Earring and Portrait Series 1-8

Hello again after 6 weeks! 

I hope you are all well and staying safe. 

Or if you are a doctor, a nurse, health care worker, fireman, police, delivery person, grocery store worker, mailman THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I have stayed in isolation since March 15, so really appreciate all of you who are out there helping me.

I have been doing a series of contour drawings using the same reference photo but doing it from an upside down position and without looking while I am sketching. And a different pair of my earrings on each one.  I realized that I tend to wear the same earrings all the time, so thought I would have fun painting them  on this young lady who comes out so different looking each time, usually very wonky!

I am posting to Paint Party Friday

Gloria J Zucaro's "CJS 2017 with Birgit Koopsen"

I missed posting yesterday because I had some dental surgery and then some pain meds and didn't feel like doing much at all!  So today I did the project with Birgit Koopsen, and later did today's assignment. Birgit did a wonderful re-purposing of a very plain wooden stool. Her technique is so simple with wonderful effect. First she made her own deli papers decorated with acrylic paint, stencils and stamps. She also collected some printed materials with text. After ripping the papers into small pieces she applied them to the stool. She also used a complimentary paint color to make a design on top of the collaged papers.  Then she did doodles over the painted areas.

Really beautiful!
With time being short, and nothing to repurpose, I did a page in my journal to use her techniques and try her supplies.

Stage One, making papers

Stage Two, Collage

Stage Three, Adding Paint

Stage Four, Add Doodles

Have a nice day tomorrow.  I would love it if you would leave a comment below.

Thanks so much!

Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "Snow Queens Four"

Hello!, Happy Mother's Day to all.  I just finished a mixed media piece that I really enjoyed making.  I did a lot of collage , paint, and scribbling underneath the portraits of my snow queens.  After they were dry I used a stencil and modeling paste to create the dimensional snowflakes around the fur of their hoods.

Thankfully most of our Winter has disappeared into blooming Spring flowers and the Robins return!  Have a good week, and thank you for visiting! :>)

I am posting to Paint Party Friday, so check all the wonderful artwork displayed there!                              Paint Party Friday

"Anselm Kiefer Abstract and Jodi Ohl Birds"

Tonight I have a couple of different projects. 

My first two photos are of practice birds  that were a homework assignment to do in my journal given in Jodi Ohl's "Dirty Flirty Birds" workshop. I can see a lot more practice is needed to make the birds come alive. I have a story going on but the birds are just OK.

"Secrets"


Eagle,Fly the Flag

The second project is the Anselm Kiefer project inspired by Nathalie Kalbach for Creative Jumpstart 2016. She did an abstract and attached organic elements to it. I started with black gesso, then put on crackle medium. When that dried, I added dryer lint for the bird, ink in black and white, a touch of burnt sienna acrylic paint over the crackle, some red paint mixed with gel medium and some aqua ink mixed with white gesso, then I added two ball bearings to the aqua "pools". I wrote in German, because Kiefer usually wrote something, my words meaning "Go fast, fly away!"

"Wegfliegen Schnell"

Have a great day,

Gloria :>) happy PPF!

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Moo"

My oil painting this week is self-explanatory.  It is the portrait of a cow. In the original reference I did for my barn and meadow painting two weeks ago, there was actually a cow in the field in front of the farm buildings.  I chose just to do a portrait this week rather than the whole cow.  I am posting to Paint Party Friday, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google.

10" x 10" Oil on Canvas

Have a great week, and Thanks! for stopping by.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Phicops With The Waltz"

The Diva's prompt today is a duo tangle using the "Phicops" tangle originated by her husband B-Rad and the "Waltz" tangle developed by one of the creators of the Zentangle brand Maria Thomas for Laura Harms, The Diva herself.   The idea is to combine the two tangles to celebrate the Diva & B-Rad's anniversary that took place this past week.

Ink on 7" x 5" Cardstock

Gloria j Zucaro's "Summer Sloth"

That is such a funny word!  I know it is one of the deadly sins in the Bible.  It is also the animal that moves so slowly you can hardly notice(except your eyes are glued onto his terribly threatening 4 inch toenails!).  But sometimes I feel like a sloth because I think I should do a particular task, and then I think, "Oh, I will do that later, I would rather..."  So I actually didn't even realize that 4 days had gone by since I last posted!  I have had decisions on moving, conversations about finances, open house visits to possible houses, doctors appointments, scheduling for carpet cleaning, electrical fixes and more pleasurably, visits with friends and family this last week.  But now I am here and ready to show you some of the fun and challenging projects we did at The Clearing.  

Our second painting that we started on Monday afternoon was an "Egg Painting using color references from Zhaoming Wu."  I am quoting Frankie's title on our synopsis of projects.  Frankie had made many reference photos of eggs nestled into fabric.  Some were on pedestals, some just surrounded on the fabric.    We were to use these only as a starting point, but to learn from this how to design/compose a painting by placing your egg in an area and leading the viewer to it.  We were also supposed to show how the colors surrounding the egg reflect onto it.  Use soft and hard edges and most important, too, use a color combination that we didn't ordinarily use or even disliked!  Here is my pastel painting of my egg.

8" Square Wallis Paper with Terry Ludwig Pastels.

I surprised myself with being more abstract than usual.  If you notice, no turquoise!

Tuesday morning was the beginning of a really fun project!  Frankie titled it "Paint an Ice Cream Sundae".  Frankie and her husband Jay decided to stop at Steak & Shake to do research(Yeah, I bet! lol)  Anyway after taking pictures at Steak & Shake for two days in a row of different ice cream concoctions that they paid for and ate, Frankie decided it was going to be too expensive and fattening to make 30 reference pictures.  So she went on-line and got copyright-free photos.          This was my choice to paint because, of course, I was attracted, not to the banana split, but to the background colors.  Well originally I tried to put in all the squares of color, but alas, it looked horrible!  So a very abstract background using those colors is shown below with my actual painting.  

8" x 10" Wallis Paper with Terry Ludwig Pastels.

It was so much fun that afternoon to see all the different ice cream treats created by 15 artists!

More tomorrow or the next slothless day!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Chinese New Year"

I finally got around to last Monday's challenge from Laura Harms at her Diva blog.  We were to do something for Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Snake.  "Ancient Chinese wisdom says a Snake in the house is a good omen because it means your family will not starve."  This is a quote from US Bridal Guide, horoscopes! I had been thinking about it during the week and wanted to do not only a snake(tangled pattern "BLT Joos"), but Chinese Lanterns("Bulb Lantern") and some fans. I had also thought of  the rising sun but ran out of room.  I am just getting in under the wire!

3.5"H x 3.5"W on Official Zentangle Paper Tile

Gloria J Zucaro's "Auraknot & Bunzo Challenge"

Every Monday Laura Harms at "I am the diva" posts a new Zentangle challenge.  This weeks challenge is a duo tangle of Auraknot and Bunzo.  We have done each of these before, but not in concert.

I used strings that had the shape of hearts for Valentines' Day and did my tangle on a 4"H x 6"W greeting card.  I first did it in Black and White and then in watercolor with all the Bunzo areas in fushia and red.  The Auraknot areas stand out in their starkness.

  

I also made another thank you card.  This one for my neighbor who gave me, for Christmas, some delicious pretzels with white chocolate kisses melted inside and green and red M & M's on top.

                            

 

Gloria J Zucaro's "Getting My Stripes"

Original Ink Design on 7"H x 5"W Watercolor Paper Greeting Cardstock

Comes with Envelope.  May be framed in 7"H x 5"W frame.

$6.00 starting bid on Daily Paintworks Auction.

Click on image to enlarge.

This is my entry into this week's Diva challenge.  It is using stripes as your string.  This was really fun to create, decide on how to arrange the stripes, and how to use all the different patterns to fill the stripes.  This involved several hours on several days this week!  I really got into trying some new patterns. Now I am going over to the Diva site to see what all my tangling friends have been up to this week.  Won't you join me!?

Gloria J Zucaro's "Evening In Door County"

Well, I am happy to say that my son and his wife finally, after almost a year, sold their townhouse. I helped out a with packing up the smaller items that were used in the staging and taking them to their garage for a garage sale.  The movers took the furniture that was not bought by the buyers or friends in the neighborhood.

For Jenn's challenge this week at The Artist's Playroom-to "paint something you have been thinking about but haven't gotten around to"- I did this sunset from my photo taken while I was up in Door County Wisconsin one Fall.  

I am also entering it and the charcoal portrait below the sunset to Paint Party Friday hosted by Kristin and Eva.  Please try to visit some of these links to see what other artists are working on.

"Evening In Door County"

Original Oil on 10"H x 20"L stretched canvas

$225.00 plus S&H to your ZIP

Click on paintings to enlarge.

First weeks lesson in portrait class 

I have been looking forward to this class with friend and fellow artist Ann Feldman.  She does excellent portraits and says that they are her first love in painting.  But some of you might also know her from her entries into some of the Daily Paintworks challenges or her gallery on that site.  As you can see, the grid for sizing my portrait is still evident.  I think her right eye is a little wonky, but we will correct and then move on to another portrait next week.  Learning something new is the best!

Gloria J Zucaro's "Thailand Lunch Cart"

Original Oil on 8"H x 8"W Raymar canvas panel.

SOLD

     

This painting is for the country of the month of July on the "Virtual Paintout" site  http://virtualpaintout.blogspot.com/  hosted by Bill Guffey.  We traveled to Thailand this month.  I "walked" around Bangkok and found this scene with a lunch cart.  

This is also the DPW Challenge http://dailypaintworks.com/Challenges  by Eileen McCoy for this week, which is to paint only in Red, Blue, &Yellow, the primary colors on a color wheel.  I used Ultramarine Blue, Cad Red Medium, and Cad Yellow Medium plus white.  This was very good practice because of the limited palette.  I tried to do this in a very impressionistic way with  a suggestion of things but really no detail.  

Gloria J Zucaro's "Jenn's Peppermint"

6" Square Original Oil on Raymar Canvas Panel

$35.00/$7.00 S&H

For more detail, click on photo above

This original oil is for Jennifer McLean's latest challenge of Red & White.  Jenn is from Canada and July 1st was Canada's' Independence Day. Their flag colors are red and white.  Since our July 4th holiday was yesterday, I added a blue background for the good ole' USA.  This challenge entry goes to The Artist's Playroom hosted by Jennifer.     http://www.justaddwatersilly.com/search/label/APR

Gloria J Zucaro's " A New Impression"

6"H x 6"W Original Oil on Raymar Canvas Panel

$35.00 / $7.00 S&H
Click on photo above for more detail

This is my July entry into Ria Hills "Shoot and Paint" challenge.  http://shootandpaint.blogspot.com/  We were to take her photo of the American flag and interpret it in our own way.  Since I was working on a 6 x 6 canvas panel, I decided to change the shape of the impressionistic flag I was going to do.  I first covered the board in a transparent orange.  When it dried I added Indian yellow under the "white" stripes, Alizarin Crimson under the "red" stripes, and Caribbean blue under the star patch.  Then I mixed pools of darks, mediums and lights to mix up both the red stripes and the white stripes.  For the "stars" I used dots of white on the mixed blues background.  This is also my early entry to Paint Party Friday.  http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/  See what Eva & Kristin have going on this week. View the tremendous artwork.  This is also my first of two posts to Jennifer Mclean's The Artist's Playroom. http://www.justaddwatersilly.com/search/label/APR Come by tomorrow to see my second challenge entry.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Columbia In The Morning"

6"H x 6"W Original Oil on Panel

Today I did this painting for my entry into Ria Hills and Pamela White's "Shoot and Paint" challenge for the month of April.  Ria did a wonderful painting of her latte.  The challenge is paint your mug or cup with your coffee or tea, or even your O.J., if that is what you drink in the morning.  I really enjoy my one cup of Folgers 100% Colombian coffee every morning in my favorite polka-dotted coffee mug.  Be sure to visit Ria's blog to see the other entries.

This is also my entry into Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva & Kristin.  Go on over and see all the entries for this 4/20/12 Friday.


I found a new spot of wonderful artists!  I just posted this painting to The Artist's Playroom with Jennifer Mclean.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Bead Stack"

This week Laura, the hostess with the mostest at "I Am The Diva" asked us to join her in making beads tangles to represent the organization known as "Beads of Courage".  As Laura says "Beads of Courage" is a wonderful charity that helps a child with a chronic illness or condition to tell their story of courage and strength as they take their medical journey. Every single bead represents something your child has done - a test, a poke or needle, a procedure, a doctor's appointment, therapy, special accomplishments, an xray, use of oxygen, mobility issues, etc.  It's incredible to see what your child has been through in a very tangible way."  I have done a bead stack on a 7"h x 5"W watercolor cardstock.  Inside the beads are various tangles.

To see better detail in the design, click on the image.

$6.00 with Envelope.  S&H  $2.00

To Purchase or ask questions

Be sure to visit Laura's site to see what other artists have done with this challenge.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Blind String Project"

3.5" Square Original Design on Official Zentangle Watercolor Paper Tile

$4.00 starting bid on Daily Paintworks auctions.

This is my entry into Laura's "Blind-Sighted" challenge. Laura is the host for the I am the Diva site that has a weekly challenge for Zentangling. The idea is to close your eyes and then draw your "string" or  lines around and across your drawing surface.  Then do your design work following these disorderly strings!  This was a lot of fun because I had extra little spaces that I ordinarily would not have had if I had planned my areas with eyes open. Laura just returned from a trip to Victoria BC.  She has lots of pictures so a great place to go sightseeing through her photos.  Also don't forget to see all the other blind string tangles that have been created by all the participating artists.

Gloria J Zucaro's "A Nod To Heroes"

This week I have been sick with a bad cold, so only did The Diva Challenge you saw in my post on Tuesday, and these ATC cards for our monthly meeting theme of "Heroes". The first thing that came to mind as heroes were the men and women in our armed services. I also did a card of our first 13 colonies flag.  Those brave people got our county on its' path to greatness.  So here are my ATCs for the theme, in alphabetical order.  This is also my entry into Paint Party Friday . Be sure to check out all these links for the wonderful artwork from around the world.

They are all done in ink with Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencil accents.

U. S. Air Force Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

U. S. Army Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

U. S Coast Guard Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

U. S. Marines Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

U. S. Navy Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

"Thirteen" Artist Trading Card

2.5"H x 3.5"W

Gloria J Zucaro's Four Value Challenge "Island In The Clouds"

9"H x 11.75"W  Original Oil on Board

This is the Sept 10, 2011 weekly challenge from the Daily Paintworks site.  The project involves using 4 values to design your painting.  How to "Keep it simple".  Not as easy as it would seem!  Nonetheless, I enjoyed the challenge and realize how valuable it is to learn to decipher the different values in your 2D composition to make it as realistic as the original scene.  I used Burnt Sienna and white and plan to finish the painting in colors natural to the actual landscape.  This photo was taken in Busse Woods, near Schaumburg, Ill on the North side of Route 72.

Gloria J Zucaro's " Eccentric Circles"

Original Pen & Ink Drawing on 3.5" Square Official Zentangle Tile

(Watercolor Paper)

$3.00  $1.00 S&H

Well, I am finally back doing a little artwork, after a week of coughing-like-crazy and Pink Eye and an allergic reaction to the pink eye drops!  But all is well, now, so let's have fun!  This is my creation for the  http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/  challenge of the week which was to draw a string of circles that were not quite circles but were defined as eccentric circles, which means not quite centered!  Sounds like some people I know...thankfully, because they make life more interesting.