Daily Paintworks

"It's What I Eat For Breakfast" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Aquabord, 5" x 7". Copyright ©2012 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

The idea for painting breakfast comes from Carol Marine’s Paint Your Breakfast Challenge on Daily Paintworks. For me, breakfast is the same every morning: 4% fat cottage cheese mixed with freshly ground flax seed and a variety of oils  – flax, hemp, fish, and coconut. I like the stuff, but my husband can barely choke it down, so for his sake we top it with berries.

A few in-progress images archived along the way:

"Every Stroke Counts" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Multimedia Artboard, 5" x 5". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

A little exercise never hurts. This painting exercise called the Limited Stroke Challenge was posted by artist Nancy Colella on Daily Paintworks. It’s purpose is twofold:  She wanted us to use every stroke efficiently, and to remind us not to be stingy with the paint. Nancy says, “The result will be a rather abstract, simple painting with wonderful surface quality and a “effortless” feel!”

(The part about being stingy with the paint made me think about how varied the goals of artists can be. Artists who paint primarily to sell originals can pile on the paint, creating beautiful textures that beg to be touched. Artists like me, who paint with reproduction in mind, have to think about how the piece will scan, and how it will look in print. Thick, juicy strokes can look cheesy in a flat print.)

We were told to plan in advance how many strokes we thought we’d need to create the painting, then paint it in that many strokes. Hash marks keep a running tally. By definition, a stroke ends when the brush is lifted. Some people did some amazing work in under 30 or 40 strokes, but having done a few 100 stroke paintings with great difficulty, I knew my limitations! I felt it was a sufficient challenge to assign myself a maximum of 75 strokes.  I went over a tiny bit, using 78, because there were some things at the end that I HAD to fix. If I’d had another 25 strokes, I could have fixed the drawing enough to be happy with it.

78 strokes from start to finish. Each stroke is recorded by a hash mark on the paper. You can see how I was falling apart at the end by how my hash marks trail off the paper. Oh, and that's tea in the cup, not coffee, because I was in the tea-drinking portion of my day. The coffee part of my day ends around noon, then I switch to fully caffeinated tea. Later, it's decaf tea. After that, wine. Maybe if I'd waited for the wine part of the day, the painting would have been looser.

UPDATE:

It was bothering me. There were things I had to fix before I could move on to the next painting. So I did. The drawing is still a little wonky, but it’s better than it was:

"Every Stroke Counts" (final) by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Multimedia Artboard, 5" x 5". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

"Stanley Steamer" sketch by Lesley Spanos. Gouache and pen on kraft paper, 8" x 9". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

I’d never seen a steam-powered car fired up until I saw this one. It was in the daily parade at the Indiana State Fair, it’s shiny red paint gleaming in the sun. When I looked up Stanley Steamer Motor Carriage Company on Wikipedia, I found a photo of this car in the article. Not just this model, but this actual car with the same US flag decal on the windshield, and the same owner/driver, photographed at the Indiana State Fair. Small world, eh?

I’m posting this one in Liz Wilzen’s Value Challenge on Daily Paintworks. Liz’s challenge requires us to use only four values, so I used black marker, white gouache, and a brown gouache. The light brown paper works as the fourth value. I used to like doing sketches like this in life drawing class in school, but that was a LONG time ago!

"The Buzz" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Multimedia Artboard, 9" x 11". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved. NFS

It seems like months since these happy little bees rolled into the state fairgrounds on the back of a truck, but really, it was just over two weeks ago. My husband was over at fairgrounds as the carnival rides were arriving for the fair, and snapped some photos of the unassembled Bumble Bee Bop ride  – the cutest ride in the world – knowing I’d jump at the chance to paint it.  I got to work on it right away,  but then the Fair started, and I put it aside as I went into information gathering mode. I only get eighteen days to gather reference material for the rest of the year, so I have to make the most of it. I shot – and organized – thousands of photos and hours of video. I sketched, and took notes for my book. Sometimes I just sat and soaked up the atmosphere. I love the fair.

Last Saturday morning, the weather was gorgeous and moods were light. Someone was playing classic rock from the ’70s over the PA system, and people were singing to themselves. Bye, bye, Miss American Pie, and welcome to the Hotel California.  I saw one woman dancing in the street, and I swear, if the rest of us felt we could sing and dance we would’ve joined her in an impromptu performance. I watched weiner dog races, a pole vaulting demonstration, and the Governor’s wife as she lead a fitness walk around the grounds. It was one of the best mornings ever at the fair.

That evening, everything changed. Just before Sugarland went onstage for their show, the roof at the main concert stage collapsed in a sudden freak storm, killing 5 6 people and injuring dozens.  I had planned to be there that night, but after long back-to-back photo sessions the night before and that morning, I was exhausted, and after a few days at the fair, the cupboard was bare. So instead of going to the fair, I went to the supermarket. On my way out of the store, I was caught in the storm, and I can say firsthand that the wind was utterly freakish. It came out of nowhere, and was strong enough to rock my Jeep. It wasn’t a storm, but a hammer blow from the sky.

The fair was cancelled Sunday, so all we could do was watch the sad news on television.  Monday, the fair reopened, but I didn’t go. I had planned to shoot the rodeo that day, but every event scheduled for the grandstand – the rodeo, concerts, harness racing, demolition derby, and fireworks – was cancelled. So I worked on the Bumble Bee Bop painting. I thought the bees would lift my mood, but really, I was annoyed at them for being so cheerful. That’s probably why it took me so long to finish them.

This week I’ve been forced to think about what my State Fair USA project is about. I thought it was all fun, rides, cute animals, and junk food, but maybe I need to dig deeper than that. Someone on the news called the State Fair a “family reunion in Indiana’s back yard.” As a non-native observer, I’d never thought of it that way. Now I feel the need to work more relationships into my paintings.

Here are some shots from yesterday. Due to the ongoing investigation, the roof has not been moved, so it’s a constant reminder of the tragedy.

The band Sugarland lost all their gear in the accident, and had to leave their trailers behind. Thursday they were able to retrieve some of it, but this trailer remained. Their logo and graphics are the best, ever.

Two tragedies: The Pepsi Coliseum looms over the broken stage at the Indiana state fairgrounds. During an Ice Capades performance in 1963, a propane explosion killed 74 people in the Coliseum. On the plus side, The Beatles performed in both locations.

A growing memorial under the grandstand.

"Wisteria" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Arches CP watercolor paper, 15" x 22". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Another one for the “The Color Of Music Challenge” I’m hosting on Daily Paintworks this week. I am so impressed by what the artists have posted so far. Really cool paintings, and I love the stories.

The music I’ve used is my favorite song of all time, “Wisteria.”  I could get married, buried, and everything in between to that song. It’s also from  “The Garden” by Michael Nesmith.  (Yeah, he used to be a Monkee.) It features some goose-bump inducing guitar work by John Jorgenson.

I wanted to demonstrate that there’s no right or wrong way to do this challenge, so I did a 180 degree turn from the water lilies and painted what I call a  rhythmic abstraction. This is where I put the music on repeat, and let my brush flow with the sounds. It’s almost like tracing the blade of a figure skating dancing to the song. Wisteria is about a journey up a mountain on a path filled with imagined perils. Jason’s emotions range from confusion and fear to eventual enlightenment. So I chose dark colors for the scary part, and light for the… well… enlightenment. The most literal thing I did was trace a path to the top inspired by the guitar. All those little squiggles were done in time to the music. It’s not great art, but it sure was fun!

"Life Becoming" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Gessobord, 6" x 8". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

This week I’m hosting the painting challenge on Daily Paintworks. It’s called “The Color Of Music,”  and you’re invited to play along! The idea is to paint a favorite piece of music, converting sound to pigment.

My song choice, “Life Becoming,” comes from a long-time favorite album by Michael Nesmith called “The Garden.”   This mostly instrumental album comes boxed with a short novel. The idea is to play the music while reading the book, allowing the written word to sync with the music. Sounds weird, but if you’re a visually-minded person, it’s almost like watching a movie in your mind. The album provides the script and soundtrack, and the user is free to create whatever mind-pictures they want. Be your own cinematographer. I like that.

As an artist, I also appreciate that the book is illustrated with paintings by Monet, and loosely suggests his efforts to bring water to his garden in Giverny. The main character is named Jason, and he’s not a painter, but the garden described is definitely Monet’s.

“Life Becoming” is the final “scene” in the story. Jason has returned home after his quest to discover that his once-dry yard is now a beautiful garden. Monet’s garden. He walks down the rose-arbor allée to the lily pond, where he is greeted by the woman he loves. They stand silently on the Japanese bridge, gazing over the peaceful lily pond.   The music is repetitive and graceful, almost circular, so painting a series of repeating round shapes – lily pads – was a natural choice.  The two lilies represent the man and the woman.