Drawing is Important

"What Cats Do"  Acrylic on watercolor paper 24 x 18 inches

     Draw, draw, draw important advice to any painter.  This loose painting of cats, (what my cats actually do most of the day) started with a number of drawings.  Quick charcoal sketches help for getting to know your subject and for planning a composition.

my easel with reference drawings

   After doing about a half dozen charcoal drawings of various cat poses, I picked my favorites and used them for reference while painting.  My models do not sit still for very long, so quick drawings, (lots of them) really help me to capture posture, and the attitude of each stance.

abstract layout

   I also use black and white chalk, to create an abstract of what I plan to paint, this is extremely helpful for planning the basic composition.   With this step I am not trying for any realism just light and dark contrast, and line movement.

   So when ever you have time grab a pencil, or charcoal stick and sketch.  You never know what those sketches will lead to.

Mary

Raining Cats and Cows

Bessie's Close-up,  14 x 11 inches, on canvas panel

"Blue Moo"  14 x 11 inches on wood panel

"Sun and Stripes"

For the last couple of days I have been finishing up some more cow paintings.  Between cats and cows I have been having a good time working with color and critters.  The 30 paintings in 30 days challenge had really kept me on a roll and it is hard to believe there is less than a week to go now.  Hope you have enjoyed this month as much as I have.   Added the latest 2 cows to my site on Artspan,  schirosart.com

   And my crazy cat is headed to a new home in New Mexico.

Mary

Music and painting

"Three Cool Cats"  Acrylic 23 x 29 inches

                                                     Prints available at Fine Art America

   Finished this one today and love it!  Acrylic on a full sheet of watercolor paper.  Finished this while listening to the song "Three Cool Cats" by the Coasters, and yep the song is now part of the painting.  So much fun letting music be part of the painting process!

If you want to hear the music here is a youtube link to the Coaster's song

https://youtu.be/7P5Er_qU5FE

The Beatles also did a version, just a fun song to listen to.

Mary

Cats, cats and more cats

A friend ask me to paint her daughter's cat.  I told her give me photo and I will work one up.
Well I got a couple photos, and they are "challenging" photos :)  Decided to dive in and give it a try.
Because the photo was a little rough, decided to go to my comfort zone media;  watercolors.

Pulled out a full sheet of watercolor paper, divided it into quarters, and just dove in.

Have a personal favorite out of the first 4 paintings,  and found myself really enjoying working with the watercolors.

Having fun and not really sure this was one my friend would like, pulled out another sheet, divided it up and did some more.  Also decided to work up at least one of my photos for my self.

By the time I was on the second sheet, ended up with two that my friend will probably like.

By now I was on a roll and just wanted to keep going....

Think my friend did me a favor,  got me going on watercolors that I had been ignoring for some time.
This is where I stopped today.

11 x 14 inches, Over the Shoulder.

Added this one to my DPWs site.

Mary

Only Color

Thought I would do one of Daily Paint Works challenges today as part of the 30 paintings in 30 days.
This was really suppose to be painted in black and white but, when I do watercolors I do not use black.  I have always mixed my own black, do not even own a tube of black watercolor paint.
The only time I use black with watercolor is if it is mixed media, ink and watercolor because the ink is black.  But the mixes I came up with still worked pretty well ......

Watercolor, 14 x 11 inches, "A Window View"
Available at DPWs

    

Capturing a Moment

Sometimes the perfect picture just suddenly appears.  Or in this case it was the "purrfect" picture.
It has been really cold here in Michigan, below zero last night.   So we had a nice fire going in our wood burning stove, the cats playing in the living room, just a nice evening.  Well my old cat, Hanna wore herself out and stretched out by the stove.  Lucky foe me, I had my Arches watercolor pad and pen handy.  And Hanna stayed still long enough for me to get an ink drawing done.....

This morning I finished the work with a watercolor wash and posted the original on Etsy for sale, and on Zazzle for prints.

Here is the finished work.........

9 x 12 ink and watercolor onArches hot press paper, Matted to 11 by 14 inches, "The Yarn Wins"

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Three of a Kind

When I am at a loss for what to paint, all I have to do is look around.  I have several (once stray) house cats, and at least one is always watching me.  So as these guys watched me I painted them:)
One more for the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

8 x 10 inches, acrylic, "Three of a Kind"

AVAILABLE AT DPWS

MARY
SCHIROS_ART

From Pencil to Paint

20 x 16 inches oil on canvas

To follow up on my last post, thought I would share the first painting from my last sketching session.  I picked the drawing I liked the best, then drew a grid over it to help decide the lay out.

 From that I sectioned off the area I wanted to redraw on my canvas.  Then I did a quick acrylic painting to use as an under painting.  For the under painting I used Matisse back ground acrylics they are matte and have more tooth that regular acrylics.  When the under paint was totally dry (gave it 24 hours), I finished it in oil.  Used Weber water mixable oils starting with brush work then finished with a palette knife for a little more texture. 

 Mary

Schiros_Art

Need an Idea

I did not feel like getting the paints out last night, but need to do something!

Sitting on the sofa with my cat, I just picked up a pad and pencil and started drawing.

Each drawing is the same cat, just in a slightly different pose. 

Every time the cat moved I added to the sketch, until I filled the page.

This started as just something to do, but I like one drawing enough to plan a painting around.  So when you have a few minutes, grab a pencil and just start filling a page on a pad.  You never know where your next painting idea will come from. 

Mary

Schiros_Art

  

One Sunny Day

   Today at last a sunny day in Michigan.  My cats were enjoying the sun sleeping and resting, a perfect time to get a few quick ink and watercolor  paintings done.

 

And of course there is always a critic in the bunch

 Just wanted to share some sun shine with you.

Mary
Schiros_Art
 Also did you notice a I added a page that has my youtube videos?

They wanted to be painted

Three a Wait, Acrylic on canvas paper, 20 x 16 inches

Several days this week my cats tried as best they could to park in the middle of still-life sets ups.  It took a while but I figured out they just wanted to be in a painting.  
   So I gave in......
Day 20 of 30 painting in 30 days.

Mary
Schiros_Art
    

Whimsical week

Day two of 30 paintings in 30 days.
Decided week one will be all whimsical still life paintings.
Using the same mug from yesterday's warm up and add a black cat.  Calling it "Me and My Shadow". 
Oil on canvas, 12 x 9 inches.  off to find another odd ball subject to paint for the 3rd.

Mary
Schiros-Art
 

One more adventure in printing

White ink on Black paper

  

  I have 2 more weeks to my printing class; it is going by so fast. The class is at The Flint Institute of Arts, and is taught by Bill Stolpin, great teacher check out his web site:  http://www.stolpinart.com/
  The class started with easy print methods, using scratch foam, and easy cut rubber, both fun and easy to work with.   We moved on to lino cuts and wood cuts, which are harder but can give you great detail.  Of course now I look at everything and think huh can I carve and print that.  

   Found out cheap foam plates work, don’t last long but you can get a few prints out of them.  Last night I noticed some kids craft foam, and had to give it a try.  Well it was no fun to carve just wanted to crumple up, but being stubborn did it anyways.  I did it but don’t plan to do another, really not worth the work involved. Got an interesting print out of it and just thought I would share.  

white ink on red paper

 

Also here is my very first woodcut, there will be more to come of this method.

black in on white paper

on red paper

Cat Printing and Musings on Art

Cat helped printing

The Cat Artist…..I just want to share the finished work from my last post.  Also, sharing the secret of how the last print was completed.  I started with a red printing of my design and planned the second layer to be a light teal color.  I completed 12 prints that I proudly set a side to dry, when my crazy domestic Bengal cat managed to sneak into the studio and proceed to pounce on the drying pile of prints.  Six prints survived and 6 others had a variety of paw prints added.  After chasing my four legged painting partner out, I gather up the ruined prints and started to throw them out.  Throwing out art work in hard to do and I just could not let them drop in to the trash can.  So, I rolled out some fresh black ink and added one more layer.  Well, I guess my cat had a better plan than mine; the last six prints are now my favorite.

test print of the top layer

where I had planned to stop

printing over a mono print, there is a cat under that top pattern

 

My musing for the day….It is interesting looking at the printing I have been doing, I think the designs could be worked up in photo shop or cut and pasted from glossy magazine art.  But, the process of carving the lines and rolling the ink is what makes this art work.  Viewing the work you can see the texture of the ink, that slight rise and sheen that it creates and that is the character of relief printing.  I just hope that young artists don’t get cut short by technology and miss the process, that part of creating that comes only from working with ink covered hands.

And I always finish my printing day with a finger paint mono print from the left over ink.