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Roadtrip Completed, Tomorrow I Paint!

by cooper on 11/30/2008 4:46:05 PMComment on this

Greetings,
I do believe I mentioned a roadtrip at the close of my previous post :)
The toughest part was trading in those Florida beaches for this Iowa snow! Yup, it's time to get back to work now. But of course, you need a visual first!

ID's: Husband Wayne, me, daughter Abbie, brand-new-son-in-law Jim, son Brent

Later, Cooper

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Daily Painting, Acrylic Paint Scribbles

by cooper on 11/19/2008 10:13:07 PMComment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to the Cooper studio where today's daily painting looks pretty darn smear-y. After writing such a lovely post yesterday defining the phrase 'blocking-in', today I broke every rule ever related to the subject. But I had a good time :) It was a big-brush-feel-your-way-around-the-canvas kind of day for sure.

And before you look at the current images and think "wow, it took her all day to do that?" let me inform you that the larger canvas is 40 x 30 inches. It takes a fair amount of time to put one layer of paint on that large a canvas, let alone 5 or 10 layers! And somewhere part way into the story, the figure on the left twisted to the right, totally unplanned, but I do think it helps with the narration. Both figures legs have a bit of growing to do, I believe, but that will have to wait a week. It's road trip time :)

Later, Cooper

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Daily Painting, Blocking In With Acrylic

by cooper on 11/18/2008 9:42:38 PMComment on this

Geetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place. I stretched seven canvases last week, and they all need to have serious paint on them by early January. I felt compelled to get started on that today.
Regarding that, here's a blocked in canvas for you, as well as a question about "blocking in".

It's a 24 x 20 inch canvas, pretty messy with that muddy yellow off to the left, eh? I was feeling a little guilty about that, and then I reminded myself that's only the 'block in'.

BUT. That poses the question: Is 'block in' an excuse phrase? Do we say 'block in' when really we are just feeling our way around the canvas trying to make sense of it? I googled block-in and didn't get much. There was a nice video on Jerry's Artarama site, done by an artist named Rooney showing a block in demonstration. If you are into landscapes, you might find that helpful. There was another site that alternated the phrase with 'underpainting'. I don't fault that. I found this definition at About.com painting in their art terms glossary:

Definition: The first painting stage after the preliminary sketch or drawing where areas of flat color are put down.

Also Known As: Laying in

I can agree with that as well, I suppose.

But here's the deal, all those references ended up as landscapes. No people. Nothing figurative. Am I the only one painting figures that has to feel my way around the canvas? That's how that yellow blob happened, you know. That little guy's arm has already been adjusted 7 1/2 times. When you paint a tree with a crooked branch, people say "oh, look at that cool tree with the crooked branch". When you paint a person with a crooked arm people look at you with plastic smiles and whisper amongst themselves "what a terrible painting". That must be the dividing line---if you are painting a landscape, the first paint you put on is the "blocking in". If you are painting a figure, the first paint you put on the canvas, is the "just feeling your way around, with prayer, in the never ending quest to get it said right" paint. That sounds professional, doesn't it. Ok, we'll hold with the blocking in then. Time for a nice glass of wine and my bedtime book :)

Later, Cooper

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Daily Painting, Acrylic Painting Books

by cooper on 11/18/2008 9:29:45 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to my daily painting place, where today's topic is books.
When you vision yourself in ultimate relaxation mode, is there a book in the vision? Does your favorite get-away scenario involve a good book? You know, laying on the beach, the temperature is the opposite of what Spencer, Iowa is right now, the sun in gentle on your face, and you have a copy of __________ (that means insert your current favorite) in your hands.

In my studio, I have a bookcase, that is not nearly as capacious as it ought to be, evidenced by the number of books in the stacks also neatly (sure!) lined up on the floor beside said bookcase. My family members just recently did a whine because the only thing on my Christmas wish list was books. Yeah, and they are all art books, a bunch of them which are out of print and you have to search used bookstores to find. I have online accounts with several book sellers, and take great pride (

) in knowing where the best book deals can be found. Yeah, I like books. I even have a good friend who is an author. Ha! How many of you can say that? (hi Mary

)

Therefore, it only stands to reason that I should paint paintings of books, right? But what good are books if you don't read them? I rest my case: painting people reading books is thereby a neccessity and I will continue to do so. And in that mode, here's the latest in my series of paintings now fondly thought of as 'the reader's series'. Duh.

Here you are then. It's even got a book collector title. Personal Collection is an acrylic painting on a gallery wrapped canvas. It measures a lovely 20 x 20 inches. This painting shows the model sitting in front of her bookshelf full of books, next to a stack of books, holding a book that she's reading, while drinking a cup of the other important ingredient in this pictoral equation. Coffee.

Have I ever whined to you about our office (and this computer) being at the end of the longest furnace duct run in the entire house? You know what that means, considering Spencer was at a balmy 13 degrees this morning. That's farenheit degrees, by the way. I am not a speedy composer of blog posts and so I have been at this cold keyboard long enough that my poor little hands are pretty friggin icy. Let's revert back to the last word of the previous paragraph. Time to go make a pot. But first here's the image of the new painting. Personal Collection. Enjoy!

Later, Cooper

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Daily Painting, Acrylic Paint And The Compositional Error

by cooper on 11/12/2008 7:37:31 PMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to my daily painting place. Yesterday I posted two images of the current easel painting. Good news, bad news. As I went back and read my own post, it became painfully apparent one of the reasons why I like to take progress photos of my paintings. And when I'm going in the wrong direction, do I really get to call it progress?

So here are the two photos I posted yesterday, only today they are in black and white. At this point in time, I am really sad that I put those fuzzy white socks on her feet. If you cover that portion of the painting, you will see what I mean. I am headed back to the studio to paint toes---

Later, Cooper

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Daily Painting, Acrylic Paint and Art Collectors

by cooper on 11/11/2008 7:11:04 PM1 Comment

Greetings, welcome to daily painting at the Cooper studio. As I was working on the current easel occupant, thoughts of something I read this morning were mingling with thoughts of this painting.

Robert Genn at Painters Keys had an interesting letter regarding his Canadian viewpoint of our president elect. I always enjoy the newsletter, and this one was no exception. HOWEVER. There were a few respondents to the 'clickback' section who were not so agreeable. Zing! My poor computer screen almost sizzled. One commentor, in a much calmer manner than his peers, discussed "Perils of big government", and "redistribution of wealth may not necessarily be a good thing for artists". "Under an Obama nation those that have traditionally supported the arts as collectors through their foundations and charitable donations may find that they have a lot less to give" .

I understand his point of view, but would like to propose a counter thought. What if with that "redistribution of wealth" comes a new group of people ready and able to appreciate art? What if we encourage art appreciation for all people, not just "those that have traditionally supported the arts as collectors". Is this yet another place where instead of going with "traditionally" we need to focus on a change?

A lot of painters use the mirror trick---looking at a painting in progress in a mirror to see it reversed, and therefore in a different way. This often shows up both problems and solutions---things that were not visible when looking at it in the same old way. Well, heck, who volunteers to send the mirror trick to Washington?!

Ok, this post needs some color, so jumping back up to paragraph one and the current easel occupant, here are a couple of images of today's work.

I mentioned that I already had a name for this one, well, we altered it slightly. And I think it's official. Personal Collection, what do you think? And I'm not going to whine about the weather today, but you'll notice I put fuzzy white socks on her bare feet. Ha! It makes me feel much better!

Later, Cooper

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Told You So! Daily Painting, Acrylic Paint

by cooper on 11/8/2008 3:29:30 PM1 Comment

Greetings, and welcome to my place of daily painting. I apologize for leaving you in excessive doubt with my last post. We will clear the murk of artistic vision today. :)

Yesterday's compulsion to immediately cover up the white of two (count'em 2) canvases was strictly the result of the abrupt change in weather here in Spencer, Iowa. Operating under the time honored rule of never start a painting without first developing a thumbnail sketch, I had two at hand when I began. Both are from previously gathered reference material that will plop them right in the middle of my 'readers series'. Did I start the day intending to enlarge that series? No. The ideas just suddenly came to life, and I could see them. Here's some work on the first which I might have already named. How does 'private collection' sound?

So, it's got a ways to go, but we're feeling it now, right?!

Later, Cooper

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Aargh, She Lives Too Far North In Iowa!

by cooper on 11/7/2008 1:42:53 PMComment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place!
It's here. Yup, THE SNOW. I have a good friend who says the snow is always worse if you live north of Highway 18, and we do.
So in the studio today, this is my view out the studio window:

Looking at it required me to take radical action. Two bare-naked white canvases leaning on the wall, well, that was just too much white stuff. I grabbed a big brush and some purple, along with a couple of thumbnail drawings that I've been playing with, and there you are.

Sorry if you can't see anything happening yet, but I've got a real clear mental vision of both :) Progress update to follow. Thanks for stopping by.

Later, Cooper

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Life Drawing

by cooper on 11/4/2008 9:02:22 AMComment on this

Greetings,

Our life drawing group at the Pearson Lakes Art Center met a day early this week, so Monday night. We decided everyone would be busy voting today :)
HOWEVER. Our group met a day earlier than normal. I found some funky gray-scabby-rough paper to work on. (instead of canvas?) I took along some oil pastels to work with. We didn't do the normal quick gesture drawings for warm-ups. By 8:35 everybody was so tired (I couldn't stop yawning) that we all decided to call it a day. Weird. Normally we push 10-15 minutes over schedule. One artist came up with some stuff that looked like their normal. The rest of us---whew! Here are two images.

So didn't I warn you that it was an unusual session? Yeah, that's black on the second one, I don't do black. Don't even know where it came from ! :)

Later, Cooper

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