Works in progress
Starting a new assemblage box by painting a white primer coat. I’m being more vigorous with brushing this one. After this primer coat dries I will paint the actual colors using a brush and spreader card.
This is what you get when you hold the camera in one hand and brush with the other. At least I have the option of saying “cheese” to snap the image instead of using a finger or thumb.
A controlled still posed shot.
The finished primer coat on the inside and outside of the box.
I've had the front of this one put together for a couple of years and leaning against various walls. It would have been easier to use 45° angles for the roof but I chose to use what ended up being 72° angles. That made for some challenging cuts with the tools I have at my disposal. I used a hand saw and my mini table saw.
The sides being glued to the front.
Finishedwith a small base. I had to fix the front top point of the roof that got dented when it slipped out of my hands and hit the floor. The wood for the facade is very soft. I used plastic wood to rework the corner.
I made a mold of a small bottle and cut it in half and have been casting these halves of bottles to use in a piece. I am using Durham’s Rock Hard Putty as the casting medium. It sets up very rock hard as the product name implies. To make sure they do hold up I inserted a piece of bamboo skewer into the plaster while still wet and pliable. I’m not sure what else I’m going to do to them. Stay tuned.
I came upon this interesting rock formation on one of my beach walks at Cayucos and thought it might make an interesting painting. I need to do some more work on the sky and a little more work on the left of the rock formation.
I did this one in a 16 x 20 inch format instead of my usual square.
Making some tiny objects to go in another tall wall piece.
A tiny book, 8-ball, cupcake, pot, yo-yo, and slice of cake. The only ones I made are the book, cupcake and cake slice. The yo-yo is made from two wooden wheels from a craft store which is where I got the little wooden pot and bead. I plugged the holes in the bead with a stick to make the ball.
Or at least it will be a version of Clementine the cat.
This is the initial drawing with colors quickly filled. I will rework the colors as the painting progresses.
Here are the finished buckets I have been post about. Although you can’t see it there is a hole drilled in the bottom of each bucket from which paint will leak out of.
I have had the basic structure of this piece sitting around in a corner of the studio for several years now and it suddenly came to me today what I want to do with it. This will be one that can hang on a wall or be free standing. I haven’t quite worked out what I want to do with the windows. More to come.
I’ve had the front facade put together for a few years now and today I added some reinforcing pieces in the back and sides and a base.
Equipped with hanging hardware.
Here is how the piece will hang on a wall. A white coat then an off white coat of paint have been applied.
This is when scraps of paper come in handy.
A strip of card stock left over from trimming printed postcards. The length of the strip is the circumference of a bucket. The line in the center marks the circumference divided in half. The mark at the end of the strip is where I want to mark the holes in the two sides of each bucket for the handles to be inserted.
Marking the handle holes.
Here is the finished work from yesterday’s post. For more details of this piece go to the new work section of my site.
Title: Noodling for cats who live on the sandy bottoms of reservoirs.
This one uses parts of a recycled hanging sculpture. Stay tuned to see how it turns out.
I made some handles using some old copper wire that will be attached to three small buckets. I needed to straighten the wire with pliers and my hands. It was fairly easy to do and I wasn't aiming for super straight. I made a simple jig to help bend the ends of the handles so they will be the same length.
The handles shaped and ready to bend.
The mess of copper wires that I needed to straighten. You can see just how much straightening was needed.
A couple of finished handles and one in the bending jig. I made the jig from a scrap of wood and some nails with heads cut off so the wire can be slipped in and out.
I saw this little bird outside a delicatessen in Cayucos a couple of years ago. It was perched on a metal post about three feet away from me and took a couple of pictures of it looking around. I thought it would be a good subject for some experimentation with abstract colors and background textures.
Every digital painting is an experiment and learning experience. Sometimes it they are exercises in letting go and breaking out of creative ruts and blocks.
So far most of the colors are solid. I’m working with some textures in the darker green at the bottom and the darker red at the top but haven't change the colors to bring out more of the texture. I have used a combination of Old Inker, Proko Pencil, Castell, and Old Oil brushes throughout the painting.
The finished painting with more textures added and emphasised and a few more details added. I tried something different with the texture in the red at the top by making lots of tiny circular strokes with the Old Oil brush using the same red as the fill. I used a darker shade of the red and the fill tolerance set to 2. Because of the tight texture the fill turned out unexpectedly uneven which made for a more interesting texture.
3000 x 3000 pixels, Infinite Painter 7, Galaxy Tab S7 tablet with S-Pen
I recently took another look at the Spooner's Cove No. 02 picture I created last year and decided to make some changes to it. I wanted to add some more detail while keeping the abstract theme and retaining the flat colors.
I didn't want to add texture to the colors like I have been doing by brushing over colors with the “Old Oil” brush using the same color which creates slightly darker and lighter streaks then filling it with a darker shade of the color. See the picture below for an example.
The original painting. It didn’t seem as finished as I thought it was and I wasn’t happy with the foreground.
I began by changing the foreground by adding some more shapes and modifying a few colors.
I added some more colors to the foreground and made some changes to the sky, the beach and the small section of waves and rock at the left of the picture.
Using the “Old Oil” brush this texture was created by brushing random strokes over a block filled with yellow using the same yellow color. This created some very light marks. Using the Fill tool with a tolerance setting of 2 or 1, the yellow block was filled with a darker color bringing out the lighter marks.
I'm working on a pink version of the orange colored recliner in our living room. I'm trying to figure out what object to put on the seat or one of the arm rests and so for I haven't come up with anything.
I’m thinking of adding this to a series of the same chair in different colors and poses or various kinds of chairs.
The actual chair is orange. I chose to do a pink version with some other unnatural colors surrounding it.
I thought I would show a picture of how I start a digital painting.
I start out by drawing black outlines of objects and shapes in the picture then quickly add flat colors to the shapes. These colors are starting points that I will add textures to and change colors by painting over them or refilling them with other colors.
I made a few color changes to this painting yesterday morning as you can see in the before and after pictures. I rather like both versions which presents a slight dilemma. Which one to keep? Or is it finished?
Before changing a few of the colors in the pyramid hill, deep shadow at the bottom of the hill and some of the oranges in hill and above to the right.
After making the color changes.
This one has been inactive for almost two months now and I just can’t seem to get it going again. It is still in the beginning stages and there is a lot more to do before it all comes together.
I recently received some kind words of critique from a fellow Infinite Painter user of a painting I posted on the community forum. After following his advice I made some changes to it and decided to do the same with this one by toning down the greens of the hills to add some depth.
The painting before reworking the hills.
After: I faded the hills and some of the trees in the background by making the colors not so vivid to help make them recede and give the picture a bit more depth. I also changed the greens in the foreground. I need to do a bit more work on it before I call it a day.
In this post I’m showing how I change colors slightly after adding some texture with the Old Oil brush I made a slight modification to. Infinite Painter gives one lots of options to make changes to brushes or create a completely new brush.
Detail of the top right corner of the painting showing texture created by brushing over areas with the same color. The Old Oil brush leaves streaks of light and dark versions of the color as you can see in the blue purple color.
I typically use the fill tool with a tolerance between 1 & 3. This time I set the tolerance to 1 so it would fill only the closest matching color that I choose to click on. This brings out a bit more of the brushed textures. Overall the color changes may appear to be rather subtle but compare the darker blue areas.