Mug Series #2

Despite the leg pain, I decided to go ahead with my painting today. I didn't really know how standing would work but, surprisingly, I was able to handle it. I don't even really seem to be experiencing any fallout from it either. I think it may have helped my back pain a little.

Chris bought me this mug a few years ago. Back when we lived in Ithaca, there was this amazing shop downtown that sold all sorts of handmade unique items. Some of it was created by local artisans and craftspeople but some of it was imported from all across the country. These mugs with little animals on the bottom were some of my favorite items. I've only drank out of this thing once. And I cannot tell you how much it made me smile when I got 3/4 of the way down and I had frog eyes staring back up at me. I'd use it more often but the figure on the bottom means you can't stir anything in the mug.

PRO
1) I love the way the little frog in the middle came out. I obviously wanted it to be the focal point and I managed to paint it as the focal point.
2) This is the best drawn painting I've done so far.
3) I was able to stop and not overwork it. I really want to loosen up my painting style and I think I managed to do that here.

CON
1) The dots are on the mug and I was hesitant to include them in the painting. Without them, the mug looked very stark to me and uninteresting. But I'm not sure I like the mug with them either.
2) No matter how much I seemed to fiddle with it, the shadow under the mug's handle never really looked right. And it still looks a little off to me and I'm not really sure why.
3) The last mug painting was a white mug also and it came out more looking like a cream colored mug. And while I think you can definitely tell that this is a white mug, I still found the white challenging. Creating the proper value in the lighter areas was difficult. I was always thinking they were too light but when I darkened them, the mug started to look like it was grey. But when I left the values light, highlights didn't contrast well.

LESSON
I'm going to be standing up from now on. It doesn't seem to hurt my legs and I actually stepped back from this painting a good half a dozen times. I will probably have to get something taller to put my palette on though. The snack tray I have it on now is too low.
This was my first time using an Ampersand Gessoboard. I had read about other people using them on various blogs and I really wanted to give them a try. I love the smooth surface. I feel like the brush strokes are really standing out rather than being obscured by the weave of the canvas, though that could be the produce of my using really cheap canvas boards. The smooth surface does have its drawbacks. I am one of those painters who will brush over an area again and again. I know you're not supposed to because you'll end up removing paint. This surface is not forgiving of that. It is extremely easy to remove paint from the surface with too much brushwork especially if you are stingy with paint. Both of those are things I need to work on and since this surface doesn't give me a way around it, I think I'll continue to use them.