Want to paint

On Monday I took a couple of books out of the library: Watercolor Techniques by Zoltan Szabo and Figure & Portrait and Betsy Hosegood. The latter has turned out to be the more interesting; it’s part of Rotoscope’s PAiNT! series of books, and features a bunch of short sections (organized by medium) on various artists, each doing portraits in a different style, with notes on how they work, what palettes they use (“palette” here meaning selection of colors, not the physical object the artist mixes paints on), and sometimes sketches and composition diagrams. It’s got me wanting to pull my acrylics out again. I even had an image pop into my head last night, but actually painting it would require good reference, which has me thinking about getting some kind of instant camera. It looks like I can get a decent one in the $50-100 range, new. Time to stop off at J&R and do some comparison shopping.

The painting that visited me last night is also of unusual proportions, tall and skinny. I’d have to buy stretchers and canvas and custom-build it. Not a great expense, but something I haven’t done in over a decade. I’d need to buy one of those heavy-duty staplers. By the time I get all the parts together, the impulse will probably have faded, but at least I’ll be ready the next time it visits. In the meantime I can hurt people with the stapler.

Oh, 280.5 today.

Crappy little paintings, good comics

In an attempt to get my art juices flowing, I bought some tiny (3x5 inch) pieces of canvas board to use to just jot down random paintings. Not necessarily paintings of anything, just, you know, priming the pump. Also, it’ll help me get more practice in handling the paint. I seem to have lost a little of my knack for mixing colors — I was aiming for a brighter purple in the floating shapes in the one with the gold background.

Turns out I only bought two of the little bitty canvas boards (I’ve got larger ones, but working larger would defeat the purpose of the exercise), so I’ll have to pick up some more tomorrow. They’re cheap.

Whole lotta good comics came out today: Filth #3, Finder #27, Powers #22. The third issue of Paul Pope’s 100% was good, but I liked #2 better. New X-Men #130 was disappointing; the art is pretty bad, and Morrison doesn’t seem to be putting as much effort into the writing. I also got the Three Fingers graphic novel, but haven’t read it yet. And Fables #4 will probably be my last issue, even though Willingham is revealing the resolution of the mystery in #5; I just don’t care.