"Polka Dot Glasses"

"Polka Dot Glasses"  --  oil on canvas 24x24"  -- Margie Guyot

Last weekend the sun finally came out!  It may seem trivial to you, but up here along the coastline in northern Michigan, it's a real event in winter.  I'd been trying to think of something inspiring and exciting to paint when I saw the sunshine hitting this scarf and glasses.    Wowee!  I started whooping and jumping around, all jazzed at the sight of the cast-shadows and brilliant colors.  I'm not totally sure how this photo turned out, though.  I'm using a new Photoshop program, on a new computer, and it's been a hair-tearing experience lately.

But enough whining!  I quickly set up this arrangement on my table in front of the south-facing windows and drew it in like a fiend.  Sunshine in winter is very fleeting.  I didn't know if it would shine again until May.  So I captured as much of it I could. 

The next day it was cloudy (of course), but I continued working on the drawing.  One thing I picked up fairly recently was the trick of using straight lines to establish obelisks.  Circles and obelisks are just the devil for most of us to draw!  Starting out with just 4 basic lines to establish the size limit of an obelisk really seems to help.  Little by little, add small straight lines to finish it off.  That trick has really helped me.

The third day the sun popped out again and I wailed away with the paints, nailing the shadows.  I put color notes on some of the larger, "easier", areas, such as the plain borders, saving them for when the dark and gloom returned. 

Luckily, the sun came out again the next day, allowing me to see enough to be able to finish this painting with some more shadow pattern details.

And if you're a painter, if you want a challenge, just try painting a doggone daffodil!  Yikes.

This is what I was looking at while trying to paint the picture (below). Little Miss America and Picasso love toying with my flowers, dipping their paws into the saucer, nibbling the leaves and finally tipping everything over! I included this photo to let you know that there is often an interesting little story that goes along with each painting.

"White Cyclamen #2" -- oil on stretched canvas -- 10x20" -- Margie Guyot

This is the second painting I've done recently, using this beautiful white cyclamen. It just keeps blooming and blooming! The shop I bought it in said to always keep water in the saucer and never water from the top. I'm amazed at how that thing sucks up the water!

And I've used this tablecloth before a couple times as well. It's quite a challenge to draw in and get the perspective right. I'm still not sure if I have it right yet. Painting and looking down on my subject as I do, it is rather difficult sometimes to give the feeling of proper aerial perspective. There is a fascinating drawing/study by Edgar Payne that I want to copy. In it, he draws a series of circles, supposedly lying flat on the ground, continuing all the way out to the horizon line. The circles become obelisks as they recede. I need to study that example and try to replicate it as I think it would be helpful.

And it was rather challenging to paint white flowers on a white tablecloth and get them to "read". The more I looked at the white tablecloth (which was quite wrinkly -- I refuse to iron it!), the more towards an ochre-tone it became.

Why did I chose this format? There is a call-for-entry coming up for "things 10x20", in honor of the year 2010.