Sketching and Painting

Hello,
Where does the time go?!  This week I was preparing for book club at my house, as well as sketching and painting.

I am posting to a great weekly website called Paint Party Friday.

A few looks into this last week.

 This is the start of an upside-down-blind-contour sketch of a martini glass.

Here I added a couple of lines to complete the sketch after looking at it.

Both were along the right edge of the base and stem of the glass. The sketch is done with white school chalk.

I started painting the tabletop and the glass. I wanted to do streamers, like a celebration, but I changed it in the next step.

Here is stage 4. I still have some work to do on it. I want to change the values on the table top so that it doesn't look flat, and I want to add more paint in the same value as the background. It looks too skimpy right now.

Here is the black and white version of the original reference from my workshop with Ardith Goodwin called "Expressive Sketching for Painters"

Have a good week,

Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "This week For Moebius Syndrome"

Tonight I am linking to Paint Party Friday and to the Diva Zentangle Challenge which is a special event for Laura(the Diva)Harms.  It is  "String Theory v.XXII - Moebius Syndrome Awareness" day, the 24th of January.  Lauras' son Artoo has been diagnosed with this syndrome.  Moebius Syndrome is a congenital nerve disorder .
The logo string Laura gave us to work from is below right.

          

I drew several variations of the logo with my pastels and used the MSAD color of Purple for my main designs. I then divided the remaining areas into areas of black and white.  The colors inside the logo are the other two triadic colors of oranges and greens.  I did various tangle designs in the white pieces with my #8 Sakura pigment pen and did an aura stripe with my white Gel pen in the black areas.  

The first picture below is after I did the main design and sprayed it with fixative and then with Krylon Matte Finish varnish.  

The second picture is the painting after I finished the tangles.

For Paint Party Friday I have added my other pastel of the week called "Green Chic" which I posted earlier in the week.

To Purchase with the proceeds going to the Moebius Syndrome organization.

Below is my Daily Paintworks entry for the challenge of painting glass submitted by Linda McCoy.  I happen to love colored glass and would always choose it rather than clear glass or even crystal!  I just can't do without color.  My apple posed for me until lunch time when I very rudely ate it as it's service to me was done! Now I am off to do my daily journaling and my Diva Challenge.  Then I will check my Yumbly app to see where we might go to dinner this weekend once I can decide what I am in the mood for!

"Green Chic"

This is an original pastel on 16" x 12" Canson Mi-Tientes Pastel Paper.

I am thinking I will also link this to Jennifer Mcleans' Artist Playroom, just in case I don't get another one painted specifically for her "Bright Colors" challenge this week.  I think this is nice and bright, and cheerful for a cloudy winter day.  Get better, Jenn!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Most Unique Vase"

Here is my second "Thank You" card for a Christmas gift.  This one is for my other sister-in-law.  The gift is a very unique and beautiful glass flower vase.  When I began to draw it, I realized that although the neck of the vase is round, the body of the vase is oval. It is also unusual being on a stand and having a perforated lid with which to arrange the stems.

6"H x 4"W on Cream colored cardstock with Pen & Ink design.  

I put a tangle design around the borders of the card.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Making Lemonade".

8"H x  8"W  Original Oil on Canvas

$105. Framed   S&H to your ZIP
To Purchase, email me at gloria@gloriajzucaro.com

Here are some more of my 5 lbs. of lemons from Costco!  I am almost done with them, gradually using them for other things besides a cup of tea.  They have been good sports about lining up for me to paint them.  This is this weeks entry into Paint Party Friday.  Happy PPF!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Fall Flavors"

 8"H x 8"W Original Oil on Raymar Canvas Panel

$105.00 Framed    S&H to your ZIP
To Purchase, email me at gloria@gloriajzucaro.com

The Pantone color of the year for 2012 is "Tangerine Tango"  I happen to love orange...red, ...yellow, aqua.  Ah well, I digress!   So I will be doing more paintings with ORANGE!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Blue Glass Lemon"

8"H x 8"W Original Oil on Raymar Canvas Panel

$100.05 Framed in plain black Floater Frame
S&H to your ZIP
To Purchase, email me at gloria@gloriajzucaro.com
                 

I went to Costco to get some things for a luncheon at my house with girlfriends.  One friend drinks tea, so I bought a bag of lemons.  What was I thinking!  I got 5lbs of lemons and as it turned out she didn't even have tea that day!  So I am thinking I am going to have to make homemade lemonade...humm, I think I need a 5lb bag of sugar! 

The Limited Stroke Challenge- "A Real Lemon!" Study #2

Study#2

In my second painting, I wanted to try to use even less strokes.  I tried for half of the 25 aiming for 13.  So instead of doing the blue bottle in 2 pieces of blue and pieces of light blue and yellow, I painted the bottle cobalt in all one stroke, using a lot of paint mixed with mineral spirits.  Then I added the light blue reflection and the reflection from the yellow over the transparent blue. So instead of using 4 strokes on the bottle, I used three.  For the shadow behind the bottle, which had some light in it from light coming through the bottle, I mixed the basic shadow color and then added a little more blue because I thought it was too brown.  A happy accident happened and the blue which was not thoroughly mixed on my brush made the effect of a light shining through the bottle, all in one stroke.  That effect had taken me three strokes the first time around.  Two for the two different colors and one to correct the value.   I did the lemon in three stokes instead of 4 the second time. The biggest save on strokes was in the background and foreground.  I mixed a lot of very liquid paint and did both the background in two strokes opposed to 3 and foreground in one stroke instead of two.  I also left out the more minor highlights on the bottle.  I used a #10 (worn) flat for this study, also saving more strokes.

Now if you are not a painter, please don't look at the drawing aspect!  I know that my bottle is lopsided in both studies and that the lemon is very sharp-nosed!  Those things were not the object of the challenge.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Fish On Glass"

6"H x 6"W       Oil on Raymar canvas panel  
To Purchase,email me at gloria@gloriajzucaro.com

Here is my second and more "finished" fish on a glass ball.  I really like both this one and "The Fish From Outer Space"...completely different feel to them.  You might be asking about now...what's with all the fish.  Before I moved to my townhouse, I lived on a "farmette" and had a fish pond with koi, goldfish, shebukin, orfs, and channel catfish.  I really enjoyed my fish and when I moved to my townhouse I bought a tropical fish tank and fish, then at a garage sale another tank for a fancy tail gold fish, then a 120 gallon tank for the basement which meant I could have some small koi and goldfish down there in my tiki room.  Well, after a few years I had had enough of all sorts of equipment used for cleaning fish tanks.  Plus when I would go away for a few days, I would come back and one of the koi would have jumped out of the tank and was dried up on the floor.  I sold everything on Craig's list including the fish and all my sharks teeth from Venice Florida!!

Gloria J Zucaro's "For Lucy" and "Aura2"

"For Lucy"

3.5" Square on Official Zentangle Tile.  140 lb. Watercolor Paper

Pen & Ink, Metallic Markers.

NFS

"Aura2"

3.5" Square on Official Zentangle Tile.  140 lb. Watercolor Paper

Pen & Ink

$3.00 free shipping for tile itself.  See examples of framing options below second design.

These two tangle designs are for Laura's " I am the Diva" challenge this week.  Last week Laura's darling baby, Artoo, was in the hospital with pneumonia, so no challenge last week.  I am so happy that Artoo is recouping at home now which is less stressful for them both as well as the rest of Laura's family.

The challenge design this week is doing auras around your basic design.  An aura is sort of like an echo, where the waves of sound keep flowing outward, or like throwing a pebble into water.  In my first design I did a tribute to my daughter, Lucy, as April 17 is her birthday.  I will frame this to give to her when we get together.  She works as an elementary education art teacher, so no nights out during the week! :-)  The design says April 17 2012 happy Birthday Lucy.

In my second design I went through my collection of designs and picked about 7 different designs and did my variations on them.  Then I began to make an aura around them.  As the lines flow outward they change as they bump into the other designs, so that you always have a change of shape.  I love the random nature of tangles because the end result is always a surprise.

An example of 8"H x 10"W Frame 

This framing option is $25. which includes two mats, glass, frame, back cover and hanging wire.

An example of 8" Square Frame,

 Available in natural (shown), darker wood finish, white or black painted finish.

This framing is $10. which includes frame, glass and hanger.