The tree is out and the pots are staying

    It's been a long week of school and administrative work. I still have another pile of it waiting for me. But, I snuck down to my studio to see about the tornado painting. 

     Last week I drew the tree in along with a couple other elements and left it alone. I've been having misgivings about the tree idea ever since. Plus, I like the pots. I like the scale difference between them and the tornado. 

     I guess I needed to live with the possibility for a while before I knew it wasn't right. Like so many other things.

     Anyway, I have an idea for a new element, so we'll see how it goes.

     In the meantime, I'm working on this little one, too. It comes from a dream, and it was so simple the image stuck with me. It's hard to see, but there is a cord with a knot at the top drawn in. We'll see how this one goes, too.

IF: Dream

  Dreams have always been a source of inspiration and pleasure for me. I've kept dream journals for much of my life, and many of my images are directly derived from them, When my son was just beginning to talk, I would ask him about his dreams when we woke up every morning. For a long time, he didn't have an answer. But one day, he offered up that he had dreamed about his toy trains, which were a big hit in our house at the time. I'm glad for this opportunity to relive this lovely memory with my contribution to Illustration Friday's topic of the week, Dream. The title of this one is Dreamer in Training.
     I am also glad for the chance to show it again, because I recently corrected a minor mistake in perspective in this piece. It was a small error, but it has always bothered me. So here it is in its new and improved form.
  

You win some, you lose some

   The good news is, the portable graining station works just fine. I found a tray with a lower profile lurking in a cupboard, which suits me better because I don't have to lift the stones so high to get them out of the tray. 

     The bad news is, after about 2 hours of graining, I still don't have a level stone. And the worst part is, I think I might have a wedge shaped stone on my hands. 

    These two are my fifth and sixth experience with graining. It is has never been an easy task. I'm hoping that practice makes perfect.

    I'm considering using a much smaller stone to grain these next time, instead of using them together. Maybe then I can focus on the areas that are high and stop reducing the low areas. 

    I'm also thinking about offering extra credit to certain students (ones with muscle, stamina and a knack for detail work) in exchange for graining labor. Would that be fair?

What I am thinking

Maybe I'll do this.
Yup, the pots will have to go.
Maybe we'll see if some crows would work instead.

Update

I may have figured out what to do.
See? I told you posting it would help.
I might have to lose the pots.
This painting might take longer than I thought. I sort of wish it was bigger :/

A little too soon

  I found this little guy on the ground next to the other pumpkin flower, poor thing. We had a tornado warning last week, one of the handful times I've ever been herded into a safe place for that reason. This little one must have been blown off in the storm.

As far as my own tornado is going, I'm kind of stuck. As you can probably see from all the residue white charcoal marks, I'm struggling with the hopeful element I promised to add. I'm sorry for posting this with just a few changes from last time, but sometimes it helps me to see what I should do if I post it here. I hope it works this time.

A Volunteer

Here is one of my guilty secrets: after Thanksgiving, I roll the season's pumpkins and gourds down the hill, and that is that. Sometimes, I get lucky and something volunteers to grow where they land at the edge of the woods. I noticed this beauty down there about a week ago. I'm not exactly sure what it is. It could be a pumpkin, or it could be a swan gourd. It is so late in the season and the sun is getting so weak, it probably won't amount to much, but it is a lovely thing to find.

The Start of the Hopeful Element

    I only had a little studio time this week (it's going to get better, right?), but I thought I'd post where I'm at with this little painting. I spent a longgg time last night and this morning trying to get the ellipses right on those little pots. I'm not lying to my students when I tell them I still have to work hard at things like this.

Here are the ellipses, during the construction process. I'm not sure they are spot on, just yet. After this, there is one more element to go. My next job, besides truing up those pots and working on shading everywhere, is researching the final element. Doing that is one of my favorite parts :)

Litho News

   It was another busy week. There is a surprising amount of paperwork that comes with the beginning of the semester. That is kind of new. I used to be able to count on coasting with no grading for a few weeks. Assessment duties have made that less true.
    So, I've only made meager progress this week, both on setting up the litho shop and at painting.

   Starting with litho, this is our stone library, minus Jabba (size discrimination!), temporarily housed on a counter in my classroom. I have two picked out to start graining, named Lilly and FeeFee. Both are 11"x13". Because they will both be grained at the same time, against each other, I'll end up with two stones ready for drawing. One will be used to make an etching chart and the other will be a drawing of some sort. I might do that torus knot again. We'll see.

   My other bit of progress was that I got my grits in order. We are so lucky to have so many of the traditional materials on hand that are still used in the Green Litho process. The grits are iron filings, ground to different levels of fineness. The lower numbers are more coarse than the higher numbers. The #100 will be used first to level the stone. That is the most time consuming part. After the stone is level, it is just a matter of a few cycles at each grit to polish the surface. 

   I'm not crazy about these shakers, but, I got the lot for $2 at the Dollar Store. I'm worried they will be a bit tippy. They'll get us started, but we might have to invest in something a little fancier for the job.

    I've never gone past #220, but I saw a litho this summer in Cleveland that had a texture like velvet, it was so fine. The #5 on the end is much finer than the others. I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get a texture like the one I saw at the Cleveland Museum of Art. I sure with I had bought a print of that litho.

    Tomorrow, one of my jobs is to see how level Lilly and FeeFee are. Then on Tuesday, we'll see if my graining setup works.