More work today. I'm starting to enjoy it... Thanks to my lovely Japanese sumi brush, and my mahlstick, I've added a squiggle and various dots and small circles, as well as some other stuff. Also filled in below the blue "border" at the bottom, with some pale blue, to add to the sense that the painting spills over beyond that "border."
Some more work on this one today. I think I'm happy with the direction it's going. Why I only say "I think," rather than "I am happy:" first of all, however I do feel about a day's work sometimes takes time to sink in. Second: it is still very much in progress. And I'm busy letting go of my ideas of how I thought it would, or might, look, and settling in with how it is looking, right now.
Meanwhile, though, there are things I like about this.
And it's moving from the "I'm not sure how I feel about this yet" towards "I think maybe I like it..."
And, I have figured out a couple of things that make me feel more comfortable in my work time.
First: a mahlstick. What is a mahlstick, you ask? Basically, it's a dowel long enough to rest one end on some surface that is not the painting or drawing (or at least not the part of the painting or drawing you're working on at the moment), while you hold the other end in your non-paintbrush-holding hand, lifted a little above the surface, and you can then rest your painting hand on it. (Wikipedia says it has a padded end - well, usually, but mine doesn't have a padded end, it's just a plain dowel.) It gives support and helps steady your hand. I NEED THAT! (Getting older, here; though still doing pretty well.)
Second: I have been fussing at my paintbrush selection for, oh, a couple of decades now. I used to have one paintbrush I loved for watercolor, a fairly large one (Leo Uhlfelder, if you want to know), which could hold quite a load of water/paint, but also, at the same time, came to a beautiful fine point. Oh, I loved that brush! But over several decades it wore down; still holds plenty of water, but does not have the point it used to. Finally, today, I contemplated one of my Japanese Sumi-e brushes, and tried it out. Duh! (I can't believe I resisted this idea for so long! What was I thinking? Isn't this the obvious brush for the job???) It's great.
So, yay, I am feeling much happier in my painting time now.
Worked on DS painting #1 today, again. It's definitely still in the "I'm not sure how I feel about this yet" stage. But going along!
I have begun painting, working on #1. Not a lot to see yet; the orange outlines of the horse, and some of the cerulean symbols in the upper left.
And then I was done with the orange for the moment, and I hate to waste paint, so I looked for another half-finished (or barely begun, and then abandoned) painting to use it up on. This is what I found, and adding the orange to it was SO MUCH FUN!
Alas - maybe you can see it - I left the drafting tape on the margins for so many years that it deteriorated, won't come off completely, and has stained and left a residue on the edges I did get it off of. But this might go into another painting; I've decided I really like it...
And finally, this is a view of my drafting table, with glass of water to drink (kept carefully away from rinsing water, so I don't dip my brush in the drinking water, or drink from the rinsing water), and the sketchbook open to the original drawing of the horse that's becoming part of this painting, so I can refer to it as I paint. And, you know, mugs (and a cream pitcher) of brushes...
Window, shutters, front yard and apple tree in the background...
Oh - and a closer view of the horse drawing...
#1, #2 and #3 are transferred and ready to begin painting; transferring #4 is done, all but the foal lying down. I don't know why I find the transferring more tedious than the back-pencilling, but I do. But it gets done...
I am excitedly looking forward to beginning to paint.
This is #3. I'm repeating a drawing of my little howling wolf cub figurine, but this time it has its back to us... You can kind of see the pink of the ballpoint pen I used to go over the lines.
And #4, hard to see at this point - well, much better now that I've replaced the photo - but there's a big leaf along with the foal lying down, and other things.
