[painting] Joy of Painting... a lot.

A few weeks ago, I got out all my oil painting supplies and ran through some Bob Ross Joy of Painting episodes. When I whipped out five paintings over three days:

Now I just need to order frames. I'm out of a bunch of colors so I'll wait until after the holidays to paint more.

[misc] Framing and Buttoning Things Up

Crunch time- gotta finish all the finer details of the things I'm entering to the fair. Framing paintings:



Sewing buttons on to the sheep sweater:



Ta da!



I bought these buttons at a Bartlett Yarn booth at the Slater Mill Knitting Weekend marketplace this past January and I just looooove them. The website is here and I'm tempted to get more. The ones I used here are the Celtic Swirl pattern.

Gotta bag everything up and bring it to the fairgrounds tonight! Aaagghh! Going to the fair with my sister and niece tomorrow.

[painting] Abstract 1

Started a new Bob Ross painting last night which quickly went south. I wasn't happy with it but rather than walking away (and wasting all the oil paint I had put onto the palette), I used the knife to drag colors across the canvas:



I'm actually pretty happy with it. I asked Dollar to check out my new painting and when he first saw it, he said, "Whoa, were you angry when you did this?" Hm. Maybe frustrated. But I liked that looking at the painting made him interpret an emotion from it. I'm going to try more abstract paintings.

[painting] Winter Night

I did my most recent Bob Ross painting last Friday night:



Season 3 Episode 4 (free to watch on YouTube). This was working on a canvas covered with liquid black, rather than liquid white, to create a night scene. At this point I didn't have many of the paint colors that Bob uses, so my background trees are green rather than grey. Also, I had a hard time with snowy-tree technique. I almost gave up on this painting halfway through but I'm glad I finished. No mistakes, just happy accidents.

Looking forward to having some free time this weekend to work on another one. But I really really really want to finish these socks I've been working on forever. And I'm going to Hmart with my mom tomorrow. And we've got to carve out some time to to see Captain America: Civil War (#TeamCap). I need a vacation.

[painting] Quiet Cove

Another Bob Ross painting:



The painting is "Quiet Cove" from Joy of Painting, Season 23 Episode 5. I wanted to do a sky color other than blue. Was very happy with how my trees turned out in this one. Practice practice practice.

[painting] Mountain Summit

The 2nd painting I've done at home is Mountain Summit:



I followed along to a DVD that came with the basic painting set but this scene is from Joy of Painting, Season 13 Episode 10. Pretty happy with it- still getting the hang of all the techniques but these mountains are fun to do.

I need to rearrange my craft room. I recently acquired a new (used) spinning wheel and a small one-person couch. Everything is kind of jumbled in there and I've been painting in the dining room. I'd like to have a spinning corner, a knitting corner, a painting corner, a sewing/embroidery corner... And the room doesn't actually have that many corners. I'm taking the last week of the month off for a little staycation at home, mostly for gardening stuff. I think that might be the right time to reorganize the craft room.

[painting] Mountain Ridge Lake

I've taken several Joy of Painting classes with an instructor certified in the wet-on-wet oil painting technique. I was thrilled to see Hulu add the last few seasons of the show and I started watching episodes. I realized that I hadn't seen the show since I was a kid and watching Bob Ross do the techniques kind of opened my eyes. I ordered all the basic supplies and my sister gave me her easel. I then picked and episode and did my own at home:



This is from Season 23 Episode 3: Mountain Ridge Lake. I was kind of amazed- this is the first time I have ever done a mountain with a palette knife. I followed along with the episode on my iPad, pausing it when I needed more time. This took just over 2 hours.

I've been much happier painting at home, I think because I get to choose the scene I want to do. Dollar said he thinks the paintings I've done at home have been better and I agree. I am so excited about this new hobby and love that I can start and finish a painting in less than three hours, including set-up and clean-up.

[misc] Santana Thursday

Santana looking so cute yesterday afternoon.

I started digging through all the pictures/paintings/posters that I want to hang around the house. I found these two, painted by Dollar's step-grandfather a looooong time ago. They are the same scene but a little different from one another:

So I can do two things. Hang them in separate rooms and then perhaps observant visitors will say, "Wait- didn't I see that same painting in another room?" Or hang them together as a spot-the-difference game. I'm more inclined to do that latter, I think, because it's more engaging.

[art] Joy of Painting #4

Went to a Joy of Painting class last weekend.

I always loved the idea of adding monsters to paintings. These classes don't really allow for something like this- because there are so many people in class and things have to keep moving along at a steady pace. If I raised my hand and asked "How should I highlight my monster's fur?", the instructor would probably say "What monster? I told you to add a tree." 

Anyway, I saw that this painting featured a bunny, so I tried to make it a creepy bunny by giving it a red eye and fang. From a distance, you can't even tell- but I know it's there. 

Someday, when I'm feeling more confident in my painting skills, I'll set up all my paintings and add proper monsters.

[art] Joy of Painting #3

Here's my finished painting from Saturday:

I like the clouds the most. I see about 7 things I would change or do better next time, but I like this one the most out of all three that I've done.

The class was small this time- only 6 people signed up (usually there are more like 15). The next one will be this fall if you're in the area and want to spend the day making happy trees :)

[art] Joy of Painting 2

I took another Joy of Painting class this past weekend, this time with my sister. It really is a lot of fun and the time goes by so fast.

And the finished painting:

Plus, my sister won the drawing for the teacher's previous days painting- and she gave it to me! 

[art] My first painting!

I took last Friday off work and went to a Joy of Painting class taught by a certified Bob Ross instructor. It was amazing. SOOOOO much fun! The instructor came with a finished painting that she had done and we used that as a basis for our own paintings. She did another painting as she told us what to do (use a 1" brush, hold it like this, use this color, tap tap tap tap like so, etc.).

Here's the canvas that everyone started with:

Our brushes and oil paint:

All the brushes and paints are Bob Ross brand. And my little easel had Bob Ross on it:

The first thing we painted was sky:

Clouds came next, which was kind of difficult. Then mixing black and green to tap a background for all our trees and bushes:

We used green mixed with yellow to tap on highlights to the trees and hill in the foreground:

Here's I've added some reds and browns. Painted on some branches. Added little waterfalls.

Those really thin, white branches and trees you see into background? That's just taking the tip of the knife and scraping away thin lines of paint. That's the canvas showing through. Isn't that cool?!

Finally, we added some land/coastline, rocks and water froth:

That's the finished painting. I'm not so pleased with my rocks, but overall I'm so in love with this. My first painting and I think I did an awesome job.

The class is at Mascoma Bank. I was the only noob at this class- the bank has been holding these classes for something like 10 years and everyone had been before. I wish I could have taken a picture of everyone's paintings- we were all doing the same painting, fundamentally, but every painting was different. Everyone's clouds looked different, people used different colors for their bushes, people placed their waterfalls in different locations. It was really neat to see all the paintings.

I took the class on Friday and they were holding another one with the same instructor on Saturday. I simply assumed that it would be the same painting, but no- the painting will be different. So you could sign up for both days and do different paintings (which some of the students were doing). At the end of my class, there was a drawing for the finished painting that the instructor was doing the next day- AND I WON. I won the painting that she was doing on Saturday, which is a totally different scene. This TOTALLY makes up for not winning MegaMillions, I swear. I have to wait 7 days or so for the paint to dry, then I can pick up the painting at a Mascoma Bank branch office. I can't wait to see it!