This morning was my monthly critique group excursion. While I haven’t exactly been producing at a record speed (or even producing anything very good...) I have been working. I sorted through the piles and came to the realization that I needed some help more than I needed anyone to admire some of my latest successes, so I loaded up a couple of paintings that I am stuck on and drove on down.

Fish or fowl

I won’t show you the first painting, because that would be a blog all by itself. My second entry was this painting, which I have been working on since the Bev Jozwiak class.

Several members said, “I love this fish. It’s so abstract.” I feel like a toddler who proudly goes up and shows the parent his painting of a dog and they say, “What a nice house.” Frankly, I don’t see fish and can’t figure out what they are talking about. They could never explain it to me, either.

Oh well, it’s all about feedback, and I got plenty. The shape of neck needed defining; the green blobby background needed something…; the bright green of the back made the “fish” look hollow.  So, I came home and did this…

The basic problem I am struggling with is that this is on the Yupo® paper which I can’t figure out (YUPO is a 100% recyclable, waterproof, tree-free Synthetic Paper. In other words, it’s like painting on plastic.)

Frankly, right now, I’m considering the trash bin for the whole thing. I’m not sure it’s worth it.

In order to convince you all (and myself) that I actually do know about painting (STOP THAT LAUGHING!) I will show off some other endeavors, though none are the ones I am SUPPOSED to be working on.

Quick warm up on very small, bad paper

Yellow-headed blackbird on small watercolor panel

Gelli-plate prints using “the silver”

This is more of the silver dust that got away from me last week. I don’t think that stuff can actually be used.

But speaking of that…

Speaking of last week… does anyone remember that I ended up throwing some paint on a piece of paper so see if the silver would come out that way?

Don’t hold your breath, because the silver isn’t on this either. But when it dried, it looked like this:

Every time I have walked past it in the the week I have seen the same thing. So, last night I decided it was only paper and decided to follow my muse (albeit one with a somewhat warped sense of humor.)

If anyone calls this one a fish, I’ll just have him eat them.

wWahahaha