Hands

Painting hands is hard.  Much harder than faces for me.  Hands move and change in so many ways and have so many angles.  I find painting them tedious.  Faces are challenging but they turn out beautiful, hands are always just hands, neither here nor there.  Unless you are painting a beautiful ballet dancer, then they become a thing of beauty.  But in general, meh.  Today I was laughing with Geoff about wishing people would always keep their hands in their pockets.  This is Sammy’s hand.  I think it turned out alright.  He was holding his fingers like that which is a little odd, but people do odd things with their hands.

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Cottage Street

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Watercolors 2003

My friends in Alameda CA will recognize this little house.  We moved here from California in 2003 and I was so sad to leave my wonderful friends in Alameda, family in Ukiah & San Mateo, and this really cute house on Cottage Street.  This was our first home.  We brought Sammy home to this house.  It was tiny and really charming.  Had the smallest front yard you could imagine and a concrete backyard with an orange and apple tree, and a zero property line on the sides.  I could probably hang out the window and touch our neighbors houses.  I walked to the bay with my little boys almost every day.  The weather was perfect.   I loved it.  We drive by this house when we are in bay area.  I planted a little green leaf Japanese maple in the tiny front yard when Sammy was born 14 years ago.  Now the tree is big and beautiful.2012-03-29_17-20-44_670

Here is a photo from a few years after we moved.  We painted the house before we sold it.  It was pink when we moved in.

Here are some of our CA friends that I still miss.

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And 2 of my cool California sisters.

Here we have Idaho.  And 2 very little boys.  On a horse ranch.  With goat head thorns that popped the tires on my BOB baby jogger every time I tried to go anywhere.

So I bought some watercolors and painted a picture of our cute little house.

When we moved to Kuna, ID. I was very sad.  It took me a few years find my place and people here.  Now I’d be sad to leave Idaho.

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Kids

 

Here are Ethan, Eowyn, and Sammy all together.  Eowyn looks so small compared to the boys.  They will be framed together.  When I paint portraits I try to convey personality through body language and expression.  I also try to make it look like the person.  I’ve found that the better I know a person, the better I can catch these things in paintings.  I’ve painted several of my friends kids and I sometimes know I’m done when I start to see my friend (who looks like their kid) in the painting.

 

 

Ethan is done

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12X16 oil on canvas

I’m all done with Ethan, Sammy, and Eowyn.  Here is Ethan.  I painted his jeans yesterday and finished this and that.  I’m looking forward to getting Sammy back from the print shop so I can see how the three look together.  With all three together the piece will be 36X16 inches.  I’ve thought about putting 3 9X12’s across the top to add more sky and the top of Ethan’s head, and maybe 3 9X12’s across the bottom to do their legs and hills, but I am not sure yet.  I might just leave it alone and move on.

 

Ethan

Ethan needs some pants.  Yesterday I worked on Ethan’s face, hands, and shirt.  Everything but his pants.  Today I will put some pants on him, although I like the surreal look of having the clouds for pants.  I liked the way the others looked with the clouds coming through too, maybe I will paint another and try out a cloud shirt or something.  I like the texture of the cloud underpainting.  Ethan is nearly there.  There is something about his face that looks a little young, I’ll measure things today and see if his chin is a fraction on an inch too short.  Part of the problem might just be that his head is cut off.  And that’s how it is.  I had so much trouble getting the stripe colors in the right place, it’s easy to get mixed up when it’s just a line drawing.  In the end I was able to make the red/blue pattern.FullSizeRender-23

 

Kids in the Clouds

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Every single new painting is a leap of faith.  Here’s the start of my next one.  Drawing done and darkest of dark spots painted in.  Today I will work on her skin and see where it goes from there.  This is #2 in a set of 3 that I am doing.  They are on separate canvases and will be framed together with no space between.

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