Cat 37

Cat 37.
Acrylic on canvas. 20" x 16".
(Mimi and Izzy #2 - sold)

This is an alternate to the commissioned piece, #36. Several of the photo's provided had potential, and I ended up working on both paintings at the same time. I really wanted to nail the true individual qualities of the cats and again, the black cat was a challenge being deep in shadow with little definition.

I ran out of black paint years ago, and never replaced it after discovering that I can achieve a richer "black" by building up layers of intense colors. Here I worked with blues and reds to create the "black".
The background wall was problematic until it finally dawned on me that the yellow undertones was causing it to visually pull forward instead of recede. Graying it down helped push the wall back to where I wanted it.

I really like the cat tree structure. The angle of the lower round platform in relation to the top is a little bothersome - I now wish I had adjusted the perspective to be more frontal. I am pleased with the way the black cat mixes in with the shadows.
The reality is, I spend entirely too much time on correcting and adjusting elements in the painting, than I do actually painting.
I need to put more time up front on getting the forms and angles correct. There seems to be a disconnect between what I see, and what I think something should look like. How do you resolve that?

Cat 36

Cat 36.
Acrylic on canvas. 9" x 12".
(Mimi and Izzy #1 - sold)

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I have been struggling with this for weeks. The request was to have both cats together with a neutral background. I assumed a gray cat  and a black cat would be relatively simple and intuitive, and it turned out to be a challenge.

Working from a small photo, the black cat was in heavy shadow with virtually no detail beyond a few vague highlights, so I had to guess at the features to create definition. I used mostly layers of burnt umber and pthalo blue to build up the black cat as straight black out of the tube would be too flat.
 The gray cat was complex- there is a surprising amount of subtle reflective and inherent color going on in the gray, and that is heavily influenced by the background color. Using Payne's gray from the tube produced a very flat, dead gray even after mixing different hues to it. I ended up removing that layer and using a mix of raw umber, white and ultramarine blue for the base, and added some layers using cobalt blue and then pthalo blue.
Every time I adjusted the background, I had to re-balance the grays on the cat.

I don't know how many times changed the background was changed trying to find a good solution, and each time I ended up taking a wet toothbrush and scrubbing out everything done the day before. The scrubbing did yield some interesting tints.

It was very difficult to get an accurate photo of. Even adjusting the settings for incandescent lighting didn't quite work- it either leans too orange or too blue. This is looking more blue than it really is, but the best color compromise I could arrive at. It still looks a bit "cartoon-ish" to me. I clearly need to try tackling more black cats to figure out a good solution.

Green and White Trailer on a Windy Morning

Green and White Trailer on a windy Morning.
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

What drew me to this structure was the classic half round visors above the windows.
 I also liked the streaks of dirt and rust forming under the front window. The front porch is sagging at an odd angle.The trees were wildly swinging back and forth, the sun dapples were shifting in the foreground and the dead grass in the little front garden was leaning in the wind. How do you paint wind?

This painting looks a lot stronger to me when I cover up the left part of the trailer. The logical step may be to darken the porch area and see if that changes things.

Pink Trailer in the Evening

Pink Trailer in the Evening.
Acrylic on Canvas. 11" x 14".

And of course I had to try an evening light version of this same trailer, as the sun was slowly dropping low on the western horizon. I included more of the vertical row of cedars to give more counterbalance to the predominant horizontal forms, and included the more distant trees in the background.

Painting the same scene in different light conditions may be redundant, but I found it to be an interesting exercise. The colors are less intense and not as high contrast than they were in the morning light, and the reflected colors changed as well.
A night version of this might be interesting to try.

Pink Trailer in the Morning

Pink Trailer in the Morning.
Acrylic on Canvas. 11" x 14".
(sold)

On the corner by the stop sign is another older trailer, which has hand built additions sprouting off of it. The property is empty except for a short row of cedars, no doubt planted many years ago to create a privacy screen from the road. The lower branches had been removed at some point, probably for ease of mowing the grass, leaving what looks like a row of posts, top heavy with branches.
The man who lives there is very reclusive, and a bit cranky.

The sun dappled lawn and strong early morning shadows appealed to me. I like the combination of curves and sharp angles on this hybrid trailer/home old enough to still have the odd rocket-fin angles. I also like the general pink and green tones. I made some progress towards stating the trees as belonging to different species, but I could take this further.

Blue Trailer in the Evening

Blue Trailer in the Evening.
Acrylic on Canvas. 11" x 14".

I tried the same view in the evening light. What really grabbed my attention while driving by one evening was the shadows cast by the tree on the front of the blue trailer.
In the end, the cedar tree really took most of my attention, trying to nail down the textures and form without painting every tiny detail. In reality the trunk does not lean such an extreme angle, but the composition was so static, it called for at least a suggestion of a diagonal line.

I don't care for the way I handled the left side of the blue structure. It feels too abruptly cut off and not thought out very well. It's pretty obvious that I wasn't interested in that part of the image.  I am definitely improving at incorporating the range of colors throughout the image, and not leaving them so isolated.

Blue Trailer in the Morning

Blue Trailer in the Morning.
Acrylic on canvas. 11"x 14".
(sold)

I walk around the neighborhood for at least a half hour every morning, usually immersed in thought, sorting things out, and mentally organizing the agenda for the day.  Occasionally I am blank and slightly bored with the routine. It was on one of those mornings I started scrutinizing the places I was walking by. The sun was breaking through the perpetual valley morning fog bank, illuminating the usually dull, faded, rust streaked structures.
This is an odd neighborhood, conceived in the 1960's as a glorified trailer park, with the homes on large privately owned lots. Over the years, the old trailers have been replaced by more modern structures, but a handful of the original trailers still remain with their mid-century modern curves, looking oddly out of place next to their more glamorous neighbors.

Most homes around here are muted earth tones, but not this one. I like the unusual electric blue. Really makes a statement, of some sort. The landscaping consists of a flat lawn with a lone western red cedar on either side defining the boundary between the lots. I like the soft drape of the cedar with the hard edged trailers. With little experience at painting trees, or any foliage for that matter, I did a lot of fiddling with the cedar trying to express it so it didn't look too contrived.