This video slideshow represents about 85% of my paintings from 2014 to March 2022, with a handful from earlier. Many are unfinished studies, many are quite dreadful! But I thought it would be interesting to see them all together, to see the process of progress.
Progress is not linear. And there were a lot of long stretches of months with no painting at all. I’m pretty sure a live, local community is very helpful for that sort of thing and then we had a pandemic.
I may do another version with a voiceover, but I haven’t done one of those so I’ll have to look into it.
Most of these paintings are currently stacked in my living room. Maybe I’ll list some for sale. I have started to paint over some of them, especially unfinished ones. It’s a strange feeling, to do that.
Composition/Drawing Challenge 1-25, March to April, 2022Opus (plush), pencilKyle the piranha-dog from Despicable Me (plush), pencil
Originally it was a 30-day drawing challenge, but I finished it out at 25, which is still pretty great! It was particularly motivating seeing drawings from all the other class participants. (I can’t link it because it was on a closed teaching platform.) It’s always good to surround yourself with an art community if you are trying to do art, which is so often a solitary pursuit.
Next up is a continuation of the composition instruction, this time with paints, and I will be using oil paints for the first time, after 11-ish years of halting progress with acrylics. I am actually putting together a slideshow of my first 11 years of paintings, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I want to see it for myself, and I thought it might be interesting for others.
I may have mentioned it before but it’s so interesting I took a drawing class from Ian Roberts when I follow him for his oil painting videos. It’s also interesting because I don’t have as much interest in painting the kind of landscapes he normally paints. But he has a lot of great insights and is a great teacher, and his YouTube channel is great!
I have signed up for Ian’s Brushwork course that comes after the drawing one (the prerequisite is the drawing class). I don’t often have art-related momentum so I’m not going to give it up just yet. I will be painting in oils for the first time, and trying out some of the non-toxic medium and cleaner options.
I can’t believe it’s April 2022. The pandemic has made time even more unreal than usual. Thanks for dropping in!
The end of the second row has the only landscape (and out of order). Otherwise I’ve been on this crazy still life kick. Part of the reason, is that we are supposed to be taking and cropping our own photos for this challenge, and there’s not much outside where I am at the moment. (Of course, there is beauty in mundane things, etc, but it’s the end of winter and overcast, so no additional landscapes for me yet.)
I mentioned in the last post that I never thought I would be interested in, or any good at, still life drawing. But now I’ve done a whole lot of them, and they are going pretty well!
Ladle and lemons watching tennis on television. (I thought this one wanted a name.)
6 days of 30-day drawing challenge using your own photographs. Approx 6″ each, pencil on smooth Bristol
These are the first 6 days of a 30-day drawing and composition challenge, which is the final (optional) part of Ian Robert’s recent Mastering Composition drawing course. Mainly Ian draws and teaches landscape, but for this challenge we are tasked with using our own photographs, so some of us are doing still life photographs.
Who knew, first of all, that I would enjoy drawing a still life? Or think I could actually do like, a decent one. And in pencil!
Red Onion and Paintbrush, 6″ x 4″, #2 and #4 Staedlter and Blackwing Matte pencils on smooth Bristol
This onion and paintbrush went well. It goes against the parameters of the challenge just a little bit, as the challenge is intended to highlight the main dark and light shapes in an image, and this one has just a few too many details. But that’s probably because I kept going after I got the main shapes in. And that was possible because I took this really excellent class.
Acrylic Portrait Studies, February 202216×20 Acrylics, An Unusual Man16×20 Acrylics, unfinished landscape
I missed a couple days so far in February. I am worried because this is what happens yearly – I paint every day in January and then the rest of the year whooshes by with much less productivity.
I think I need an actual project, like a series. I feel like I’ve been practicing to get better for several years now, but for what purpose? So, I’m trying to decide on an idea for a series. Imaginary Animals? Rescued Farm Animals? Not sure yet.
And at the same time, I think I may be close to trying oil painting with some of the non-toxic materials options like walnut oil and walnut alkyd.
Or maybe that is the problem. Too many plans, not enough action. I am currently taking a composition drawing class with Ian Roberts. He is mostly a landscape painter, and with a terrific YouTube channel. After the class is over I will start thinking more about the series.
Here are all the January paintings. Some portraits, some landscapes, some horses, one donkey. One failed cityscape. A pretty good month. I have completed the Paint Every Day in January for 4 or 5 years, with varying degrees of success. I think 2022 is the first time I actually painted all 31 days.
I hope to compile a retrospective of 6 or 7 years of trying to learn to paint with acrylics in the next month or so. It is time consuming! To find all the images and resize them and get them organized. But I always enjoy seeing other artists’ progress.
In the meantime, here is my set of paintings from January 2018:
9×12, 11×14 and some 16×20 acrylics paintings, January, 2018
Mostly dogs in 2018, with a handful of other animals and one almost-kind of horse, in the middle of the top row. I have improved! I just wish I had been more consistent, as always. I have started to paint over some of these. Though, the bat and panda found homes, and the beagle in the bottom row is probably going to stick around.
Thanks so much for dropping in! If you’re doing art projects this year, let me know so I can check them out. :-)
Well hello! (If anyone reads this! Who knows!) My last post was April 2021, at which time I was doing an online art class. It went.. ok. I discovered I do not like to paint with acrylics on a wood panel. Perhaps I was not doing it right! Eh. It’s ok not to like it.
Here we are in the middle (toward the end?) of the Omicron portion of the global pandemic. And I am once again painting every day in January.
Although I’ve still got a few days to go, here are some horses I painted this month. I am new to painting horses. It went pretty well!
Three horses, acrylics, January 2022
And here are some portraits I painted this month. The ones on the right are definitely more successful than the ones on the left.
Four portraits, acrylics, January 2022.
And here are some landscapes I painted this month. I am new to landscape painting, and used free reference photos from unsplash.com. It went pretty well with the sunlight and atmospheric perspective and a cute little (lopsided) car:
Four landscapes, acrylics, January 2022
Are you doing any painting projects in 2022? Let me know so I can check them out! :D
Thanks for dropping by! I can be found on instagram at cindydauer.
Reader, it goes poorly. The goal of the class is to produce a finished 11×14 acrylic painting on a wood panel. And this is the no good very bad condition my painting is in right now. In fact, I started a second one (also poorly) in case I throw this one in a fire.
Not. Going. Well. The face has been repainted about a dozen times. You can see how I got mad and scrubbed it with sandpaper (and then had to redo a bunch of the pencil lines). I am not used to this painting style and so far have adapted poorly. I am pretty sure this style demands a level of patience I do not possess! But it’s not over yet.
We do have two weeks left. This is the middle The middle is the hardest, right? And then I figured I would write a blog post and share the misery with the few lost souls who find it. I tell you what, I am NOT saying don’t take this class. Everyone has a different experience, is my guess. I am doing more art than I normally would and that was worth the price of admission. Oh yeah, it’s kind of pricey. I used some stimulus check on it and I consider it well-spent.
I will also say this class has a large variety of peers, many much more skilled than me, and some maybe with fewer skills. But the ones who are posting their updates are all KILLING IT with their painting progress. On the other hand, many people are not posting any updates at all, and I am worried about them.
Below is most of what I’ve done for the class. We started with sketches and ideas and then worked toward a final character and image, transfer that to a wood panel and get to painting.
I believe it started going wrong when I wasn’t really happy with my final image, but went with it anyway. The bottom left with the bird is not resolved and needs another or a different creature. The dog character looks too much like a malformed dog and not like an imaginary creature as he should have. Then I didn’t decide my colors ahead of time. THEN I could not get the hang of painting smoothly and being patient. Which is where I am today, as I write this blog post.
Here is my timeline of progress.
So there it is. I hope my next update is much more chipper!
Most recent – this window poster, on poster board. I need to make a stand or something because our window is just a tad too far from the sidewalk and street.
Look, my next poster will be uplifting and shit but this is the first one.
I have been very slowly learning acrylic painting over the past couple years. These most recent three are a good indication of current events and also of learning to paint.
8×10 acrylics on canvas board, March 3, 202011″ x 14″ acrylics on canvas, March 10, 2020 12″ x 16″ acrylics in progress, March 11, 2020
Apparently I’ve been on an orange kick. Thanks for visiting!
