October theme: COMPASSION
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INSPIRATION
I googled “endangered animals demonstrating compassion” and landed on this page
Elephants show compassion for orphaned animals, bringing them food and adopting them. They mourn deaths of members of their herd, not drinking or eating until each of them has touched the body. Asian elephants have been known to mourn their keepers, gathering grass and flowers to put on their bodies and traveling distances to visit their graves.
Elephants are threatened by poaching and habitat loss. This recent update from the World Wildlife Fund describes efforts to build animal overpasses to reduce traffic deaths.
I watched parts of this elephant watercolor tutorial by Michelle Clamp, who has a very different way of working, but I like her style. The sound quality on the video is not good. Tutorial includes EXTENSIVE process descriptions. I noticed she
- started with a drawing
- decided on some colors to start with
- mixed together paint and water
- “sloshed” some paint on the drawing (avoiding tusks)
- softened the edges with a damp brush and water
- used splatter and water spray for texture [I doubt I could do that]
- let paper dry [I work very slowly, so that part is easy]
- put in darkest values, adjust middle values
- assess and add small details
throughout, she is thinking about value (light and dark).
CREATION
–strategy: lightest areas of my reference photo are the tusk, catch lights in eyes, tops of heads, the back and cheekbone of the right elephant, and the sunlit ear. Middle tones are ears and bodies. Darker tones are on mouth, shadows of ear and jowls on the right elephant, mouth and trunk of left elephant.
– session log
- using the mouth stick (created for me years ago by a Occupational therapist at Courage Kenny) with a soft black pastel, I drew the elephant on the right. I made a couple false starts (too high on the page, too far to the left). I am a little worried about the pastel in water and I can’t draw with any precision, but we will see how it goes.
- Using the mouthstick, I drew the elephant or the left. Looks good so far. (Rewatched parts of the video where she puts on the initial paint and softens it.)
- I mixed brown and blue to create gray, using the paint tray as a mixing surface. I like that, though it did use extra energy. I tried to use the “slosh and soften” technique and couldn’t. Switching brushes was too difficult. Instead, I loosely put in some medium gray. Sometimes the brush got too dry. At the end, I added some gold on the left chest and right ear I have both elephants roughed in.
- I’ve been trying to decide what to do with the background. I wanted to leave some parts of the paper unpainted. My plan was to use pinkish tan in the lower 4/5 and green above the elephants. My usual aide is on vacation. Getting the brush out of my mouth, the substitute aide made a mark on the paper. That gave me an idea and I made similar marks elsewhere. That looked quite stark, so I used a watery brush to spread the marks a bit. Short session today. I will come back later and see where we are. (I reckon I need to be done in two more sessions.) [Rewatched parts of the video where she adds shadows.]
- Today I added green background and some shadows. These days, I often get help putting the brush in the water and also mixing the color, coaching when to add more blue or more brown. I worked on the leg, jowls, and bottom of the ear of the elephant on the right and the trunk, ears, and jowls of the elephant on the left. Next/last time: fine lines around the eyes and neck; double check that the whole piece is communicating. (I needed to stop today. Making wild marks is a sign that I’m getting tired and it’s time to stop. Self-compassion is needed when I am painting!)
- Finished up. Several times, I had to wait for the PCA. That enabled me to look more carefully at the photo but also made me more tired when I could get to the brush. I used some of the premixed gray to add the lines and shading that seemed to be missing.
INSIGHTS
- What surprised me?
- Adding the first paint to the bodies went very quickly, once I had the drawing done.
- What have I learned?
- I learned a lot by watching Michelle Clamp’s video several times.
- Eyes look so much better if I remember to leave catch lights with blank paper.
- What do I want to learn or try?
- I’m wondering about staying with this artist to learn what I can working with her videos, even if she’s not necessarily painting endangered animals. (She has some flower tutorials, which I might try, and building/landscape tutorials, which I wouldn’t use.)
- Thoughts about the theme.
- Compassion is not limited to humans.
- I miss gentle touch that is not related to getting physically clean (a side effect of disability).
- What if I made the process of painting an exercise in compassion? What would change (for me and for my assistant)?
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