A note about Comments, with a tech tip

 Several people have had difficulty seeing how to leave comments - how to get to where they can do so. So here it is:

 You see where it says "No comments:"? To the right of "Posted by Eileen Hale at [time]"? Click that. Sometimes, if someone else has already left a comment, it will say "1 comment:", or "2 comments:", etc.

I think that makes it sound like comments are not allowed - which is not the case. But it is a bit confusing.

Once you leave a comment, it won't show up until I moderate it. I basically always approve comments; if anyone ever tries to leave a spam comment, or something, I won't approve it, but other than that, we're good.

I love getting comments, and I also enjoy getting questions, and I think I can promise to try to answer them.

There you have it - hope that helps!

Last bit of work on DS#7, now Really Finished, and a bit on Wolves #1

 Yesterday I did the last little bit of work on DS#7. A bit of white in the eye, and some more eyelashes; and then saw something I could do on mouth and lips to bring it closer to the drawing I did.

 Now it's really really Finished. Really! I am not touching it any more. I think the additional work I did around the mouth makes him look less pretty, which is good.

 I love this piece! I don't really know quite where it came from ... Yes, I drew it out and planned it out, to some degree, but the way it all works together is something I didn't anticipate.

Also worked some more on The Two-Lizard Wolves Painting:

 Some outlining on the lizards, and filling in some of the background around them, and then added dark blue-purple above and below the foreground wolf's head. And a tiny bit of work on the rabbit's head.

 

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This week (! Caught up on my blog posts!): DS#7 Finished, and one other Finished

 Tuesday (Earth Day), worked on that eye in DS#7 - again. I'm liking it much better. In fact, I am loving this painting. At the moment, it feels like maybe my favorite one ever, and so unexpected; I never imagined how it could turn out.

Next up, besides finishing the eye, which I think will really finish it: finding a title.

This also just acquired some teal-green circles in the upper right, which I was trying to match to the teal-green in the negative space between the wolf's legs, and I'm really liking that too. And also some warm brown circles between the two potted grass-blades plants.
 

And also worked a bit on this one, also enjoying it:

 That ultramarine (which I was using up, the extra that I had to get off the paper clip I used to clean off the palette knife that I used to get some out of the tube I had to cut open because it was old enough to be semi-solid) was still wet, so there was a shine to it that isn't there any longer. Too impatient to wait to take photos...

 
Friday:

Okay, I think this might be Finished. I finished untaping it, and signed and dated it.

Later: It occurs to me that I might need a bit of Chinese White in the white of my guy's eye; he looks a bit jaundiced at the moment.
 

And decided this other one was finished, and signed and dated it - and then did a little more work on it. (I dated it last week, because that was the last time I'd worked on it - until after I dated it. So my dates aren't quite accurate, but oh well.)

 

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4/18: DS#7: update on eye

 Today: I spent today scrubbing out and fudging on the eye. I think I now have a decent base for what I'm changing, though I feel like the cheek has gotten a bit dark and I'm not sure what I might do about that.

 I think it needs more scrubbing - partly because there's an edge line to the area I was working on. Onward.

 

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4/16: "finished" DS#7

 Here's yesterday's work. I "finished" DS#7, and thought it was actually Finished (finished-finished), as opposed to the usual "finished"-but-will-find-a-few-more-things-I-need-to-do.

But now that I'm looking at it on my screen (having photographed the current state), I see that the angle of the head/face below the eye is not the same as the angle of the head/face around the eye. Which is  bugging me, and I'm not sure what I can do about it. But I'll see.

 

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4/11: interesting work on DS#7, and some untaping

 Today: more work on DS#7, interesting; and then I untaped three of the four sides. I see one thing I want to do something to, but aside from that, it's at least reached the stage of contemplating what if anything else it needs, and it might be done.

 Also did a little work on this one, and enjoyed it, and then it was time to stop and I didn't feel quite ready to stop, which is an excellent feeling, and one I haven't experienced for some months now. Good to have it returning.

I did a little on the stylized leaves in the lower left. It struck me how much those leaf outlines look like horse ear shapes...

 

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This month: 4/8: DS#7 is getting close...

 I painted today. I feel kinda like a wreck these days, but Things are Happening; it's just that, like, my brain can't keep track of all that's happening...

 It's getting interesting. It's just about time to start thinking about what else this needs. If anything. I think, something... but it's getting very close to Done.

 

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The new year: more work on Dream Surreal pieces, January, February, March

 1/17/25:

Finally back at work - or, back at play. Played around a bit today with this painting:

 Which I'm kind of copying from this drawing:

 It's happening quite a bit differently from the drawing, but I think I'm enjoying it, and it gives me something to do (a place to put paint, as I've said before).

1/24/25:

Newest painting progress, Tuesday's:

 

On the wolves, I decided that my treat would be to go into the points of the wolf's ruff, and then spread that dark blue from there.

Then I had leftover paint (blue, as noted). I hate wasting leftover paint. So I used it up scribbling in the new piece...

1/28/25:

Today's: creeping forward with The Three-Lizard Wolves Painting, and playing with a new painting in the "discovery" category (that is to say, it's completely unplanned/un-mapped-out); and did a little more on my other recently-started abstract.

1/31/25:

Some more today on Wolves-3 and on the new discovery one:

 

2/3/25:

In a group I'm part of, a goal-setting question came up: how do you set yourself measurable goals when you're in the outlining stage, or other stages unrelated to word count? (This is a writer's group, emphasis on novel-writing; I'm not a novel writer, but the discussion of process always interests me.)

For me, in thinking about this question, it could apply to almost any stage of making a painting or other piece of finished art, since word-count never applies.

One of the writers who responded talked about the value of making lists of various details. This resonated with me: if I have a painting that I'm having trouble getting through - maybe it has too many parts to it, and I'm having trouble focusing on one at a time; or, I'm not sure what it needs next, or what there is still to be done - I might make a list. (For an example of making a list, see this post.)

One thing this can do is to help me focus on one area, or one layer, long enough to see noticeable progress, rather than hopping around from one part to another and getting discouraged by its not seeming to get anywhere.

For instance, I did a drawing of a zebra finch in carbon-dust on frosted acetate, which was then to be back-painted, to give the black and white drawing its color. I can explain more about the process if you want, but the short version is that it was a medium that took FOREVER to look like anything.

I was hopping all over, which just meant that all the parts were continuing to look like nearly nothing for longer and longer.

Finally I made myself a list: beak. Head. Eye. Breast feathers. Wing. Back. Legs. Tail. And made myself work on one part at a time, and finally finished it.

For paintings, where one part of the process might be deciding what things I want to include in it, a step on my list might be to go through my sketchbooks for drawings I want to copy, and maybe include. Or I might have an idea, but no drawing yet, so the step might be to sit down and start sketching it out. Or maybe think about who I could get to model for a position I don't have the way I want it, that I can't work out without a real model.

Then, once I have a set of elements, a next step is to make tracings, and move the pieces around till I have an arrangement I like. Then I get my working drawing ready (the cartoon); and then there's transferring the drawing, which is two or three steps more (and my unfavorite part of the whole thing). And so on.

Sometimes I have a plan for what I want to work on, or what I want to accomplish (not necessarily the same thing), but these days I can usually get a productive amount accomplished just by saying (for instance), "Tuesday (when my art group meets), I'll work on x piece till I'm tired of working," or, "I'll work for 15 minutes" (which often ends up longer)...

2/14/25:

(My daughter and my sister were coming to visit, my daughter just for a few days, and my sister for three weeks, during which time we were going to tackle clearing out my storage unit, and other de-cluttering projects. I don't know what this would be like for you, but for me, both the prospect and preparation for their visits and the work, and the work itself, and the results of the work - vastly cleaner house, yipes! - kinda fried my nervous system. That made the painting work I did get done during that time kind of an unexpected bonus.)

I have been madly housecleaning, and intermittently wearing myself out, but I did do a little tiny bit of painting Tuesday, and also got a current photo of the whole of The Three-Lizard Wolves Painting, though I didn't work on it this week. Also did some more tracings from my life class drawings, and put them together into a composition.

 

In The Three-Lizard Wolves Painting, I've found my confidence in the foreground wolf, and have been hesitant about working on the background wolf. In The Two-Lizard Wolves Painting, it's the other way around. Who knows why.

As for the set of nudes, I will just say that, to try to make sense of the composition, and of the various partial bodies in it, I added two curving lines, above and to the right, like drapes, and part of a pointy oval. I was thinking of the latter as a pillow or cushion, but it just looks kind of like a football and it just looks weird. But oh well.

2/23/25:

[After my daughter left; my sister was still here...] Friday I did the very minimum on any of my pieces, but I did Something.

 

On the first, the drawing, I fussed a tiny bit with that cushion edge, which was looking like a football; now I think it looks much more like a cushion. That's a lesson in how sometimes tiny changes can make a lot of difference, in my opinion.

On the second: i was in a Mood. Irritable and fed up, or something. Thus, what I did was put in this very obstructive vertical line, with some spreading lines in the same color, and a bit of a wash below (have to use up the paint, you know). I don't know what I think or feel about it, but I don't have to know that yet.


3/1/25:

I did, like, the least possible amount of actual painting - a tiny bit of plain water stuff, softening (by a possibly imperceptible amount) one very small previously painted line... But I also sat and looked at my various in-progress paintings for a while, in the spirit of staying connected. Meanwhile, all my energy is going into moving more stuff from my storage unit back into my house.

3/8/25:

Here's my report for this week: flaked out on both art times this week, the Tuesday and the Friday (yesterday). I am in ongoing refuse-to-do-anything mode... Though I did sit outside in the sun this morning after I got up, so that's maybe a plus.

 
3/12/25:

I actually did some substantial, interesting work on two of my new DS watercolors today:

 

And two bits of my source material: 1) the drawing of my painter friend used for the profile in the first painting; 2) the little rabbit figurine that's repeated in the second painting (though you may not be able to see that yet, as they're just in the faint traced lines).

 

3/19/25:

Today, I spent most of my art time panickedly searching for last month's notes for this afternoon's meeting that's coming up next - but I did at least track down and file away or clear away more of the stuff that got displaced last month when my daughter was subjecting me to torture-by-decluttering), I did at least spend the last 10 minutes of my art time doing one thing on one of my paintings.

But that one thing did something I really like...  it's the yellow-orange-green in two spots,  in the bottom left and upper right.

 I was feeling like this needed more of my favorite orangey green.

3/21/25:

Second pass this week on my new DS painting.

 

I just worked on my friend's face today - not all that long - but I feel like it's coming across closer to what I have in mind.

3/25/25:

This week's Tuesday pass on my DS painting (its official working title is DS#7):

It's getting very close. I'm quite happy with the face, though I'm seeing one more thing I want to do (which, in hindsight, as usual, ends up being several more things); then, once I've filled in behind iteration #2 of the grass blades in pot, I'll be done with what I planned out, and then will sit with it and contemplate what else it needs - if anything, but there probably will be something more that I'll play around with.

 

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Some thoughts about the relative importance of different tools and materials

 This is something I was thinking about (again) last November.

11/15/24:

In my ranking for most important watercolor supplies and tools for which having good quality is most important (paint, paper and brushes are the three aspects I think about), PAPER is definitely first!

There's paper that's not even useful for learning on, because it's such crap you can't learn anything at all except how awful it is - and possibly take in the lie that you're no good as an artist or watercolorist - boo! Lie!

Whereas good paper does such dreamy things, and okay paper works pretty well too, for my money.

Second place goes to having at least one good brush, for me. I had a wonderful brush - I still have it but, through forty years of use, it has gotten worn and can't do nearly the wonderful things it used to be able to do - which I have not been able to find a good substitute for, for all my looking.

It holds a lot of water and a lot of paint (it's a #12), and yet, in its youth, it could hold a fine point, even loaded. And it was generous in giving up that paint to the paper, where I've found, with other big-bellied brushes, that I could load them up with paint and water, but they were stingy in letting that out onto the paper. When my favorite brush was in its heyday, it was just about the only one I needed or used.

Third (last) place, for me, is paint. There are things that good-brand paint will do that cheaper ones will not, and yet I've had fun playing with everything from Prang 8-color sets (are those still around?), or even very cheap very tiny souvenir sets from tourist shops. (I got mine in the Farmer's Market in L.A.) You could probably tell, from the colors and shades of colors, which paintings I was using those on, but I enjoyed them too.

Let me see if I have photos of some of those cheap-watercolor paintings...

Okay, here's one. Not the greatest reproduction, but you can see a bit. Note especially the middle painting:

 

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Work on Dream Surreal paintings: November, December

This starts on Election Day. Yipes! I don't think I talked much about the election/politics/our new world, but painting has totally become a key source of comfort and healing in this time, and my (our) experience of this time has been there in the background.

 
11/5/24:

My update: haven't painted yet this week (Tuesday's usually one of my days), but I did some more sorting, and found the two reference photos of the wolves that I was working from, plus my first drawing of them. I'll post the drawing here, and also my first wolves painting - or was it the second?* - I can't remember anymore - which hasn't gotten very far, so you can see what total painting paralysis looks like. And then I'll start doing some more work on that one, and see how it goes.

 * On further reflection, I'm sure that this one is the second one I started, not the first, because a) I added another lizard, making three lizards in this painting, and b) I was trying a different paper.

It's kind of mind-boggling to me - or at least revealing - that I started this second one when I got paralyzed on the first one, intending it to be a painting I wouldn't take seriously, could play with, and wouldn't get paralyzed around. And then I got paralyzed on this one, too.

The top one is my first drawing of the wolves (with a little paint). The bottom one is the whole painting in its current state. There are some sweet bits, but most of the wolves and large swathes of other areas where I just got too scared to do anything; so there are just tiny isolated areas where I did anything.

Here's a detail of my rabbit (Peach), which I liked a lot (and still like), and then couldn't continue, for fear of ruining it; and another detail of an area that I really love - that blue edge! the feathers! the shape of the tail!

Now I'm ready to PLAY with the darn thing; and, intermittently at least, am looking forward to it.

 

Late on November 5th, Laini Taylor (the wonderful Laini Taylor, whose books I love and whose very generous and supportive Discord server I'm part of - if you want to find her, go here), wrote "Wow guys, tonight is not fun. Ugh. Trying not to doomscroll. How's everyone doing?"

To which I replied, "Not very well. Sad, horrified; but, what Ashley says, still hoping for a miracle... and getting ready to dive into my wolves paintings and pretend the real world does not exist. And have dived back into The Bear and the Nightingale [by Katharine Arden], and am trying to see the world as a scary fairy tale that somehow, beyond all reasonable hope, we can still survive..."

11/12/24:

My painting time today was spent mostly - but productively I think - looking at my paintings. With a little bit of painting.

 

 

On Wolves #1, henceforth to be known as The Two-Lizard Wolves Painting, I did just a little: a smidgen on the question-mark-shaped thingy below/in front of the wolves, a bit on the new square edge in the upper right corner, some edging of the big chicken's legs, and an extension of the "pressure wave" shape around the small chicken's tail.

On Wolves #2, however (henceforth to be known as The Three-Lizard Wolves Painting), I looked at the lizards and their surrounding area, and thought, "I like the pale, subtle colors; I don't want to intensify that area, but I'm afraid people will miss it..." Solution: give it a contrasting frame. Which ended up looking like there's a full moon there. Which is interesting and, I think, okay... I also did a little more around and on the rabbit.

I am finding both of these paintings increasingly interesting, and I think now I will have fun painting the wolves, where 16 years ago I just got paralyzed.

I also re-taped Wolves #2, after peeling off the old funky tape. So I can paint all the way to the edge again.

comment: "I love these, Eileen! They're so mystical somehow" -- Laini Taylor

 

Me: "Thanks, Laini! They are so starting to shift since I reconnected with them..."

11/19/24:

Friday I did a tiny bit of work on one wolf's face. And had fun with it!!! In contrast to the terror and paralysis I felt when working (or not being able to work) on it 16 years ago...

 

11/22/24:

 Did barely anything more. That warm brown below the chin and up the ruff, plus a bit more below that (some of which was still quite wet when I photographed). Not much oomph this week...

11/27/24:

A bit more work on one of the wolves today. And then I went looking for my chicken photos... haven't found them yet...

 12/7/24:

Yesterday's painting time:

 I don't know what I'm doing but I'm having fun...

12/12/24:

More work on one of the  wolves paintings, and (when I felt too frazzled to work on that) another thing I started. Which, as is often the case, I don't know if it's going anywhere; right now it just exists to give me a place to spread paint...

 

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