Doing my homework

Since I'm such a beginner to painting, I decided to do some exercises and lessons geared for beginners.  They are in a book called Painting for the Absolute and Utter Beginner.  There are other "learn to paint" books out there, but this is the one that makes most sense to me.  It is aimed at novices, and has nice, clear, simple instructions for beginners' exercises.  Other books have vague instructions, or want me to to exercises that I don't know how to begin.  This book is nice and clear, and though it is aimed at beginners, it isn't over-simple or condescending.  I like it a lot.

I'll post images of my work once the paint dries.

Altered perceptions

So this first one was kind of a continuation of yesterday's theme -- you know, finishing off the primary colors.  I did this one this morning:

Some kind of yellow egg?

Then this afternoon, I had a root canal, and I painted these while on prescription painkillers:

strange geometry

even stranger brushwork

Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?  I don't know -- aside from my proclivity for bad color schemes and bad brushwork while on Vicodin, I don't think these illustrate much.  But there they are.

Playing with colors

So last night's painting devolved into just playing with the different colors of paint.  I ended up with two monochromatic canvases where I explored different tints and hues of the same color.  Anyway, here they are:

I call this one "Blue"

and I call this one "Red"

First two paintings

My Nose Against His Arm

I had a long discussion with my inner editor about posting these.  They look so amateurish.  But I eventually decided to post them because 1) I am an amateur (and a beginner at that), and 2) Stifling the inner editor is an important part of NaNo.  So I posted them.

I'm not sure how well the colors come through in the images.  All I did was put them on my scanner -- nothing fancy in terms of color correction or anything -- and I'm pretty sure the colors are washing out and skewing somehow.  But my purpose in posting them is mostly to keep myself honest -- not put up perfect reproductions, so I'm honestly not too worried about it.

Blue Cup of Tea

The first one is an abstracted version of a weird view I got recently as I was resting my nose against my darling hubby's arm.  The second one is my attempt to paint a blue mug full of hot tea.

Day 1

I got my two paintings done last night, so I made my quota.  I'll scan them in tonight or tomorrow and post them.

And they're off!

It is the first day of the challenge, and I'm feeling like hell.  I have plans for what I'm going to paint when I get home, but I'm uneasy about the kind of start I'm going to make.  Still, if I can get 2 paintings done tonight, I'll call it a success.