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Painting Spring
White Roses Green Vase on Table
I should have referred to them as “blush” roses. I’m trying here to paint a looser rose – but still it needs to resemble a rose I think. Some do and some don’t. Overall. there are some features I like. I like the setting – the table the translucent cloth. I wanted to “crochet” it but didn’t have time. I do have a favorite rose – bottom front and interesting – I had no reference for that one – from imagination only but not easy for me to do. It looks most sheer and soft. However, one shouldn’t be looking at any single rose, the question is – does the painting work. I do like the background. It’s a style of adding texture I can actually repeat – though randomly created. Initially, I thought the green of the vase vase was too dark and too intense, but I left it. It’s a pretty color and. the fade down gives it a hint of glow and transparency which I like. For some reason quite a bit of gray is showing up in this digital image which is not in the painting.
RESISTANCE: You can imagine I’m in pain with the passage today of that HORRIBLE NEW BILL in the House. Hopefully the Senate will block it. They’ve long said they will not allow it to pass. For the good of the country, I certainly hope not. It is so very IMMORAL. Those who voted for it are IMMORAL. Anyone who supports this bill is IMMORAL. They even allowed into this bill the tax exemption of “gun silencers”, and “tanning beds” for the orange guy I suppose. It’s shocking though I should no longer be shocked at anything they do. No one could have fantasied this script for the United States. I keep holding out for a glimmer of humanity in our governance but I’m finding none. And. the orange guy, I guess feels the needs to shore up racism in this country with white Afrikaners who are 4% of the South African population but own 80 % of the land but feel oppressed. Just think, people went to the polls and voted for this guy – otherwise they would have had to vote for a woman who is Black. This is rarely mentioned but we all know it is the truth.
Moody’s just downgraded the bond rating on securities backed by the FULL FAITH AND CREDIT OF THE UNTIED STATES due to the huge increase in deficit projected. This is also a big deal. Interest cost on trillions of debt outstanding just went up on 10 yr. 20 yr. and 30 yr. treasury bonds. This will mean a massive increase in interest cost to the. government. What do they say about this, they say “we don’t care”. They only care about a tax cut for the richest amongst us. This bill will devastate food care and health care for children and elderly and substantially increase the cost of health care to many using the Affordable Care Plan. I’m putting it out to the universe Senators – WE’RE COUNTING ON YOU!
In case you haven’t heard, an item was approved a couple days ago which will turn an AK7 type rifle into a “MACHINE GUN”. Now they can kill more children and other innocents – though “their thoughts and prayers” will be with their families. Winifred
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Boots Made For Walking
Above you see the final painting of my boots but not necessarily the version I prefer. I found my boots in a box a few months ago. I hadn’t seen them in years. They’re so comfortable and they’re my go to boots for running errands – along with my bright red Pumas. Today is the day following my completion of this painting above and it’s the first time I compared it with the previous version which I over painted – see below.
The initial version is very colorful. The brush strokes are expressive. I hadn’t been so “correct” about everything. My brain thinks “it is messy”, I couldn’t handle it and found it a bit too chaotic. I considered this initial version “failed”. That was OK with me. All painting practice is good – just making an attempt is fine. At the point of my “failure” I thought I would try some things. I darkened the background, toned down some of the color and “corrected” shapes within the boots. I didn’t realize I was killing this more exciting painting. The past years of my brain training makes it hard to appreciate random expressive brushstrokes and bold color. I try from time to time but it’s a struggle. My training is portrait realism, though increasingly I add a bit of expression and creativity “around” a face. I tried expressiveness “on the face” once” and posted it. It’s awful!.
I like the final painting, the bluer one at the top – but I find it less exciting. This experience has been important for me and I’ll continue to attempt to push past my limitations and the discomfort I feel when things are not “correct”. It’s sad for a painter to feel that way. Correctness might be important when assessing a realistic portrait but not BOOTS! I took many photos of my boots posed differently. I’ll likely try to paint them again in a different pose.
RESISTANCE: Oh my gosh! When do we get a break!! So far the Supreme Court and other Federal courts are barely holding together the provisions of the Constitution, although it is the Supreme Court which has gotten us into this mess and Garcia is still not back. Fortunately many others immigrants have been saved from deportation without “due process”, at least for now and Trump is pissed. Significantly, Donald’s ‘Big Beautiful New Deal” also failed in committee even before it could go to the House which saves Medicaid, which provides care to “the most vulnerable amongst us” ie, food and health care to children, medical care to people with extraordinary medical conditions, and medical care for the lowest income population and Veterans care as well. We have such immoral leadership in the Republican Party with Donald’s attempt to eliminate this level of support so the richest people in the world and large corporations can have more is IMMORAL – PLAIN AND SIMPLE! The reason Donald’s “Big Beautiful Bill” which he insisted it be called – didn’t get out of committee is because of the RESISTANCE throughout the country. Republicans from some districts know their tenure would be over in 26 if they did not vote to save Medicaid. 5 Republicans on that committee voted with Democrats providing a vote of 21against the bill to 15 which closed it down. I am thankful for those 5 votes. Between the Supreme Court ruling and the defeat of this bill he wanted to pass desperately, this was not a good week for Donald. I think he’s still smiling, however, because of the prospect of a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar. We’ll see. His lack of morality has no bound but then what would one expect from a criminal. This is what criminals do. Bye for now. Winifred
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Happy Mother’s Day and Master Portrait Study
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Sargent Study
This was an interesting endeavor. Perhaps you’ve seen this painting in a book or in online images. it is from a painting titled Daughters of Edward Darley. It depicts Darley’s four daughters. She is the girl to the far left. This is head and shoulders of a full body, interior room painting. When I began this painting I was not aware of the many delicate color and tonal variations in the highlight area of her face. There is little point in trying to duplicate each brushstroke, but I did work diligently to create her likeness and the overall look. It was tedious to paint but enjoyable in a way. I did a pretty good job. I’m not sure what I learned in this process but learning is always an incremental and cumulative process. I can never paint a portrait in a day – I am definitely not a fast painter. Below is the painting progression which took place over 5 days.
There’s an online site for painters which looked at my paintings as they considered whether my paintings would be appropriate for their site. One of the reasons they liked my site was that I very often showed a painting progression, as above, whereas most painters do not. It’s never pretty – but I’m not concerned. I forgot the initial sketch even this time. I don’t know if there’s any real interest but I’ll try to do a bit more of this in the future. In the end, I was invited to the site but decided not to participate. It felt too much like social media.
Below is one of my favorite digital paintings and favorite memories.
The story is captured in the painting. Its a digital painting I did years ago. I was in New York. I descended the steep stairs to Grand Central Station to board a train and was delighted and astonished to see this little girl playing her trombone while her little brother held the music. The trombone case held the money thus far collected. Only in New York I thought. I ask for permission and stood for a few minutes to observe the performance and to photograph them. I love the color variation throughout. Why don’t I do that now? I felt so free and creative when I was digital because if I messed up, I could throw away one layer and try something else. Not so with oil paint but I’m getting there.
THE RESISTANCE: It depresses me to think about the ongoing nightmare we live in. The resistance gives hope but I saw an interview yesterday which I think is critical and may serve us well. I would predict that there is absolutely NO WAY Donald can make it though the remainder of his term. The problem is that the MAGA Republicans have all been so “potty trained” to behave with the same level of cruelty and lawlessness. He might go but what follows? May 1, 2025 – I watched a NEWS NATION interview. If I had any doubt about Donald’s COGNITIVE decline, no doubt lingers. Donald has long had trouble maintaining a single coherent line of thought but it has become much worse. Donald was ask about his position toward HARVARD and his desire the cancel Federal Research dollars, control hiring, student selection and the curriculum. His response shocked and totally perplexed the entire panel and me. He wove a long rambling response started with comments about HARLEM ( which initially I thought he misunderstood for the word Harvard but that was not it. He then spoke of Black support in the election, then he made comments about of billions of research dollars he would cancel at Harvard, then back to Harlem where he said they wanted to do remedial math like (2+2) he said, then back to comments about horrible foreign students at Harvard. His brain is a scrambled mess. Perhaps you saw the ABC interview where Donald was insistent that the M I 13 text which he has been shown on a photo of the fist of Garcia, and firmly believes this text is real. It was explained to Donald that this Arial font had been Photoshoped onto a photo of Garcia’s hand. He was told it is not real but Don was insistent, even combative, siting over and over and over and over again that it is real. Garcia’s hand by comparison has been photographed recently in El Salvador, and does not show any such graphic information. Donald’s mind is not in good shape. For any who were concerned about President Biden, Donald is far worse. President Biden would sometimes forget but he never went off on multiple incoherent tangents. Trumps playbook is to be mean, unapologetic and cruel.
And now, Congressional Republicans have voted that Don can deport American citizens to El Salvador. Can you believe any of this!!! Don, a mad man surrounded by incompetent hateful lackeys. It’s all so dangerous. Winifred
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High Cheeks
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Truly Spring
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Dreamers
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Portrait Abstract
See below: I thought I’d show you a bit of the beginning. I didn’t know where I’d go with this when I started. You can see I could have developed it in a more refined traditional manner to. I chose, however, to be more daring and to see if I could actually pull it off. I’ve tried before without good results in my opinion. But those were steps toward becoming a bit more experienced and confident in a more abstracted portrait look which is not natural for me. I both enjoyed the process and and I actually like it.
Above: Notice the fine lines white lined on the forehead. and off to the left. Those are remnants of a grid I sketched in order to place the features accurately.
Overall, I spent quite a bit of time developing the sketch and block-in over, which I painted. I didn’t want too much assistance with the features, however, because that doesn’t facilitate developing stronger drawing skills. I don’t have to use a grid and most of the time I don’t use one at all. It just takes longer to get things right.
Thank you for sharing my art journey. Feel free not to read any further of you have no interest in my political opinions. This won’t hurt my feelings. Winifred
RESISTANCE FOR DEMOCRACY: First of all, I want to say, I stand with Senator Cory Booker! Amazing 25 hour + filibusterer in the Senate in opposition Donal/Elon criminality and attack to needed services in this country I stand with Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Chris Murphy, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Jasmine Crockett. They are strong leaders of the resistance.
I decided “resistance” is a better theme than Ranting! Other than blowing off steam momentarily – which can feel good – it doesn’t move one forward in fact or in consciousness. So, I decided to focus on “the peoples resistance”. Despite what both of those crazy men – Donald and Elon – continue to do, ground roots efforts persist and are making progress. A great example of course is the election a couple days ago of liberal Supreme court Justice in Wisconsin who struggled against the financial support of Elon who funded her opposition but the opposition LOST. That’s a big deal. Town Hall meetings are attracting thousands of loud and angry citizens who are calling for Republican and Democratic leaders to do more to stop service reductions desperately needed by regular citizens and veterans of this country and the ruin of the economy. Then there is direct resistance to Elon and Tesla, where both demonstrations and declining purchases, are tanking Elon’s brand and wealth. In response, he exclaims how cruel it is that people express how happy they are to see his stock prices decline!!!! He waves his chain saw in glee, excited to lead cuts in federal programs but is surprised people are happy when he experiences misfortune. This is INSANITY and TOTAL LACK OF EMPATHY – plain and simple. Both Elon and Donald are deranged and have the same disease! And then there are the horrors of immigration!!
And now the tariffs extended to all countries! Things are moving in a very bad direction. Fortunately the resistance is growing – including resistance by those who foolishly voted for him because they thought his measures wouldn’t affect them – just all those other people. Now they know, he only cares about his billionaire buddies. It’s good to see them falling into line.
WE COULD HAVE HAD A WOMAN IN CHARGE – a smart qualified woman. These things wouldn’t be happening but this country and it’s many segments of the population have failed to support a woman as president. I BELIEVE the problem was far more that a female was contender, than that she is Black. Oh well, lets see what another week brings. Winifred
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Ease on Down the Road
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