Painting 101

A few lessons to learn quickly


1) never paint with your good clothes on (specifically pants...) because you will inevitably get paint on them

2) avoid going back and forth between painting and using the computer (specifically the touchpad mouse and keyboard)... you will get paint on them

Unfortunately I have certainly not learned these lessons and probably never will :)

I'd just like to say that...

painting sans pants 

  

is really very much quite liberating

not to mention comfortable

you should all try it

that's all.

Don't drink tea and paint a the same time

At least not when you're already tired at 9 am :) If you do, you'll first get used to taking short stops to take a drink of your tea. from a mug. and then when it's finished and you remove the mug you will later try to take a drink of your paint brush water (which today happens to look like strawberry milk) even though the paint-covered texture of the mug feels weird on your lips and there is a paintbrush and pallet knife hitting you in the face... you'll get one sip into your mouth before you realize it and spit it out onto your newspaper. Gross. Icky! and then spit into your sweatshirt and get a glass of water because your mouth feels defiled.

at least I'm not an oil painter.

Also, I'm sure you all hate me to death because I've never shown you ANYthing that I've completed this semester. I'm a terrible person and I know it. but I promise that one day... you'll see finished products! maybe you should just come to the senior show at Bethel College (North Newton, KS) between May 7 and May 22 :) good plan and then you can see them in person. (you all, meaning the one person that reads this blog)

Painting progress also happening...

I just don't have photos. I currently have 4 (2 of which you've seen) paintings for my show and 2 that will be done by the 19th. :) I'll take pictures eventually.

Continuing to Progress with Photos

This past week was had another critique and my photos were received much better than the first batch. They were, however, more frustrating to take and I took less. The first time was Sunday night (right after sunset/dusk) (critique was on Tuesday). It had been cloudy and I wanted sun but I gave up and just went at night. The next day (Monday) it rained... and I took my camera in it (wrapped in plastic) and took more pictures. A lot of them look like my camera had a migraine :) Here are the 6 I turned in for critique.

And there they are. All photos are copyright by me, Kelsie Miller, so don't use them without my permission. Thanks. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome.

What to do...

when your art prof/advisor doesn't like the photos you intend to put in your senior exhibit:
a) say "screw you" and do it anyway (trust your judgement)
b) sit down and talk about how to improve them (trust his judgement)
c) figure it out on your own through trial and error
d) have no clue

my answer: have no clue. advice? since I have... one... reader who isn't an art major, I suppose asking for advice isn't going to help much.

Here are a couple of the photos

... ugh

Finally an Update!

Well, now that we're past the unexpectedly-insanely-busy interterm month of January, I'm finally back to painting!

Currently working on:
1. transfer for white house (printing tomorrow and applying friday... removal will happen.... monday?)
2. general motors detroit headquarters (from here on out, known as GM building)

GM building:
here's where I'm at... I've got 15 of these blocks (which is actually what the beginning of each painting will look like (just with a different number of blocks)

without further ado, here's an example:











just kidding, it'll be a moment until I edit the image so that it's not sideways or cluttered... aren't you glad I love you? because I could definitely be going to bed right now!

allllllriiiiight. here it is. it took 13 minutes total. but if my computer hadn't froze up (I brushed my teeth while I waited for it to get its issues under control) it would have been 7 minutes... and if my computer were faster in general it probably would have taken all of 2 minutes. unfortunately, I have a slow computer that likes to freeze and I just babbled a whole bunch about it, so now it's taken 14 minutes (plus however long it actually takes to upload... ok, I'm done)

here it is, for real:

 

was it worth it, not really :) but that's it. a piece of 5X5 (inches) masonite, primed with white paint. house applied via foam stencil (I made it), my finger and some clear tar gel :)