Daily Art

Frumpy Cat

I am what you call a Daily Painter, (my main website is on Dailypaintworks.com ).  An often people assume I do a finished painting every day...nope.  What daily painting means to me is, working towards a painting everyday.  Often I do cartoons, a great way of getting a feel for the character of a subject.  Sometimes I do black and white sketches, with ink or charcoal, to understand light and shadows, mass, and line.

longhorn study

   It is all part of the process, that I love about art.

Mary

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

Inspiration from the tube

Acrylic on watercolor paper, 16 x 20 inches, Over the Shoulder
Available at Daily Paint Works

We are bombarded by imagery every where, not by just what is around us, but also from television and movies.  If you are like me TV drives me crazy, mainly the over load of commercials.  But with the nifty invention of the remote and the DVR those can be passed over.  The second thing that is handy about the DVR, is the pause button.  Often there is a scene with a beautiful location, or a face just perfectly shadowed that just yells paint me.  Well pause at that scene and start sketching.  Occasionally a movie that is totally about art, will drop in to your lap, that is full of inspiration.  The movie “World of Art” is one of those.  If your a painter take some time and check it out on YouTube.  While watching that movie I did several sketches that I am working up into paintings, thought I would share the sketches and a couple of the paintings so far. 

Available at Fine Art America

Mary
Schiros_Art

Save your sketches

I know I have said this before, but it is worth saying again....Save you sketches!   Even those 1 and 2 minute drawing, sometimes those have the most expression.   When cleaning my studio this Winter,  I was tempted to pitch a bunch of old drawing.  But as I sat an looked at those old 1 and 2 minutes drawings, ideas started popping into my head.
   Instead of dumping the sketches I grabbed one and started redrawing it, focusing on what I liked about it.   The following ink and color paintings are some of the places I went with one rough sketch.

14 x 11 inches, Solitude" Acrylic on canvas

                                                     AVAILABLE AT DPWS

Rearranging objects with oil paint

I am taking another oil painting class from Timothy Widener this year, an excellent artist and instructor.  But today I just was not in a classical painting mood.

Oil, 12 x 16 inches

 

I got to class and as usual he had some beautiful still-life set ups ready to go.

I looked them all over picked one that interested me, set up an easel and couldn’t get going. 

 So I pulled out a sketch book I had in my bag, ( full of abstract designs) and one simple layout caught my attention.

When I fill up a sketch book I always paint the cover :)

Looking at the still-life and the sketch I got my brushes moving, and started having some fun. 

 But the best part was when Timothy came over to see what I was doing, actually had him at a loss of words for a few seconds. But then I got a smile and chuckle from him.

What I had decided to do was combine the colors from the still-life, the layout of my sketch, and try and represent different surfaces, like the glass, something fuzzy like a peach, and metal.  It was a fun experiment for the day.

   By the way Timothy has an excellent book available; "Painting Light and the Impressionist Method"

Mary

Schiros_Art 

(I also have a book on Blurb, of Still-life paintings)

Just a Face

Acrylic on canvas 20 x 16 inches

 For a long time drawing and painting were two separate functions for me.  I remember taking early painting class where teachers wanted you to carefully draw out on the watercolor paper or canvas, the painting before applying paint.  The work from these class always felt tight and dead to me. 
   This last year I took a class where it was suggested to do a rough black and white sketch on a small paper, just to try out composition ideas before painting.
This plan worked out very well.  There was no drawing done on the canvas, only rough ideas on a separate paper. 
   I have started applying this to simply ideas, and find it helps more than ever.
This painting started with just an idea drawing.

Mary
Schiros_Art

8 x 10, Acrylic and ink, Yellow hound 1

Started taking a new class this semester, and think I am going to enjoy it.  Last year I took a classic oil painting class and learned a lot.  This time around I wanted to focus on some fun.  Taking a class on creativity, with mixed media, in other words, some productive play time coming my way.  Class started with a good basic exercise pick a photo, draw it 20 times quickly, pick out the best drawing and paint it, all in about an hour.  Of course I picked a photo of a dog and went with one of my favorite color combination a violet tone and yellow.  I am so happy with this one plan to work up a few of the other quick drawing.

Mary

Schiros_Art

A Flower for You

6 x 6 inch oil on canvas

                                     Available on DPW

I thought I would share the process of making this painting.  This is another in my small character still life paintings.  I have a collection of odds and ends, including some beanie babies that I use for set ups.  This one is a simple set up just the stuffy and a flower.  I set up the objects to paint on a surface that has some shine, so I get reflection and shadow to incorporate into the painting.  I use a goose neck lamp to get a direct light on the set up, moving the light around until I like the shadows.

Set up to paint

Then I do a quick drawing on paper as a reference for the painting.  I do not draw on my painting surface.  

quick sketch

Next, I do a rough, almost abstract under painting, using a dark oil color thinned down a lot with odorless thinner. In the under painting I am looking for a few main things; lights, shadows and lost edges.  The lost edges are places the outline of the object merges with either the light or dark around it.

The thinned paint is easy to correct because it can be wiped off if needed and adjusted.

not the best photo but here is the under painting

After that dries over night I proceed to finish the painting with color and details.  This isn't the way to do all oil painting but this method works well when doing still life painting for me.

 Mary

Schiros Art

Try it all

Media makes a difference

A simple subject, such as a dog profile can change significantly, depending on the art media used to express the subject.  For me the media often sets the tone of the feeling being created in the picture.  How you express with different tools is some thing to keep in mind when working on a subject.

With pen and ink detail and design sing out.  Ink and a summi brush will be loose and free spirited.  When using acrylic color and texture dominate.  But then if the paint is watercolor the mood and color will create a totally different style.  This is why I love to try new media, just to see what the media has to teach me.  There is something to learn from every tool we try.

Television and Art

TV is on but who is watching

Are you married to a spouse that is hocked on TV?  If you are you know that there are times you end watching television just because, your other half is there.  I thought I would share my sketch book with you that I keep by the remote, just for those times.

Sometimes when you can gain access to the remote, hit the pause button when an interesting and nicely shadowed face is on the screen.  Those faces are great for practicing quick portrait drawings.  And there is of course a time limit, because how long do you think your partner can handle letting you have that kind of control, before they start complaining. 

     So the main point here is; there is always time for art…one way or another.  Hope you enjoy my TV sketch book.........