Category: Still Life

Scruffy Roses – Scruffy Day

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date January 21, 2007
9 Comments on Scruffy Roses – Scruffy Day

Acrylic on mat board, 7 x 12″
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Graphite in Aquabee sketchbook, 6×9″
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I had a hard time getting started in the studio today. I’ve been studying and reading many books on technique: oil, acrylic, monoprint, drawing…and I’m at the point of too much information and not enough practice. It’s like learning how to drive by reading books, without actually doing any driving — you might know lots of techniques and rules, but are terrified at the idea of getting behind the wheel and driving off. I started feeling paralyzed, unable to decide which medium I wanted to explore, what subject I wanted to paint, and after looking at all the fine work in the museum Friday and my books and on others blogs, was beginning to get that awful, “why bother, it’s all been done before and much better than I could ever do” sort of feeling. I also had a headache and had some annoying errands to do.

I did some organizing in the studio and then gave up and went out to do the errands and then it was dinnertime and still no painting. After dinner I finally got to my drawing table and just started sketching this scruffy, battered winter rose from my bush that still hasn’t been pruned. Then I scanned it, printed out the drawing a little bigger, and using Saral transfer paper (like carbon paper but waxless), transfered the drawing to a piece of matboard and then painted it with acrylics. I know I would have done a better job with watercolor, but it was fun experimenting and learning how to “drive” the acrylics by taking them on a little jog around the block.

Tags Acrylic Painting

Every Day Matters Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

More Soap (EDM #101)

Watercolor & Ink in Moleskine watercolor notebook 6×9″
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I keep my dish soap in this squirt bottle originally meant to mix and apply hair dye. The glass plate is on loan from my sister. When I saw it at her house I begged to borrow it to paint it. I wanted to include it in yesterday’s soap picture.

I was supposed to be doing other stuff tonight but was getting really grumpy not being able to draw or paint so after helping my son with his resume, I abandoned the art business stuff I “should” have been doing. I drew this quickly with ink (hence the goofy edges and lines) and then added watercolor, thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time all day. Well, that’s not true. We did have some fun at work at lunch today, talking about our favorite “guilty pleasure” tv shows, but the rest of the day was just work, work, work.

To end this post on a happier note than the above whining, I’ll mention two things I’m grateful for.

1. I didn’t have a headache or a backache today and I noticed that several times during the day, making me feel grateful each time.

2. Yesterday I realized that even though I get frustrated with my lack of skill when painting with oils and acrylics and want to be good at it NOW, in a year, if I keep practicing and studying, I’ll probably feel pretty comfortable with them and maybe even competent. Or maybe I’ll realize I need another year of practice and I’ll take it. Same with drawing…if I keep at it, in a year, I’ll be a lot better at it than I am now.

Simple stuff, but it makes me happy.

Tags Pen and Ink

Acrylic Painting Every Day Matters Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Soap: EDM #101

Acrylic in HandBook Journal 5.5 x 5.5″
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The week’s Everyday Matters challenge is to draw a bar of soap. My original idea was to line up all the different soaps in my house, from dish soap to laundry soap to bath soap and make a grid and paint them all. But by the time I did all the errands I’d been putting off, time was short. Also, I wanted to play with the fluid acrylics I’d bought last weekend and hadn’t tried yet. So I settled on one soap, one bowl and tried painting with the acrylics as if they were watercolors.

It was fun and interesting. One thing I learned is that acrylic is basically a glue and if you get any kind of crud or cat hair on the paper it will become permanently glued in place. Also you can’t erase pencil after you’ve painted with acrylic. It’s ridiculous how fast the stuff dries. I guess you have to develop a second sense about spritzing the palette all the time.

I’m ready for some big, juicy, free painting next. After all the lettering and detail in the watercolor I finished and posted yesterday I’m tired of tiny, tight painting. It’s back to work tomorrow but hopefully this weekend I can go a bit wild with paint and loosen up.

Tags Acrylic Painting

Oil Painting Still Life

Enough already!

Oil on canvas board, 16×12″
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I’ve been working on these two oil paintings for way too long and I officially call them done. Now it’s time to move on. I learned a lot, including that it’s really hard to photograph them, especially at night. The one above is based on a couple of photos I posted here when I first started working on this piece. It’s been through soooo many changes and I’m so done with it!

Oil on canvas, 12 x16″
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For the painting above I’ve since done value and compositional sketches to improve on the reference photo (all posted here) but I’d already started this painting and so kept on plugging away until it was finished. Now I can start over with the better composition. Towards the end I was just making up leaves and making more negative space to try to help the composition. The colors and values are better in real life. The painting looks kind of dull and yellowish in this photo.

Now I have 16 brushes to scrub and clean before I can go to bed and it’s already midnight. That’s what happens when you paint up until the last minute before going out for the evening. I really wanted to finish both paintings before going out but I suddenly discovered I only had 10 minutes to get dressed, put on makeup, and feed the cats before Michael was supposed to arrive so I locked the kitties out of the studio and just left everything. We went out for pizza and then to see The Queen (I’m a Helen Mirren fan). Then I came back and finished the paintings. I’m tired.

Flower Art Still Life Watercolor

Opinion please?

I need to design a postcard announcement for the show I’ll be having the month of March in the newly rennovated Art Deco Cerrito Theatre‘s cafe called the It Club and their meeting room on the other side of the lobby. I couldn’t decide which of these images to put on the postcard and decided to ask for your help. If you have an opinion please use Comments (above) to vote for the image you think would look good on the postcard.

The opening will be on Friday, March 2 from 6:30 – 9:30 in case you’re in the area and want to come. I’ll post an invitation a couple weeks before but since people have asked I thought I’d include it now. Here’s the images:

Grandma’s Orange Juice Squeezer

Pink Rose

Bearded Iris

Birthday Tulips

Tomato in Green Bowl

Watermelon (not for sale, limited edition print available)

Rose in a Bottle (Just sold, but limited edition print available)

Thanks for your help!

Drawing Flower Art Photos Sketchbook Pages Still Life

Starting Over

Graphite in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook
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I’ve been struggling with an oil painting of this image …

and finally realized that it wasn’t working because I hadn’t first done a value study and compositional sketches. So tonight I set aside the painting and started over with this sketch to simplify the image and study the values. I took the photo on a rainy day in December when the sun suddenly broke through and lit up these roses I’d just clipped from the garden that were still blooming despite the December storm.

As much as I love to draw, sometimes I’m impatient to get to the fun, juicy painting and so I skip the preliminary studies. Once in a while that approach works, but more often it ends up feeling like I’m wandering and lost in a maze, with no end in sight.

But if I start with a study or two first to determine what really interests me about the image, how I can simplify it, where I want the focus to be, where the lights and darks are, what I want to exaggerate or de-emphasize, and what colors I’m REALLY seeing, then I have a much better chance of success and hence a lot more fun with the paint. I might still get lost along the way, but I know my destination and how to get there.

I wonder if I should have one leaf overlapping the front of the bottle. If you see any compositional problems or have suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them. Sometimes I find it so hard to see the problems in my own work. Just looking at now in the post I can see I need to lengthen the stem on the top left rose as it looks a little too short to me.

I’m going to start over, using my new sketch as a reference so I can focus on the light, and the colors in the bottle which was what interested me in the first place. If I don’t get tired of it, I might try it in oil, acrylic (bought some acrylics today) and watercolor, just for fun.

Tags Pencil drawing, Photos

Flower Art Still Life Watercolor

2007 Art Plan: Balance

Watercolor on Arches paper, 8 x 10.5″
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Since I posted my 2006 art accomplishments I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my art plan for 2007. In December I decided my goal would be to have a one-woman show by the end of 2007. But within a couple weeks of saying that, I already had one scheduled for March so I had to come up with something else. I thought about my art plan during a long day and night of matting and framing my paintings from ’06 (including the one above that began as a watercolor class demonstration of painting glass).

While doing nothing but art business the past two days, I kept thinking that all I really want to do is paint, draw, explore, play, investigate, dream, learn, experiment, write about art on my blog, read art books, look at pictures, hang out in my studio, visit other artists’ blogs and share the fruits (and challenges) of being an artist.

It reminded me how important balance is. Not enough and you fall over, too much and things are boring and static. So… my art plan for 2007 is:

Continue my explorations, follow my inspirations, investigate, learn, and play all while maintaining enough balance to take good care of myself and the people I love. That means doing enough art business but not so much that it intereferes with doing art. My plans will evolve as the year does. I don’t need to turn my art into a job with rules and deadlines and schedules and business plans. I already have a day job for that.

Art is the center of my life, the thing that brings me joy and meaning (and struggle and challenge), the reason I’m alive, the question that can only be answered with another question, and another. It’s more fun than just about anything else I can think of (or at least anything that can be done for hours at a time). I can’t wait to get started!

Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Peace on Earth

Watercolor in Moleskine watercolor notebook (plus a little salt)
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For most people, today was all about celebrating Christmas. For me it was a luxuriously quiet and spacious day. I did this little painting of a glass dove candle holder that my mother gave me as a first year anniversary present many years ago. I didn’t like it at the time as I felt it had too many pointy edges, though I don’t understand that thought now.

A crystal dove, the symbol of peace seemed a good subject for Christmas day. Spending the afternoon at my drawing table, sipping a cup of sweet pomegranite-flavored green tea while listening to a good book and painting as the sky darkened and the candle glowed was very peaceful.

As the days begin to lengthen, I wish you, and all the world, Peace.

Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

My little cow glass is broken

Post author By Jana Bouc
Post date December 16, 2006
40 Comments on My little cow glass is broken

Watercolor in 5×5″ Hand Book Journal
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I found this little glass at a thirft shop and really liked it. I’d been leaving it on the kitchen counter where it’s handy to grab for a quick glass of water. Yesterday when I came home from work I found it in the sink, chipped and cracked. I guess the kitties were investigating the counter and knocked it off. It makes me sad that I can’t drink out of it anymore. It was just the right size and shape. I like it too much to throw it away. I’ll just keep it in the studio to look at and enjoy.

I know it’s odd that to be so fond of a cheap little thrift shop glass the way other people might relish jewelry or other fancy things. That’s just how I am though–I get more pleasure from simple things than fancy ones–like the old wool blanket on my bed. It’s warm and cozy but long ago lost all its satin binding. It has several holes chewed on the edges from when I took care of my niece Sophie’s pet rat for a few days. We kept the rat in its cage in my sons’ room next to their guinea pigs. But the rat’s cage was too close to the bed and it pulled the blanket (which had been my grandmother’s) into the cage and chewed off some nice bedding material for himself (or herself, I forget which).

My sons grew up and moved on, but I still have the blanket and don’t mind the scalloped edges. The blanket keeps me warm and it’s nice to sleep covered with something that my grandmother once held in her arms as she folded it (and probably ironed it knowing her).

Tags Cats

Flower Art Gardening Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

Where did my muse go?

Watercolor then Pentel Brush pen in large Moleskine watercolor notebook
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I spotted these roses in my garden this morning, still blooming, even with morning frost and rain. I’ve enjoyed having them in the house and tonight decided to make a quick painting of them for posting.

I’ve been sleepy and uninspired all day today. First I lost yesterday to a migraine, then today all sorts of things got in the way of painting. I had to take Busby to the vet for a sudden bladder problem. When I got home I realized that I couldn’t put off vacuuming any longer so spent a couple hours cleaning house. Then I didn’t get into the studio until after 3:00 because I fell asleep in my recliner after eating lunch. I guess I’m still recovering from yesterday’s major migraine.

Once I found my way to the studio I worked on an oil painting for a few hours and I think I finished it but will wait to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow to see if more is needed.

Hopefully tomorrow my inspiration, energy and muse will return.