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12/30/2008 2:22:14 PM

Daily Painting Buddy Holley Retro

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place. Today I discovered I need a new camera. The little HP has been quite trustworthy. However. The resident high schooler received a Nikon Coolpix for his Christmas present. I borrowed it for today's "progress" photo shoot. Unfortunately, at the same time, I took a pic with said trustworthy HP, just for comparison. Case closed. There is no comparison. But pleases, let's not give HP too much product quality grief. It took lovely pictures when it was brand-spankin' new. It's battle scars include a few rapid descents to harder than recommended surfaces. Do you suppose that's why the lens cover is not nearly so automatic? :) Enough with the techno stuff. On to the art stuff.

Today's daily paint landed on the dance painting, which is beginning to take on that "I'm almost finished" glow. I love when that happens. Both of the paintings I'm posting today are headed for the Clear Lake Art Center on Friday. I know I keep mentioning the Buddy Holley show at the Clear Lake Arts Center, well, these are part of it. And I know I promised to write more about that here, but why repeat? It's already on my journal blog :)

As for the paintings:

Date Night Candy Floss is an acrylic painting on a gallery wrapped canvas that measures a lovely 30 x 30 inches. It's signed (yes!) and waiting for a layer of varnish, and something to hang it from.
(1/23/2010 update! The wall behind this couple now matches her purse! How do these things happen?!)

Dance Little Sister (we just figured out that title, do you like it?) is an acrylic painting on a 24 x 30 inch gallery wrapped canvas. Not signed yet, and at the risk of fussing, it has just a couple of places that need (ahem) adjustment. Update at eleven.

Later, Cooper

12/29/2008 11:46:27 AM

Daily Painting, Back In The Saddle Again

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
nooooooooooo, that's not what I meant. I avoid horses as models, and I have never (to my knowledge) painted a saddle. BUT. Daily painting was a little sketchy during Christmas time, not to mention, there were people sleeping in the studio :) Today, however, is a new day, a Monday, the last Monday of 2008, and a good day to get back in the (saddle) studio once again.
Fortunately, even though there were people sleeping in the studio, the same canvas hung on the easel the whole time. This morning, there it was still, and all I had to do was pick up a brush. Well, I did have to squeeze out new paint. Apparently I did not shut my paint up tight, and the little pile of leftover titanium white was a tadbit 'firm'. Which brings to mind an idea I had last week: I think it would be interesting for everyone to post a painting of their palette. I am not talking about a delightfully composed, aesthetically enhanced image of beautiful colors all neat and clean. I'm thinking it ought to be the real thing, the same palette you haven't cleaned in three months, not to mention, the same palette you took to life drawing studio last month, and somebody knocked it off the table, upside down, onto the floor. But the lid was on :) First, here comes the image of the current canvas which we still have to work on a title for.

Yup, the guy on the left still looks like a dweeb, but we'll get to him soon enough!

Later, Cooper

12/22/2008 3:35:01 PM

Daily Painting, Dance

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
---just a quick stop in the office to upload an image of what's been keeping me busy in the studio. Have I told you about the Buddy Holley Dance Party at Clear Lake, Iowa? Well, if not, stay tuned, and I'll get around to that eventually as well :) However. For that event, a couple of retro-feeling paintings are required, and so happens this dance party painting. Here's your first look, about two 1/2 brush strokes past the block-in stage :)

Later, Cooper

12/18/2008 5:37:42 PM

Daily Painting, Acrylic Painting Candyfluff

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place, where most of today's paint landed on the cotton candy canvas. At the same time there is another canvas being blocked in, but you'll need to be patient for that one :)

As promised, the guy finally got his hand, we now have a bench, and I am scared to take the image to my photo editing program and put it in black and white. That little trick often shows me the mistakes I've made due to immunity. Immunity you ask? Well, that's what happens when you've been working on a canvas too long, and you begin to make all kinds of assumptions about it, just because familiarity tells you, you know it all. Therefore, false-know-it-all-familiarity causes immunity. Well, at least in this studio it does. I don't know about yours!

Later, Cooper

12/17/2008 2:24:20 PM

Daily Painting, Candy Floss? Fairy Floss?

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place, where I won't be painting that geranium any time soon. Let me explain. Our house has a lovely enclosed porch that catches an adequate amount of sunshine and just enough warm air drifting up the basement stairs to winter over the previous summer's geranium pots. Until Monday night that is. That would be the Monday night where the temperature dropped to a minus 14 degrees F. (God bless Spencer, Iowa) I carried all the geraniums to a temporary holding spot in the basement, but we have a definite one casualty, and one in critical condition. Logically, the two best geraniums were closest to the window so they could get the best light. Darn.
On the positive, progress is happening on the cotton candy painting. By the way, all the online dictionaries tell me that the Brits call it 'candy floss' and the Australians call it 'fairy floss'. Wow, learn something new every day.
Have you ever had the experience of getting so used to the visual image being in you head that you don't even remember that it's not on the canvas? Onlookers, I find, are bothered by this :) Here, let me show you:

People want to know "why are they in such a weird pose?" or "what's that purple thing?" I have known all along that these guys are sitting on a bench, but it's not a very important bench, so what I've got in my head, for a visual is just fine by me, for now. and that vaguely lavender-ish thing holding the cotton candy, well what else could it be, but a hand? And I've got a perfectly great one in the mental image! I will concede that the hand is somewhat important to this painting however, so that must be the next phase: give the guy a hand. Stay tuned.

Later, Cooper

12/15/2008 5:43:58 PM

Should An Artist Clean The Studio?

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,

Yup, we've all read those articles about studio cleaning. Most of them are accusatory, you know, the 'p' word.

Today, I cleaned my studio. Almost. Procrastination is a problem in my studio, but not the kind of procrastination all those articles are written about. On the contrary, I believe I have set the world record in postponing cleaning my space. It was due. But you'll notice that word 'almost' up there in the first line of this paragraph. It's not quite done yet. I have (ahem) a few stacks to take care of yet.
So how do you tell if you should be cleaning your studio?

IF:
1. the dog got lost in the dust woolies
2. you can't remember if the stack of books in the corner tipped over, or you actually arranged them that way
3. you're going to have a housefull of people next week, and somebody will probably need to sleep on the studio floor :) Hi Abbie and Jim
4. you have a canvas on the easel that's heading down the homestretch and you're eager to see what that will do to it
5. you had to move three canvases, not quite as far along, into the closet, to accomodate #3
-----well, then, it's probably ok to go ahead and clean. A little.

But IF:
you just like things organized
you're in a mood to clean
someone might drop by and see your 'stacks'
YOU HAVE A BIG BLANK WHITE CANVAS STARING AT YOU
well, then odds are really good that you are participating in the evil kind of studio cleaning. So put down that scrub brush, and pick up the paint brush.

Later, Cooper

12/11/2008 2:22:27 PM

Daily Painting, Another Canvas Up

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to daily painting at the Cooper studio. It's a split shift day :) For a couple of hours this morning I painted SherwinWilliams style paint, this afternoon, it's been Maimeri Brera Acrylic. I don't mind the first style, and it surely feels good to get it done, but brush strokes evident in the dining room are just not as desirable as brush strokes on a canvas!

The studio time has again been spent on the couple sitting on the bench. Eventually they are going to be eating cotton candy. Ok, so anyone out there who has EVER painted cotton candy, do you have any good advice? I am not after the kind that comes mashed into a plastic bag, I need the real stuff. You know, where the person inside the little stand takes one of those white paper cones and swirls it around in all that sugary stuff, and it just magically forms that wispy web? I should have paid more attention at the Clay County Fair this year---the real stuff was there. That probably would have caused a stir, some wacko artist setting up an easel in front of the cotton candy stand, painting cotton candy. I guess people who don't paint just don't understand, eh? And I can't think of any of my painter heroes who have ever painted cotton candy, to use as an example. Heavy sigh.

Oh, and regarding the title of this post, 'Another Canvas Up', that means the cotton candy painting just got done screaming at me.....waaaait! I am definitely supposed to take it off the easel for an hour or so and let it mellow. Yes, that would be artist talk for EVALUATE. So back to the studio, put another canvas up on the easel, and then I have this great photo reference of a couple dancing. But in the meantime, two progress reports (visual, of course) for you to peruse.

Later, Cooper

12/10/2008 8:03:44 PM

Daily Painting, Finding The Big Shapes

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place. So there is a 30 x 30 inch canvas parked on my easel. It has some really big shapes on it, but that's a good thing. I've been working at trying to find those really big shapes for two days now, and I think I've finally got them all leaning in the right direction. Except for that hand, the monster sized one. It's supposed to be attached to the guy seated at the right. And here's the deal: photos are a pain to work from, especially when we're talking about hands. Actually, feet will do it to you too. But photos were all I had UNTIL the resident high school senior came home for lunch. He only had five minutes to spare, heavens, we couldn't make him late for class! I had time for one hand sketch, and there it is. I do think it is a lovely shaped hand, I am just needing to shrink it down a bit so it fits. We'll work on that tomorrow.

.

This painting, and hopefully yet another, have a destination in January. We'll have to see how that works out!

Later, Cooper

12/8/2008 12:16:07 PM

Daily Painting, Two Signatures

cooper / 1 Comment

Greetings,
Welcome to daily painting at the Cooper studio. Two signatures? Nope, I never sign a painting twice. BUT: check it out, there are two paintings off the easel with that nice little red (yes, red) signature down at the bottom. Yes, red is a lovely color for a signature, so enjoy!

Play, an acrylic painting original on canvas, measuring 24 x 20 inches.

we're still working on a title here, but it's also an acrylic original, on a 40 x 30 inch canvas.

Later, Cooper

12/5/2008 3:22:19 PM

Daily Painting, Sidewalk Cafe, And A Swing

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to daily painting at the Cooper studio. And I even achieved my early morning goal of sending my quarterly newsletter! Did you get it? There IS that little place to click on the front page of my website--hint--it's called email newsletter :)
On the easel side of things, today's studio time has been spent on the sidewalk cafe scene painting, and also the toddler on a swing. The sidewalk cafe scene painting, I am feeling pretty good about:

I've got a short list of things to fix yet, but it's coming.

The toddler on the swing gave me some grief today:

So, you know that great Renoir painting of a woman in a fantastically swirling blue dress? I propped my book open to that page, hoping it would give me the inspiration for this little guy's sweater. Yeah, well, we've got a ways to go. Lesson learned from a couple of days ago though, this one gets to lean on the wall for a day or two. Maybe if I prop my Renoir book up next to it some magic will migrate over?

Later, Cooper

12/4/2008 2:03:48 PM

Daily Painting, Acrylic Painting The Sidewalk Scene

cooper / 1 Comment

Greetings,
Welcome to my daily painting place, where it's still the middle of the afternoon! Regarding yesterday's #1 big painting rule broken, today, I painted like crazy and then backed off! This current easel painting (the sidewalk scene) is definitely one that likes to mellow between big decisions! So a quick break to post you a progress image, and then I'm back to the studio. The sidewalk scene will lean on the wall for a bit, while I work on another painting in progress. Both paintings will likely be happier because of it! :)

Later, Cooper

12/3/2008 4:52:18 PM

Daily Painting, Sidewalk Scene

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to daily painting at the Cooper studio. Today's paint slinging was aimed at the current sidewalk scene. Dios Mio. Should we make a list and title it "stupid mistakes"? Surely at the top of that list would be something about how I played with itty bitty details that aren't supposed to even be thought of until the very last minute. Following that would be something about changing the value structure midway through a painting. We could talk about how it looks like the guy has disjointed his shoulder. There are more, you can add them to the list.

HOWEVER: I am fairly confident these picky mistakes were comitted under the heading of the big rule "know when to stop!" Most of the time that rule is broken when a painting is done and the paint-er just can't quite quit. Today, the painting is nowhere near done, rather, I believe I just needed to step back from it for a few minutes and contemplate the nature of things. I didn't. So tomorrow the day will begin by painting out the last half hour's worth :) I am SO GOOD at three steps forward, two steps back!

Later, Cooper

12/2/2008 5:00:49 PM

Favorite Paint Brand: SherwinWilliams?

cooper / Comment on this

Greetings,
Welcome to the Cooper studio daily painting. Today we not only put the brush in the paint, we put the roller in the paint! Let me explain, visually of course:

So we spent the day after Thanksgiving stripping the multiple layers of wallpaper off of our dining room walls (aargh) Today part of it became a lovely green color. Actually it's called 'Haven'. What a weird name for a paint color, eh? But it is a very garden green, and there are a few of us out there that do think of a garden as a haven. Yeah, it's a SherwinWilliams color. Every now and then, we think we don't really need to spend that much money on a bucket of paint so we do something really stupid like go to Menards, and then we go back to SherwinWilliams and buy the nice stuff.
Am I a snob about paint brands? Likely. My favorite paint to spread on a canvas is Maimeri Brera. And regarding that version of paint, I managed to spread some of it around today, as well.

I have been eyeing the latest street scene as it leans against the studio wall. It's amazing how many issues you can de-code from a painting just by watching it. I believe in a recent post I mentioned the figures legs needed to grow, and we got that done. Now I am thinking their shoulders need to grow. We'll see if that can happen later tonight. Back to work.

Cooper