What have I been up too?

Not painting obviously. Santa is still sitting there waiting for me to get over the latest distraction. I have become fascinated by dyeing silk scarves. I took one workshop and have been hooked ever since. What I am doing right now is working on increasing my stock of completed scarves to have them for sale at the Christmas Craft shows up here. Paintings don't sell well as gifts but I believe these will. I still have to finish the Santa painting for a show in Dec so I will get back to it but the progress will be slow.

To give you an idea of the scarves I am working on, here are a few photos. I started out just learning technique but I am now trying out traditional dyeing patterns and inventing some of my own. I'll only show my best ones after this post so I won't flood this blog with pics.

Step 10

I'm back to work on Santa but can only squeeze in about an hour at a time. I am nightshift all this weekend so I won't get more done for a few days. I am working on correcting values all over and have started adding washes to the lower part of the vest. Right now the hair looks darker than it will at the end because you have to have dark to add depth. I will correct it later on.

For a show

I have been delayed in doing more work on the Santa painting because of a deadline for a painting for a show with my local art club. This was supposed to be a quick and easy painting (16 x 24) but turned out to be very hard to get even washes and blending. I called it Breakfast... Assembly Required and it is a varnished watercolour. However, the varnish made it almost impossible to get a good photo because of reflections. The photo shows a lot of blotchy colours that aren't there in real life because of the manipulation in Photoshop to get the image as close as possible. I will be back at the Santa painting shortly.

Step 9

I was right. Getting the masking fluid off was four hours of hard work. I should never have left it on so long. It turned into a gooey, sticky mess. However, I finally got it off and I'm moving on. Today I added another wash of colour over the background to set it farther back, put a first wash of colour on the pants, and added another wash of colour on the face. I still have to cover more of the white areas to get a better photo. I will have a lot of work to do on all the hair and beard but at least the masking is off and I can get to work on that next.

Step 8

I think this has been a record for not continuing with a painting. Lots of things got in the way of my art. I taught two workshops out of town and the family went to Jamaica for my son's destination wedding. Now that things have settled down I can paint again. I am hoping the delay in taking off the masking won't turn into a disaster!

I have done more shading of the shadows, more working on the skin tones and started to add a gold wash over the shirt where firelight is supposed to be hitting. Many more washes are going to be needed to get the effect I want. The exciting part is that the next step will be to remove all the masking fluid and see what kind of mess lies beneath. :) I also really need to start adding colour to the bottom of the painting so that it is easier to get an accurate photo. All that white throws off the camera.

Step 7

I have been slow to get back to this one. Today was mostly working on starting the pin stripes on the shirt figuring out where the folds were. Still another sleeve to do on that before I start going darker with the values. I also added more masking in the hair and went darker where the shadows will be. I will be removing the masking there next and then will have lots of fixes to do on it.

Step 6

Another session working all over the painting. Another dark wash on the background, more colour in the folds of the shirt, the first washes on the vest, more colour on the hair and beard, and a wash of yellow over the face. I can't do anything more until it dries thoroughly. However, it will have plenty of time to dry since I have to work the next two days.