I Gotta I Don't Wanna

Calm Evening

Original Inktense & Micron Postcard, $10

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The muse is a flighty creature.  Yesterday I was utterly obsessed with painting, today there was this strange resistance.  I think it was because I was pressuring myself to paint things from my friends' photos rather than just whatever.  This same thing happened when I had commissions a couple of years ago (it didn't help that they were not paid commissions).  I don't know, some days it comes easy and some days it doesn't.

I'm still obsessed, but I thought I'd take it "easy" today and paint a simple silhouette scene.  I bought these nifty postcards at Jerry's Art-A-Rama.  They are Strathmore watercolor paper with the postcard stuff printed on the back so you can actually send them, and then your recipient can frame them, if they want.  I think I might like to do some original greeting cards, as well.  This particular scene was done in Inktense blocks & pencils, with the heron and grasses done in Sakura micron pens.  It's standard postcard size.

It doesn't help that I have a bad headache today, so maybe tomorrow I'll be raring to go again.  The important thing is, I showed up at the studio and I did my thing.

Hope your day is going easier. 

Young Photographers

 

The photo below is the one that gave me the idea to paint my friends' Facebook photos for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge.  My friend Chris posted the photo, which her son Mathias (age ten) took while they were out hunting Pokemon (Team Valor!!).  I was really impressed with his eye for framing the photograph and I instantly adored all the linear perspective, which I haven't played with in YEARS.  Looked like the perfect time to play with some "urban sketching" style painting.

I did the sky in watercolor because I was pretty sure I couldn't lift out Inktense the way I needed to, in order to get the crepuscular rays.  And I fell in love with my Daniel Smith watercolors all over again and decided I need more of those (maaaaan....).  I penciled the rest of it with my handy dandy vanishing point ruler, then inked it with Micron pens, then filled the rest of it in with Inktense blocks & pencils.  Yes, it's a lot more color than in the original, but I think I like that about it.

The really infuriating thing is that the masking fluid I put on the tops of the buildings and the brightest parts of the clouds pulled up and tore the cheap watercolor paper -- it's 140# but it's Hobby Lobby's Master's Touch brand, BLAH, it's going into the circular file and I am GETTING MYSELF SOME GOOD WATERCOLOR PAPER, help need recommendations!  I really dig the 6 x 6 size for daily painting, you can say a lot in that little space but it doesn't take an age.

 

So this is Legacy Village in Lyndhurst, Ohio, one town over from where I grew up.  This is what shopping malls turned into in the US, these little shopping towns.  Legacy Village was new when I left greater Cleveland ten years ago.  I got a tiny bit homesick painting this.

Mathias, thanks for the awesome picture and the good memories painting it brought up. Keep taking pictures, you have a good eye!

Local Landmarks

 

My PLAN today (notice my best laid plans don't work at least half the time??) was to try out the watercolor pencils I found while cleaning my closet.  They are cheap and crappy and I abandoned them after two sections of this and went back to my little Koi watercolor box, which performs pretty well. It's ink and wash, technically mixed media because I used a white Gelly Roll pen for the lights.

So, this is the sign at Oldham Theater.  I knew who to go to, to find out its history:  Belinda Elsberry. She is a collector of local history and she is THE lady to ask if you want to know what happened when in White County, TN.  She didn't disappoint.

Oldham Theater was originally at a different location, starting in 1928, and it was just a couple of years later that they installed a "movie phone" so that locals could see pictures with sound.  Little Sparta was among the first towns in the state to have such fancy equipment.  In 1935 the theater moved to its new and current location on Liberty Square in the heart of the town.   The Cardwell family operated it until 1977, when it was shut down. Many White County residents have fond memories of the movies they went to see there, with tales of 25cent movies (can you imagine?  we are paying 40 times that much now...).

In 2004 the building itself was torn down, but the marquee was preserved as the facade for a town Welcome Center. It is without a doubt Sparta's most recognizable landmark, though many people mourn the fact that it wasn't kept open as a theater, and it is rarely open as a welcome center.  I have only been inside it once.

At some point I will take on the challenge of painting Oldham at night with its neon lights ablaze, in a bigger format (this is a little postcard sized daily painting).  Belinda suggests I talk to Mr. Cardwell about all the history behind it.  Sounds like a fun project!