Painting 079 - 7/18

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Oil on gessoed illustration board
8"x10"

So I ran out of gessoboards and didn't realize this until 8pm and I was preparing to sit down and paint. I was in despair over having to use the dreaded gesso; I got around it by using only one, fairly watered-down coat. And it worked! The oil will probably eat through it in a couple of years, but that assumes I care about the longevity of this painting.

Once again, I have proved that I can paint metal with a certain amount of ease, but completely collapse when I attempt anything red. Sigh. At least this breaks my run of Completely Humiliating Paintings.

Painting 078 - 7/17

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

This one doesn't have the excuse of an awful surface - but it does have the excuse of having been executed in a room that was in the high 80s and humid! Why oh why can't I paint in my lovely little air-conditioned bedroom?

(it's not actually a valid excuse. i'm just trying very hard to ignore how embarrassing these past few pieces have been.)

Painting 077 - 7/16

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

While not as wretched as the previous painting, this still makes me flinch.

These are not my glasses, which is good, because they are a dead pair of glasses. Don't go to sleep in your glasses, boys and girls; it is a Bad Choice. (glasses.)

Painting 076 - 7/15

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

This painting, along with the one before it and the one after it, sealed the deal in convincing me it wasn't that gessoing illustration board or masonite was bad for me - it was the gesso. I mean, look at this painting. I'm not this bad. I swear this isn't my fault, beyond the fact that it's taken me this long to admit it's the wrong gesso for me.

Painting 075 - 7/14

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

This was a bad job start to finish. Awfully gessoed, hard subject (red? HOW DO I PAINT RED??), badly painted... just, augh.

Painting 074 - 7/13

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

This is what I'm talking about. (Ignoring the iffy circle of the base, of course.) A tiny blue glass perfume bottle! What could be better?

Painting 073 - 7/12

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

I really hate this brand of gesso. I also really hate such obvious cop-out paintings. Feh.

Painting 072 - 7/11

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

So my roommate is a Fine Arts major, and way too awesome to be believed. This is a spiderverbicle (a vehicle representing language (which language? all language. i told you she was awesome)) and it is approximately five inches from front foot to back foot and made of copper wire.

Ohhh yeah.

Painting 071 - 7/10

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

Here is one of my SVA buttons! It is not my favorite one but it was the one at hand when I decided it was time to paint. So many warm colors... Look, ma, no very little blue!

(WOO SVA SVA WOOOO)

Painting 070 - 7/9

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

Ffffff. Everything about this is bad and wrong. So we're moving on.

Painting 069 - 7/8

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

If the drawing wasn't so wretched, I'd be really happy with this painting: the colors worked out quite well. Buuuuut that circle is unforgivable. Too bad, so sad, lern2drawplz.

Painting 068 - 7/7



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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

 A teensy leetle painting for an 8"x10" board, but oh well. It's another one of my rings: this one is from Tibet, and it's one of my very very favorites. The painting itself is - okay. I like it, though not as much as the other ring.

Will I paint my three other rings? We shall see...

Painting 067 - 7/6

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

I liked it a lot better when I was painting it (that transition from light to shadow, ugh) but it's not that bad overall. Red is hard.

Painting 066 - 7/5

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x8"

Well, this isn't new. The worst part is, that first one, from a month an a half ago, is the better painting. At least back then I got the drawing of the cube right.

(can we see why I was so reluctant to post?)

Painting 065 - 7/4

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

This is one of those paintings I'm :/ about. It's not quite bad enough for the how can art? tag, but it's aggressively meh. I was experimenting with wet-into-wet, which would have been a good use of my time had I not have thoughts only for bed.

So, about that posting-every-day thing...

I'd like to apologize for the break I've taken in posting. It's been for a combination of reasons - I was away from my computer and its files for a weekend and fell out of the habit; I've been busy; I've been disappointed with enough of the paintings I've done that I'm not looking forward to posting them; etc, etc, ad nauseum.

What I haven't stopped doing is painting. I've still done my painting every day, rain or shine enthusiasm or exhaustion, and I can at least be a little proud of that. No matter how spotty my posting has been, I have that to lean back on.

In the next few days, I'll be posting my backlog in batches of three or four, because even though I'm not proud of all of them, I'm proud of enough that I don't want to bury them.

Sorry again, boys and girls. I'll do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again - we've only a month and a half left, after all.

Painting 064 - 7/3

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

I dunno how this came out as good as it did, but I'm not complaining.

I also have no explanation for what this object is. My mom gave it to me. It appears to be a hand-sized kangaroo eraser?

Painting 063 - 7/2

(I'm a little terrible at this updating-every-day thing. I'm sorry.)

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

I was beating myself up over doing another cop-out painting, but, um. I really like how this came out. I really like how it came out. It's one of my rings, a favorite (even given that it's one of five I wear constantly); it's not a true circle because I beat my rings all to hell through everyday wear.

Painting 062 - 7/1

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

And then I followed up a landmark with a really completely mediocre painting.

Painting 061 - 6/30

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I bring you the halfway point in my summer of painting challenge. I have painted myself again, a month after I did it the first time, and in spite of some things I'm not entirely pleased with (my nose, drawing issues with the line of my cheek, brow, and forehead, not enough chin, I look angry) wow is it a step up from last time.

When I began this project, it was with the acceptance that if I didn't improve by the end of the summer, I needed to walk away from oil painting and focus on ink, or pencil, or some other medium I was already good at for my illustrations. Since then, I have successfully completed 61 paintings in as many days, and whaddaya know? This is the improvement I was looking for. Now, in the remaining 62 days, I need to continue pushing, and prove to myself that this isn't a fluke, or a temporary upswing.

(also, yes, my hair has actually grown an inch, inch and a half in a month. it's sort of what it does.)

Painting 060 - 6/29

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Oil on gessoed illustration board
8"x10"

So, after two other tries, I'm officially calling shenanigans on illustration board gessoed with Utrecht Professional Acrylic Gesso. Because it's not working for me and I'm really tired of these wretched paintings. This one is a bit better than wretched because a) I had some practice compensating for the surface and b) honestly, I don't think I could have painted a simpler subject if I'd tried.

Feh.

Painting 059 - 6/28

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Oil on gessoed illustration board
8"x10"

I really don't like to blame a surface for a painting's failure, so I'm not going to say 'I couldn't work on this surface' and pretend it absolves me of how awful this turned out. But it at least makes me feel like this is less of a total backslide! Because, see: the drawing's not bad, just the painting.

I need to switch brands of gesso, because this brand dries with a surface like plastic, and I can't afford the gessoboard I'm buying. Bah.

(no 'progress' tag or comparison, since it's patently not worth it.)

Painting 058 - 6/27

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Oil on gessoed board
8"x10"

What is this? Can this be -- can this be a circle in proper perspective?! The scan did weird things to the value balance, but I do like how this came out. Oh, cop-out paintings, how I hate you...

Painting 057 - 6/26

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Oil on gessoboard
8"x10"

Move along, move along; nothing to see here. Just a meh painting of a small metal tripod turtle box(?). This is why, if one wants to produce good paintings, as opposed to not-bad paintings, one should probably begin said paintings before midnight.