The Egrets Are Back!

 I'm not sure where the Great Egrets migrate to during our Winter season, but they do go somewhere from around October through March, and it is always a treat when I spy them again in the Spring.

On one of the rare non-windy days last week, I took the hounds for a stroll at Chiawana Park over in Pasco, which is a pretty reliable spot to see both egrets and pelicans.

No pelicans were around, but I did see my first egret of the season, catching its breakfast:

Such a stunning bird, and such a treat to watch it fishing.

The Hounds were bored by my prolonged observation of the bird -- neither Truman nor Pippin has ever got the hang of sitting or standing around staring at things when they could be walking and sniffing things instead.

I neglected to take a pic of the Hounds at the park that day, but to give you an idea of what a bored dachshund looks like, here is Pippin on my mother's sofa, expressing a profound sense of ennui:

As for art this week, our sketch group chose two photos that were both complex.  The first was a scene of a gate with wisteria and a lot of trees, and in hindsight, I should have left most of the foliage out and concentrated on the flowers, but oh well, too late now!

I do like how the gate turned out.

The second photo we worked from had similar issues -- it was a simpler scene of a wooden window within a stone wall, open to a view of a sunset over the water -- but again, in hindsight, I should have de-emphasized some areas in order to focus on the window.  

Well, it's hard sometimes to make these artistic decisions when the reference photo is not chosen until we start the group session, and we have only around an hour-and-a-half to work on the piece.  I often spend the first five minutes just deciding which medium to use, and another 15 to 20 minutes drawing the picture in pencil, which leaves a little over an hour to paint or in this particular case, use water-soluble ink pens plus watercolor.  

The Zoom sketch group sessions can be challenging!  

Back in Good Omens land, you may recall that I took a break from trying to paint in oils, by doing a colored pencil portrait of Crowley.  Since then, I added background colors to it:

Then I drew a colored pencil Aziraphale to go with it -- these are both taken from the final scene of the series, where they are dining at the Ritz, and Crowley proposes a champagne toast "to the world".

I decided that the plain background colors would work better than trying to draw in the restaurant behind them, which would have been rather busy.

Not that I shy away from drawing lots of details -- I did do a couple of scenes in Aziraphale's bookshop, which were extremely challenging, and a couple of historical scenes with plenty of fiddly details.  In fact, I'm challenging myself again by trying to do this scene:

This is in Crowley's apartment, where he questions God about the ineffable plan while dramatically draping himself over his elaborate throne chair.  It's quite possible that trying to render that chair will drive me nuts, but I do like what I have so far with his portrait, so shall carry on:

So that's my project for the next few days -- draw lots of fiddly details.  Yay.

Have a great week out there, everyone!

Dog Day Afternoons

 First, the most important thing from last week:

Thursday, April 15 was TRUMAN'S NINTH BIRTHDAY!!!  Whee!  Hoorah!  Here is Pippin giving Truman a greeting on his birthday:

And here is Truman a few seconds later, realizing that Pippin is too close to his favorite toy.

Pippin made a valiant effort to take it away...

...but the birthday Hound prevailed!

Truman got a bit of chicken for his birthday, which is his favorite treat.  And he got a walk, although I'm not entirely sure if he really enjoys walks all that much.  Still, it was  a good day all in all.

The days, in fact, have been warm and sunny -- 70s and even into the 80s already.  Yikes.  The Hounds spend a lot of time lounging in the yard.  

As the temps get hotter throughout the afternoon, they seek out the shade.  However, there are no trees, so the shade is rather hard to find:

Pippin has mastered the art of maximizing his shade acquisition via the utility pole.

Truman, meanwhile, is trying to learn his technique, and while not quite as adept, is mostly getting it down:

Perhaps I ought to plant a tree.

Okay, on to the art...we had our two usual Zoom sketching sessions.  The first was a windmill:

And the second was a Japanese garden path with way too many trees:

My favorite watercolor piece from last week wasn't done during these sessions -- it was just an extra bit of fun.  My friend Mary has a metal garden goat named Noel who is quite charming.  I had used a pic of Noel to practice digital art once, and later Mary posted another photo and wondered if perhaps a second portrait might be fun--well, it was indeed.  

This time I used watercolor.  The photo showed him hiding partly behind a tree, but even though I didn't have to paint the entire goat, it was still a challenge, which I enjoyed immensely.

As for the oil painting efforts...astute readers may recall that last week I said it was Crowley's turn for an oil portrait, and to stay tuned to see how that went.  

Well, it didn't.  Not because of any oil painting fiasco -- I just simply never got round to it, because I wanted to take a break first with some colored pencil portraits instead, and ran out of time.  That's my excuse, at least, and I'm sticking to it.

So this is what I've got so far for the colored pencil Crowley -- this is from the final scene where he and Aziraphale are toasting their successful derailing of Armageddon ("To the world!").

It's not done yet -- there are some value fixes needed here and there, and it needs a background.  The reference photo has a busy background (they are dining at the Ritz), and the colors are quite bland:

So I am thinking of doing just a solid background color -- probably a sage green.  There is a photo of Aziraphale from this same scene which I also want to do:

I think a sage green would work well as a background for both of them. 

After I finish both of those, then I plan to return to the oil painting projects. Honest.  

That's all for now!

Except for the following alert to anyone who gets this blog via email subscription:

EMAIL SUBSCRIBER ALERT!  The blog hosting platform plans to REMOVE the email subscription service this JULY.  There is no alternative method for subscribing.  Sorry.  You'll have to bookmark the blog (mizmak.blogspot.com) and remember to check it once a week (I normally post on Mondays.)

A Walk on the Wild Side, and More Art Attempts

 I'm one of those annoying people who wants to not only know what everything is, but likes to inform everyone she meets after finding out what things are so they'll know, too.  

Sometimes this does not go over too well.  When I first started hiking around in the natural areas here, I noticed wildflowers, and naturally wanted to know their names.  So I've been studying up, and have managed to learn a few here and there.  For example, this is called Columbia Milkvetch:

I spotted it at the Columbia Point natural area while walking the Hounds.

The hounds were not impressed by the way I kept stopping to stare at tiny flowers -- all they wanted to know was if they were edible.

And this is a type of phlox:

Truman had zero interest in it.

Neither did Pippin.

Finally, I believe this is Fiddleneck Tarweed:

Notice the utter disdain with which Truman greets this knowledge, since the Tarweed is not edible.

Oddly enough, the many people I later showed my photos to failed to share my excitement at having identified these little plants.  Sure, they're not showy by any means -- most of the flowers are 1/4" or so around -- but should they be greeted with resounding indifference merely for lack of the wow factor?  I think not!

So I shall continue my endeavor to learn the local wildflowers as the Spring progresses, and I shall continue to annoy my friends and family with bits of useless knowledge.  It's what I'm good at.

Okay, on to the Art.  We did two Zoom sketch sessions but one produced a drawing that was not terribly exciting (it lacked the wow factor, and when it comes to Art, that's a reasonable excuse to avoid showing a piece, if you ask me).  The second was all right -- the photo we chose was of a fountain in the shape of a dragon -- the only issue was that the photographer cut it off in odd places so that you couldn't see the whole dragon.  Whatever.  I drew it anyway:

And then I went to work on my Aziraphale portrait in oils.  Which was frustrating indeed.  You may recall that I haven't done any oil painting for around ten years, and very little even then.  My newest effort quickly taught me that it is awfully darned tricky.  First, I did the classic grisaille technique of a gray value study:

The idea is to glaze layers of color over this underpainting, allowing the values to stay true.  I tried painting a lavender sort of background, his coat, and his hair...but got the paint too thick.  It looked quite odd before doing the face, as you can see here:

And because the paint was too thick, it was taking forever to dry, and I got terribly bored, and decided to relieve my boredom by painting an acrylic version of the same photo.  Sadly, it wound up not looking very much like Aziraphale:

Sigh.

By the time that was done, though, the oil paint had dried, so I returned to that version, and tried thinner layers on the face, but for some reason (possibly the fact that I don't really know what I'm doing?), it failed to wind up looking anything like the grisaille.  And while it did look a little bit more like Aziraphale, it still wasn't quite right:

Dang.  So that was not an unqualified success.  I did learn things, though!  Next time I probably won't bother with an underpainting, for one thing.  

Before I tackle a portrait of Crowley in oils (he clearly deserves equal time), I returned to that other idea that vexed me last week -- the picture of Aziraphale rescuing Crowley from prison.  If you were paying attention, that idea was based off this fresco by Raphael (aim high!) which depicts an angel rescuing St. Peter:

If you look at last week's post, you'll see that I reversed this image, photoshopped Aziraphale and Crowley heads in, got rid of most of the bars and the guards, and then drew it on a canvas, where the painting attempt utterly failed.  The heads were too small for good details.  Next I tried it enlarged a bit as a colored pencil drawing, which I'm not showing as it started looking awful fairly early on.

Finally, I opted to pop the original fresco pic into, appropriately enough, Adobe Fresco, and just redraw and repaint it all digitally.  This took a while, but was much more satisfying as to results:

So no, I can't hang it on my wall unless I print out a nice copy which I can't do because the color printer isn't that good and it's out of ink anyway.  But it makes me happy.  

Tune in next week to see if I make any progress on a Crowley portrait in oil.  Such larks!

Have a great week in the meantime!

If At First You Don't Succeed...

 Today's post is 95% about art and 5% cute dachshund pics at the end for anyone who is feeling unenthusiastic about art.  For you folks, just scroll on down there!

For the rest of the readers, I'll just say it was a busy creative week here in between the dog walks, the swims at the gym, the Friends of the Library volunteer gig, the Zoom meetings, the baseball on TV (Go Mariners!  Go Twins!), and the weekly Crazy Rummy game that I never win.

First, we had three  Zoom sketch practice sessions instead of the usual two.  Yay.  Each reference photo that was chosen was one that I initially disliked, yet each one turned into a pretty decent artistic effort.  On Monday, we picked this scene of rocks and trees:

I thought the colors were bland, but Tina pointed out that one could always exaggerate them, and that she could see pinks and blues/purples in the rocks.  Then I couldn't decide whether pen or watercolor would work best, and muttered about that for a while until I remembered that I had a set of water-soluble ink pens in various colors which meant that I could draw with those and then wash watercolor over it to create a cool effect.

So that's what I did:

Much prettier than the photo, if you ask me.

At our next session, we chose this fish, which I found challenging because of the light spots. 

 It's hard to get good light areas in watercolor without using what's called a "masking fluid" to protect them from the paint.  I don't like using it because it takes a long time to dry.    But then I remembered that I'd recently bought a tube of white gouache, an opaque water-based paint, which I used quite successfully:

Our final practice session proved even more challenging.  This was the photo -- nothing easy here!  Tricky sky with that bright sunshine, tricky shadows, and a complex tree to boot.  Yay.

After considerable deliberation, I came up with a five-step process for depicting the sky which involved a gradated wash, some lifting out with a paper towel, some wet-in-wet technique, a little dry brush, and a bit of glazing.  Whew.  Then I did the water rather quickly with just mostly dry brush, and the beach with mostly wet-in-wet, and when all that was dry, I painted in the tree and the shadows.  Goodness, that was a lot of work, but hey, it turned out nicely, if I do say so myself:

Okay, now it's time for my new challenge:  oil painting.

Yes, I didn't have enough to do, what with the ink and the watercolor and the colored pencils and the acrylic paints, so I added oil paint to the mix.  I haven't done any for probably ten years or so, and had to go buy all new materials.  That's what retirement income is for, right?

My first idea for an oil painting bombed.   Possibly I aimed a little high -- the reference photo I tried to use was a fresco by Raphael, called the Liberation of St. Peter:

My clever idea was to turn this into Aziraphale the angel rescuing Crowley from a prison, just an imaginary scene, perhaps a reverse of that one in the actual Good Omens series where Crowley rescues Aziraphale from the Bastille.  First, I reversed the image (because I liked it better that way), and took out the guards and most of the bars, and then tried sticking the characters' heads on via Photoshop:

You can see that I tried several different Crowley faces.  Then I redrew it on paper in the actual size I wanted (11" x 14")"

Then I used transfer paper to put the image onto a painting panel (a gray-toned gessoed hardboard), and tried rendering a grisaille -- an underpainting in values of gray, which is traditional prep for an oil painting, and which can be done with acrylic paint.  It looked rather awful -- the heads were so small that I couldn't paint good details at all:

In a work, yuck.  So then I tried redrawing the picture to cut down the background in order to get larger faces: 

Which were still too small for good details even with my teensy tiniest brush, to I bagged that idea, transferred the drawing onto colored pencil paper, and sometime will get around to trying to finish it with colored pencils.  I can get incredibly fine points on those, and should be able to do the detailing I would like.

By now, some of you (I won't name names) will be wondering how long this post is going to be -- well, don't worry, we're nearly to the end (and to the cute dachshund pics).  

I have not given up on oil painting by any means.  But my next effort will be a simple portrait from a simple photo ref of Aziraphale, rather than a complicated attempt to futz about with a master artist's work.  To that end, I found a simple photo that I liked, a nice big close-up which nearly fills an 8" x 10" canvas panel, and yesterday I painted a grisaille value study of it, in acrylic paint, thusly:

Sometime this coming week, I hope to get the actual oil paints out and try some glazing of color over this...could be bad, could be great, could be something in between.  Tune in next week to find out!

AND NOW, without further ado, what you've lasted this long for -- ADORABLE PICS OF PIPPIN!

Isn't he the cutest thing EVER???

That's almost all -- I nearly forgot about the Bentley!  You know those two Funko Pop figures I bought of Crowley and Aziraphale?  Well, I found them a car -- Crowley drives a 1926 Bentley, and I found a model of one from that era -- the only such one available, as far as I could tell.  It's a little small for them, but that's only because their heads are so danged big!

Isn't that sweet?  

And yes, I am still twelve years old.  Why do you ask?

Have a fun week out there, everyone, and remember:  Don't Be Ordinary!