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Surgery and Painting
May. 28th, 2024 07:28 pmSurgery went fine. I think. I mean, I was unconscious for it, but no one said anything after that gave me any impression that something went wrong. I felt like absolute shit after, though. I couldn't stop shaking at first. Then, I ate a little. The shaking got better, but I felt a little nauseous and jittery. I was scared about getting on the train, because I was worried that I would throw up. I was scared about getting in a taxi, because those twisty roads are much more nausea-inducing than the train. Eventually, we walked the block to the train station and took the train to the city near us and then a taxi home. It was a real challenge, and I was pretty stressed. However, I made it! Yay! Now that I'm home, everything is fine. Last night, I woke up at about 4am and felt great. I did some stuff on my phone and then went back to sleep at 5. I still feel pretty good. I'll be done with the antibiotics in two days, so that will be great too.
I am pretty sure I haven't shown you any paintings recently. I wanted to show you my latest work in progress, because I am so happy about it. And since I was uploading that, I thought I would upload others too. Here is what was still on my phone.
The last one is unfinished, but I was so happy about how the background turned out that I thought I would share it with you. I bought a palette knife on Saturday and used that for the background, smearing on the darker background colors. I think that the different texture really helps the dirt look different from the leaves. I used a large-ish round brush for the bottom couple of layers of leaves, along with muddier/more muted green. I worked my way up to a brighter, yellower green in the top layer with a smaller round brush. I also added some long, thin strokes with the rigger brush that I got recently to paint grass. It is definitely doing its job. The slightly blurry Queen Anne's Lace was made with the smaller round brush. I didn't use straight up white, but instead added a little of the green in varying amounts, which makes it blend well with the background, I think. I'll add in the snapdragons tomorrow. Hopefully, they will work out. It is always stressful to add something to a painting that looks really good. I expect that with experience I'll be more confident in my ability to do that correctly.
One of the things I definitely learned from this, besides to use different brushes/palette knife and to continue to use the color theory that has served me so well in my paintings, is that the "just splash some color in here and here" that they use in many tutorials, isn't anywhere near as good as trying to make a loose but realistic shape. I was going for leafy shapes similar to my reference photograph (without actually painting an entire leaf), and that produced a significantly better blurred background than any of the tutorials I have done.
I am pretty sure I haven't shown you any paintings recently. I wanted to show you my latest work in progress, because I am so happy about it. And since I was uploading that, I thought I would upload others too. Here is what was still on my phone.
The last one is unfinished, but I was so happy about how the background turned out that I thought I would share it with you. I bought a palette knife on Saturday and used that for the background, smearing on the darker background colors. I think that the different texture really helps the dirt look different from the leaves. I used a large-ish round brush for the bottom couple of layers of leaves, along with muddier/more muted green. I worked my way up to a brighter, yellower green in the top layer with a smaller round brush. I also added some long, thin strokes with the rigger brush that I got recently to paint grass. It is definitely doing its job. The slightly blurry Queen Anne's Lace was made with the smaller round brush. I didn't use straight up white, but instead added a little of the green in varying amounts, which makes it blend well with the background, I think. I'll add in the snapdragons tomorrow. Hopefully, they will work out. It is always stressful to add something to a painting that looks really good. I expect that with experience I'll be more confident in my ability to do that correctly.
One of the things I definitely learned from this, besides to use different brushes/palette knife and to continue to use the color theory that has served me so well in my paintings, is that the "just splash some color in here and here" that they use in many tutorials, isn't anywhere near as good as trying to make a loose but realistic shape. I was going for leafy shapes similar to my reference photograph (without actually painting an entire leaf), and that produced a significantly better blurred background than any of the tutorials I have done.
