Happy Halloween 2026

 5x7 oil on gessoboard

This decoration sits in my living room and I kept admiring how pretty it was in the late afternoon light. Why not paint it?!

Here's the underpainting I did (in oils) the first day.

The next three images were photographed as I painted the following day.

This isn't really a lesson on how to paint. This is simply showing you how I painted this one.

I had the plans all laid out that first day, so I just worked across the pumpkin bit by bit, making it pop realistically to keep up my excitement. I usually add highlights and such later but I was impatient to see what it was going to look like. This little painting was for fun and for me. The next morning I worked on finishing the leaves. It was good for me to have the deadline of a holiday to meet. 

This one was focused and fast.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Rain Drop Adventure

  One tiny drop of rain sits alone on a window pane, wondering how he got there and what he’s supposed to do. Shortly, he’s joined by another - a stout fellow, friendly looking, but just a tad too far away for a welcoming handshake.

     A new guy enters, making quite a splash. The splash enters the personal space of the first drop and his girth increases by a bit. Well, that was rather nice actually. He smiles at the newcomer, gives him a small nod of appreciation. 

    This goes on for a while. New drops falling around him. New alliances and mergers forming. Until … one drop lands directly on the stout friend beside him. The stout guy laughs, reaches out his hand for that handshake, at the same time reaching his opposite hand out to a guy on his opposite side. As they share a group handshake, the stout fellow shouts, “here we go boys!” 

     They’ve become nearly one huge drop! They slip down a fraction, enough to grab the guy who’s been waiting below them. A guy who has his hands thrown up in glee, welcoming the new friends. 

     Whoosh! Down the pane they ride in a small stream of water they’ve created by working together. Down they go gathering more friends. Laughing. Having the adventure of a lifetime.

This is just a little warm-up, writing exercise I did a couple weeks ago. I remember as a kid riding in the backseat of the car, I would watch raindrops on the window. The speed of the car and the vibrations had happy little steams bouncing across the pane. That's exactly how they looked to me. They looked happy.

The illustration is a quick photo I took of raindrops on a window, with a little imagination and the help of Procreate thrown in over it.

Thanks for stopping by!

My Babygirl's Official Bridal Portrait

 16 x 20 oil on gessoboard

This was a challenge! Primarily because the reference material for the background and the one for the bride were two different lighting situations. AGH!!! You can read a little more and see the photos and 8x10 practice piece I did by clicking HERE. I posted that one back in April.

Here is the first step on the larger canvas:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4

Step 5 - Worked on her face. It is a portrait after all. 

Step 6 - I really had to start thinking about this mixed up lighting situation. 

The sun is behind her so she should really be in shadow.

Step 6 - Afraid I went too dark, I added a bit of a greenish blue tint to her dress.

Step 7 - Worked on background detail, and fought more with the color of her dress.

I also painted a very thin layer of very pale blue over the trees in the background, then, lifted it off a bit with a soft cloth. It gave the painting a bit more atmosphere and set the background further back.

At this point I even signed it and wondered if it was done. 

But no. I layered one more thin layer of the nearly white paint into the trees - 

pushing the background back just a teensy bit more.

I have shared 8 steps here but there were probably more like 16. Sometimes I would work just a little, get frustrated, and move to something else, and some days I dug in and got a lot done. 

I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Practice Makes Better

 11 x 14 charcoal on colored paper 

I have been enjoying getting back to simple drawing practice.

I started working on 14 x 17" newsprint. It's not as expensive as the nicer drawing papers and that makes it conducive to learning and FREEDOM! I found a pose online. This one to be exact:

I put the photo on my iPad where I could prop it up within view and tried pretending that I was back in college. Ha! First of all, I worked twice as large in college and second of all, a photo comes nowhere close to the energy of a live model. But . . . one works with what one has.

Here's my first sketch:

There's a certain amount of energy to it that I like. But, the proportions were off. I wasn't concentrating when I did this one as much as I was just having fun imagining I was 20 again.

Using the same photo I did another:

This one had lost energy but the proportions were more similar to the photo.

I did another:

Instead of shading with the regular charcoal, I got out my new Derwent tinted charcoal blocks!

Fun! Now it was time to get out nicer drawing paper and have one more go.

First session:

The second time I worked on it, I finished it the the point you see at the top of the page. It took me probably less than 2 hours in total for that finished piece. I really liked using the tinted charcoal. The colors are beautiful and subtle. What I didn't like is the size of the charcoal blocks but that's on me. I work so small that it makes them a bit too clunky. I ended up lifting the color, from the block, onto my blending stump and then drawing with that. In a way, the larger blocks may be better for me in keeping me a bit looser. However you can buy tinted charcoal pencils.

Lastly, I want to share a bit more drawing advice. I put the original photo into Procreate to highlight what it is that I look for when I'm drawing. One of those things is negative space - shapes and angles created around the subject matter. I'm often looking at triangular shapes and sizes.

There are also other visual measurements. How the arm on the left is not vertical; how the arm on the right hangs out quite a good bit more than the rest of the subject. I pay attention to where the heel of her shoe falls when I draw a line straight across to her pant leg; the rectangular shape of her chest. Lastly, I make sure that the hand resting on her knee is properly connected to its arm (though you can't see that through her other hand) and that the knee where that hand rests is in line with the thigh. You can get so caught up in small shapes that you lose sight of the larger ones and how they're connected.

I did this little exercise in Procreate when I was all done with the piece. It would have been a helpful thing to do at the beginning of the drawing. But, as I said before, though I'm trying to be acurate, I was more concerned with enjoying myself.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

A Boy and His Puppy

 10 x 13 watercolor on Arches 300 lb paper

Super happy with this one! My watercolors are usually like all my other pieces - too rigid and a lot of attention to detail. But, this time I managed to back off and let the paint do its thing. Not easy. Not for me anyway.

As I've mentioned before, I'm doing a lot of playing this month. I've gotten back to drawing basics, and also experimenting with the paints and supplies I have on hand that I don't pay enough attention to. Watercolor is one of those supplies. 

Here are a few of my playtime experiments:

Here I applied masking fluid, with a palette knife,  to a 5"x7" piece of watercolor paper, .

Then, using a very wet brush, dabbed in some color and sprinkled on some chunky salt. 

(I was pulling out all the stops!)

Once it all dried, I removed the masking fluid. I'm sorry I don't have the photo before I started drawing on it, but here's what happened when I pulled out a photo of my grandson, that I had recently received, and started laying down some color with my old Prismacolor Art Stix. I don't think they're still available, but Prismacolor pencils would give the same result.

In the end I had this 5x7 study. With all this wonderful experience, I decided to do a "real" one. 

So once again I got out the masking fluid and palette knife, but this time I started with a light pencil drawing on heavy Arches watercolor paper, and before using the palette knife technique, I applied the liquid mask, with a small brush, to areas of highlight where I wanted to maintain the white of the paper. After all the masking fluid was dry, I laid in watercolor, using a very wet technique, in colors more in line with the image. Here is what it looked like when the masking fluid was removed.

Below -  I was getting excited!

Here I was super excited and very afraid of messing it up. I didn't want to over-do and lose the freshness and flow of the watercolor! The problem was, I didn't feel he had enough contrast in his face. Oh no! If I was gonna mess up it was gonna be the face. I let it sit for an extra day while I built some courage.

The finished piece is at the top. The face isn't perfect, but I managed to not tighten up terribly. I definitely had a lot of fun doing this and can imagine more watercolors coming up in my future.

Thanks for stopping by!

Loving the charcoal practice

Olive - 5 x 7 charcoal on gray paper

Below is the photo I took a few days ago, specifically for the purpose of practicing charcoal with a subject I love (my granddaughter).  I dropped it into Procreate and added the layer of red lines to help you see what I'm looking at when I draw.  For example, the corner of her eye lines up with the top of her ear. The corner of her mouth lines up with the bottom of her ear. I not only look for these lines but there are all kinds of shapes, both positive and negative which I'll talk about in another post.

I lightly sketched the image out on gray paper. Then dropped this one into Procreate as well and used the same red lines. I was only off by a little, (circled in blue) I had placed the eye and the eyebrow a bit too high.

For the initial sketch I used vine charcoal. I wouldn't recommend it for a finished drawing as it's too easy to simply wipe off with your finger. You barely need an eraser. But, for an under-drawing it's perfect. That's a small piece of vine charcoal in the photo and also the white charcoal pencil that I began using. 

I love adding the light and prefer to work back and forth between the white charcoal and regular charcoal pencils as I go along. I put it back into Procreate and it passed the red line test.

Another step

Another step

And lastly you have the image at the top of the page. The finishing touch was punching up the highlighted hair on top. I used my tiny mechanical eraser and a bit of the white charcoal pencil.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Back to Charcoal Basics

 

approx.9' x 12"charcoal on drawing paper.

For the last couple of weeks I've been doing some drawing practice with old charcoal sticks I've barely touched in 40 years.  I thought I'd share this one because as I was drawing I remembered how nice it had been to work on hand-toned paper. 

I did this version first:

All well and good practice, but it was at the end of this piece that I remembered how I used to tone paper first and then do a lot of the drawing with the eraser. 

First 2 steps: 

- a light covering of charcoal (above)

- then blend it all by rubbing in circles with a paper towel, until you have a smooth gray surface.

Using a kneadable eraser, a harder plastic eraser, a charcoal pencil and a blending stump, I began getting the figure placed.

 

- nearly there and down to last details and heavier erasing.

The supplies I used - moving from upper left and clockwise: A couple charcoal sticks, kneadable erasers (for lifting color in a more subtle way), a few different plastic erasers including 2 with tiny heads that I just purchased (yay! new toys!) that are great for detail, two different types of charcoal pencil and lastly, the blending stump. I end up doing a lot of drawing with the blending sump when it gets dirty! Also, the more you can stop yourself from using your fingers to blend, the better. Our fingers have oils that can ruin a good drawing. Case in point - those two weird splotches in the bottom left of the drawing. I must have been holding the paper there or something. I'm not sure how they happened but there's no getting rid of them. 

I also want to note that the image (because it is only for practice purposes) came from an online google search of seated female figures.

Many years ago I had privilege of attending an author's night at a local café and listening to a presentation by the late Floyd Cooper. He was a children's book author and illustrator and he shared with us one of his tricks to making his illustrations so beautiful. He would tone a canvas with a light layer of oil paint, and while it was still wet would begin using a kneadable eraser to lift off color, acheiving that beautiful gradation of light and shadow and bringing form instantly to the canvas. 

This is one of his book covers that I believes shows this very technique.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Time to play!

 

Abstract #1 -  12"x12" modeling paste and acrylic on canvas.

Friday was my last day at New Madison Public Library where I've worked, part time, for the last 8 1/2 years. It is a lovely library with lovely women who became my friends and I would say I'll miss them all terribly, but I enjoy reading (a lot) so I'll be a regular patron and see them frequently. Win - win.

I now have extra hours in my week to pursue art, and this first month I plan to do a lot of playing. This is the first official piece by Tracy Onoz the retired lady. An artist who plays. 

I watched a few videos on Instagram that showed artists using modeling paste and wanted to get my hands dirty too. 

Step one: I applied strips of tape (artist's tape or painter's tape) in a simple grid pattern and around the edges. (tip - paint white acrylic or gesso over the edges of the tape so that when you move on to the next step the color does not bleed under the tape).

Step two: I added a bit of acrylic paint to some modeling paste just to give it some color but you can stick with just white modeling paste if you prefer. I applied a thick layer of the concoction to the canvas, stuck my fingers in, and swirled them around. Swirled my fingers around in circles like I was three years old!

Step three: I very carefully removed the tape when I was done swirling. I would imagine it's very difficult to remove the tape after the hot mess of modeling paste has dried. When I pulled up the tape, it didn't look like such a hot mess. It looked cool like this:

Steps 4, 5, 6, and however far I was going to take it, were just about coloring the swirls. 

I threw some paint around with a brush, a sponge, my fingers etc. Just . . . PLAYED!

I used acrylic paints, but I would imagine you can experiment with all kinds of materials.

Remember, I'm a novice at this, but I did read that you can put oil paints over modeling paste, you just can't put modeling paste over oil paints.

Added burnt umber paint around the squares.

Pulled in more of the burnt umber into the squares. Also, Iworked in some more dark green paint -watered down so that it flowed, and dabbed at it, while still wet, with a paper towel.

Then, I threw in some more flecks and details to get the image at the top. Is it done? Heck, I don't know. I thought it was done when I added the burnt umber around the edges. I was wrong. Haha! I watch videos of other people doing abstracts and always wonder how they know when to keep going and when to stop. I'm assuming I'll figure that out for myself at some point. I've got a lot more playing ahead of me.

Thanks for stopping by!