Not your average cat

My daughter, who is 15 years old, is an artist too. Unlike me, she uses programs like Illustrator and Photoshop to create her masterpieces and is happy to follow her own individual artistic path. That's the way it should be. The child began drawing at age three and she has become really adept at caricaturing animals and she excels at creating fantastic mythical creations that don't really exist.

About a year ago she asked me when I was going to paint a picture of her cat. What she meant was: when was I going to turn her cat into a huge 24" x 18" wall painting, as I had done with the other two cats who live with us. I kept putting her off because her cat is not the most attractive animal in the world. I know it is to HER, but to me, it is a bit strange and I didn't really want to paint her. You see, Mooki is missing an eye. The poor cat had an ignominious beginning, as her mother abandoned her in our garage and she crawled up under our lawn tractor. For days we heard crying that would stop as soon as we opened the garage door and begin again when we closed it. We trapped the kitten with a bowl of milk and placed her in a dog cage until I was able to tame her by feeding her cat food on a fork. Eventually she was eating from my hand and not threatening to claw me.

My daughter grew very attached to this small gray cat and although it has never been particularly cuddly, it does enjoy human companionship and listens better than the other cats. When she was nine months old, Mooki's eye began swelling and the vet told us it was glaucoma. We had a few choices: we could put her down, we could pay a few thousand dollars and see if the eye could be saved or we could have it removed for $400. We had the eye removed and the cat has been fine ever since. Surprisingly enough, I've had a few people tell me they wouldn't have done it. "It's just a cat. You can always get another one," they say. How cold and heartless, and I would bet these are the same people who do not spay and neuter their animals, which is why we end up with homeless kittens living under our mower deck int he first place.

I am wondering a bit from my story. I promised Katie that I would do my large version of her one-eyed cat if she would create one of her caricatures featuring all six of our animals. Well, she fulfilled her part of the bargain and her creation was wonderful. I printed it and have it hanging in my living room. She captured the personality of each animal so well! I was amazed.

My turn! I finished her supersized cat over the weekend and I did struggle with how to present the one-eyed cat and make her beautiful. Ultimately, it was just a matter of being true to Mooki and emphasizing what is wonderful about her.

Digital Art

Mooki 18" x 24"

A Cat with Cattitude

Pastels Again

I switch back and forth between pastels and oils for my portrait work. These are the two mediums I am most familiar with and I enjoy working with the most. Occasionally I'll do a charcoal or pencil drawing and I have been know to create murals with acrylics but I love these mediums the best. Pastels are a more delicate medium but I can get more done in a shorter period of time than if I used oil paint, which is helpful if you are working from the live model and you are not sure if you'll get another chance to see the person. That's the case here, where I attend a weekly portrait group and I am never sure if i will be able to show up the following week. I think it's important to work from life as often as possible, especially if you plan to work from photographs at any point. The life sessions will inform your view of color and help when you have to make it up from those flat photographs.

Anyway, we originally had a different guy scheduled but he didn't show so this is Jake, a young guy who showed up to draw with us but who was promptly hired as a new model for $15 an hour! He has a very nice sensitive face and he was a pleasure to draw, paint whatever!

Sauder Paintout - May 12

Saturday I coordinated a paintout at historic Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio. The weather cooperated-- mild and mid 70s and most of the painters left with at least one good painting. Everyone who came was delighted with the relaxed atmosphere and the charming costumed workers and volunteers. I found my first painting challenging-- to say the least! Sometimes I am the girl who goes to the banquet and wants to eat everything in site! I spotted the General Store and to me it embodied everything about this quaint little village so I wanted to paint it! Half way into the painting I realized I had bitten off more than I could chew. I am really throwing out the food analogies tonight! Must be hungry. I wanted to be done by 12:30pm so I could eat lunch so I really sped up the process and finished the piece in lightning quick time. The ornaments hanging on the porch become paint blobs and pretty much all detail was subjugated. I wanted to move on to something else.

Lauber's General Store

11" x 14"

The Importance of Anatomy

I want to talk about anatomy today and why it’s necessary to study it a bit if you ever hope to paint recognizable people on a regular basis. In the past, anatomy was taught at all the great art schools. It was only with the advent  of newer and more modern painting methods that techniques that had developed over centuries and had been passed down from artist to artist via apprenticeships disappeared. 

As an artist who has always been intrigued by the human form, I have studied anatomy, both on my own and by auditing life drawing courses at local universities. Life drawing, both short pose and long pose, is THE best way to develop skill in rendering the human form. You can copy all the Victoria’s Secret catalog models you want but you still won’t really “get” how the human form turns and moves in space if you don’t invest some time in the study of anatomy and how it relates to ‘real people’.

What is the best way to do this? Find a life drawing or painting group in your area and attend as often as you can. You say there aren’t any? Star one yourself.  I paint with a portrait group in Toledo on Saturday mornings whenever I can make it. The group meets in an old school cafeteria and it costs just $5 for a two hour session. We pay the model $30 for the session and we have the same model for four weeks. That’s a bit too long for most of us, who would prefer to have the same model for two weeks because we’re usually done by then. But everyone works at a different rate so I suppose we have to be flexible. My painting speed has increased greatly since I started painting with this group five years ago. I live about 45 minutes away so I can’t attend every week, which means I ALWAYS try to get my painting done in one session and I am usually close enough to finish it at home using a photographic reference.

A little painting I did of the group a couple years ago.

Teri Bersee runs a small rural art school 30 miles from my home. It’s called Bountiful Arts. Teri sponsors a life drawing session once a month and I attended this group last week because she promised we would  have a female nude model for three 2 hour sessions over a period of three months. I hadn’t been to any unclothed model sessions in awhile so I made a point of showing up to this one. I brought along my easel and paints because I knew I could finish an 11” x 14” piece in two hours. Our model was great and I was happy with my little painting.

I think painting or drawing from the nude is always time well spent. Nowhere else can an artist learn so much about human anatomy than from close observation of the muscles, forms, light and shadow of the nude subject. You might be thinking to yourself, "Fine, she's lucky, she lives in an artsy community and she has all these opportunities to work from life." Nah, that's just an excuse. A determined will does find the way. You make your own opportunities. Network and get to know the artists in your area. I live in a city with less than 8,000 people and I have to drive 30 minutes to shop at a mall. It may not be convenient, but if you're serious about improving the quality of your art you will find a group that encourages you and you WILL achieve your goals quicker.

Here's my painting from last week: 11" x 14", oil on linen