the 4 stages of development daily. Devoting a scheduled amount of time each day to each stage in order to move forward towards the goal of completing one painting a week is great motivation and does yield results.  ( my days of engineering haven't washed out of me yet , I guess). 
Here are the 4 stages:



Stage 1 - Come up with an idea. The calendar sets the priority. In other words, what is the next deadline? ( Show, gallery pieces, competition, just for fun...)


Stage 2 - Complete a transfer and under painting. Develop the previous week's idea into a composition and transfer the drawing to canvas.


Stage 3 - Complete painting to 80%. (from last week's transfer).


Stage 4 - Complete the painting. (From the previous week's 80%).

Above you can see the four stages of  development. I am cheating a bit here because the waterfall painting is still not complete.  

Here is stage one completed. My new gallery in New Jersey ( the desChamps Gallery) wants five small paintings in November for a holiday show. This would be one of them.

This is the completed ( sort of ) Stage 2 Painting.

This is supposed to be Stage 3 - the 80% complete painting. Hard to say if I made 80%....maybe 59 1/2%.

This should be a Stage 4 - Completed Painting, but oops! Again, the painting I was going to have completed last week still needs work. I thought I would be discouraged after missing my self imposed deadline. But that isn't the case, because the result of my attempting to be more productive is that I am being more productive!

 Last week I recieved a few emails and several comments  with some helpful and some humorous suggestions regarding the topic of artists and schedules. Some of you mentioned the  real goal is to be happy and not to let a schedule get in the way of  the creativity. I  agree 100% . One of my favorite emails included a quote which I will share. I don't know the author of the quote  but it is my new favorite mantra to recite when I get down on myself for not producing enough.

"God left the songs unsung The pictures unpainted the flowers unplanted so that we might enjoy the world of creation"

daily painting progress - This week's work in progress

click on the picture to enlarge the image

Nebraska Late Afternoon
(work in progress)
12" x 24"
oil on canvas

Week number three. Painting number three. Maybe I should call it The road to the show ? This one is 60% complete. Details, trees, cloud and sky work left to do.

Daily painting practice - Work in progress - painting Peonies in Glass Vase

I need to finish one larger studio piece each week until the end of August in order to have enough paintings for my one man show. Here is this week's work in progress starting with a charcoal drawing.


This peony bloom sits in the background. I like to keep the shadows thin at this stage and then add some opaque color to develop the form.









I didn't like where this was heading. It had no zing, no punch, no drama. I felt like I lost my idea for the painting. So I stepped back to re-evaluate. I needed to cool down the underpainting to help make the pink pop out more.
I made a 7 step value range of black and white. This would help me control the values in the underpainting.
I painted over the entire drawing without blending the values. (much). Like paint by number without the numbers. I was paying more attention to how I wanted the light to hit the flowers.
Next I expanded the palette to include various tinted reds and violet. The original black to white was moved to the back.

Work in Progress
Peonies in a Glass Vase.
24"x24"
oil on canvas

I decided to make some of the peonies white to add more drama. I have only worked on the left hand side at this point. Lots more work to do in a short time. I will not post tomorrow because I will be finishing this painting. The final version can be viewed at the show Sept. 7.

...Well maybe I'll give a sneak preview if you promise not to tell.

Daily painting practice - Bad News

I found this bottle in our pantry. It will probably be there for the next twenty years. I can't remember why we bought it in the first place. Maybe it was for medicinal purposes.
Time to tone down some of the colors. The background is too bright.

click on the picture to enlarge the image

Bad News
12"x12"
oil on hardboard
SOLD

The name says it all. It has always interested me how people react to bad news. Some get upset, or angry, or quiet. Some seek the comfort of friends and others seek the comfort of being alone.
In this painting the unopened bottle and upside down glass next to the newspaper tell a story set in time. What happens next is created in the viewers imagination.

daily painting practice- Cowboy Dave

Back in October, I posted the (work in progress photos) of Cowboy Dave.






I finally got around to finishing it. I will trim it back to 14"x14". Here are a few details and the final.

My favorite part is my reflection in the gold watch. How vain is that?

Click on the photo to enlarge the image

Cowboy Dave
14"x14"
oil on masonite

This is a studio piece that will be for sale at my show at the (So-Oh Gallery) in September.

daily painting practice - weekly painting number 2

Continuing the weekly painting I began last week and on two earlier posts. This is as far as I can go before taking the leap and doing the detail work. This is always a time when I need to step back and make sure I make the details consistent with the feel of the overall painting. Sometimes I get too tight and linear and the details have too many hard edges. Then they look pasted on and you need to wipe them off and do it again.
A few details and some work on the vase should do the trick.

click on the picture to enlarge the image

Roses in Winter
20"x20"
oil on canvas

My second weekly painting. (it only took me 2 1/2 weeks to work on). The light was very tricky on this one for some reason I struggled with the values. The pastel like colors were softened by the north light, I really liked that from the beginning. I think I did a convincing job on the roses. My favorite part was the tea cup. But then I'm partial to tea. Time to arrange another composition for next Friday's weekly painting. I should look through a few closets and see what we have.

Daily Painting Practice - First studio piece

Here is the still life arrangement for the final 16"x20" painting on canvas. I moved a few of the oranges. I think the flow of color works better than the first arrangement I had set up from Monday.
I have started the first weekly studio painting sort of alla prima. I jumped right into drawing with the paint brush onto the white background.
So far so good. The potted plant was well behaved and remained still. Unlike painting flowers. Flowers are like painting children they move with the light then droop just when you get to the interesting parts.

click on the picture to enlarge the image
The Lost Studio Still Life
16"x20"
oil on canvas

Unfortunately, this is as far as I got. The sad thing is this painting no longer exists. Not a very good start to my new plan of finishing a painting each week. I kept thinking ( I am convinced that thinking is something I should stay away from) "...the background needs to be darker." The next thing I knew I was up to my elbows in muddy paint. I got my dark back ground, but destroyed the life of the painting in the process. It now sits on the floor of the studio wiped out and gray. It was a criminal act ... the unintentional death of a painting.

Lesson of the week: Do your thinking ahead of time! Or call an artist-in-trouble hotline number and get HELP.