The Night Before Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
A time to be thankful
and remember all of our
blessings.

Portrait Basics

Organized my "books of knowledge" that I have
put together over the years and came across
this page on basic portrait proportions and how
the structures on the face line up with other
parts of the face. I took a picture out of a
magazine and drew lines through it to remember
how the basic structures of the face line up
with each other and the measurements of one
as compared to another. The first picture helps
me remember the three dimensional curve of the
face. Sure, not everyone has a perfect face,
but this is the basics and adjustments are
always made for age, nationality, and angle
of the face.
Points to remember:
-The outside corners of the mouth lines up with
the inside of the eye. (Except big smile).
-The widest part of the nose lines up with the
inside corner of the eye.
-The length of the ear equals the bottom of the
nose to the chin.
-Eyes are at the center of the head (top of head
to the chin).
-When drawing/painting the face, always add the
sparkle of light in the eyes, top of nose or lips.
This adds "life" to the portrait.

I HAVE HAD IT!!!

Just need to release some steam from my teapot today,
I have just had enough! It's 6:00am and can't sleep.
Well if you are an artsy-fartsy type that loves the
government, warning- don't read any further. If
your feelings are hurt- well, go look at someone else's art.














Bambi's Bridge
My teapot reached it boiling point today after
driving up Hwy 93 to see our $1.8 million dollar
animal overpass for all the Bambis, skunks, bears,
and coyotes so they won't get hit by a car. All the
other ranchers in the area have big culverts that
run under the roads for their cows and horses to
go from one field to another. But no, the State
Hwy Dept. has to have this touchy-feely overpass for
the animals, they even put up hand rails for Bambi.
Wonder how many decaying bridges could have been
repaired or potholes filled in. Yes, I like animals,
but our priorities are a little out of whack. Alot of
people treat their dogs better than their own
kids. Dogs are animals! They lick and eat off
the floor and wipe their butts on your carpet
when you're not looking. I'm sick of the waste
of our tax dollars and all the million dollar
studies for round-abouts, bull-outs and five foot
wide bike lanes. Sick of the corrupt politicians,
and that includes you, John Murtha of PA.
I can't stand the Republican Party!
I can't stand the Democrate Party!
I can't stand the Socialists, Marxists,
Nazis, or Skin Heads.
I love Americans that still have some common
sense. Can't watch my favorite TV show anymore,
Al Gore's global warming propaganda has infiltrated
"The Office". Oh, darn, I'll have to quite watching
TV and paint more. Sick of all the save Mother Earth, global
warming crap. Just get over it! Mother Earth has been
around for millions of years and still going strong. She's like
an old lady wearing Combat Boots, just watch George Carlin
on Youtube; (warning-foul language included).
Sick of people saying we're gonna run out of resources;
the only lack of resources is the empty space that's between
the politicians heads in the District of Criminals. Quit with
the fear of us all dying from the Swine Flu and no I'm not
getting the Swine Flu vaccine-if I do died from it, I had
a good life, kids will say "she was a good Mom" and just
have to fight over the inheritance- a few paint brushes and
the paintings. Big Pharma has enough money from everybody
getting hooked on Big Pharma's medicine cabinets.
Well, I Warned You! Don't lecture me. I don't want to
hear it, this is my blog!

NOW, BACK TO SOME PAINTING!

Bad Week

This past week has been frustrating to say the least.
Had a drawing on the paper, just needed to put on the
masking to save the whites, grabbed the bottle of
masking and started to apply it. Seems with every
brushstroke it glopped up more and more. Removed the
dried masking to discover it stained the white paper
and the paper was damaged as I removed the masking.
Discovered I grabbed my old bottle of masking; now I
know that this is the reason for the staining of the
paper. Will mark the newly bought bottles with the
dates I purchased. Spent more time redrawing the
picture on new paper only to mess up the painting
with bad washes. I could submit it to the
Museum of Bad Art. I check this site out for a
good laugh once in a while, haven't seen my stuff on there yet!

Waterlilies

19" x 24" Fabriano soft press

Finally done! Was surprised at the
ease of removing some of the paint
on this kind of paper to correct certain
areas of the painting. I think I
squelched my desires to paint lilypads
with this "attempt". I do like the paper
I used and want to try fluid acrylics
on my next project using this paper.