Midweek Stream and a New Portrait Commission

This Week's Stream

I'm still working out some kinks with my live stream setup, and one of those kinks is audio. This time, I used a royalty-free in-browser radio station. What sounded quiet to me was so loud that it drowned out my voice. The radio station bot also completely spammed my chat. So I won't be using that service again. On the bright side, though, my video recording did not get muted. 

So for your viewing pleasure, here's 1 hour and 15 minutes or so of me painting a new zombie ornament (acrylic on glass): Wednesday night's stream

For this ornament, I'm working from a reference photo I took of a sunrise outside my home a few weeks ago. I'm working on a glass ornament that I already prepped with gesso and sanded down. I'm also using blending medium for the first time on an ornament, and it makes it so much easier to paint. 

The challenge with these is translating a 2D image onto a 3D object. I'll probably make the land more lavender/purple. I'm going to add some buildings and zombies, of course.

New Portrait Commission

In addition to my current watercolor (I might not finish it by January!) and the new ornament, I'm also working on a new portrait commission in graphite, below. This is just the first layer with HB pencil. 

Mailing List

Last but not least, I'm starting up a new mailing list for followers and clients. Sign up here to receive monthly updates, first looks at completed artwork, discounts, and an annual greeting card or post card. The first email will be in January and will include a 10% discount code. 

Live Streaming is Good Motivation

I worked on Reckoning for 2 hours yesterday and 3 hours today. Turns out live-streaming is great for holding me accountable. I really want to finish this painting by January 1st so I can move in to new ideas. This has been in the works for about 2.5 years (life has happened... lots of life). For 2019 I would like to be more efficient...

Here it is at the end of today. I spent the stream working on adding more depth of color to the head of the bank o, more shadows to the neck, and cleaning up some of the pattern on the kimono (a few leaves needed their lines cleaned up, and a couple flowers needed more layers). I keep getting sucked into these details. Worth it, but the labor time really adds up.

“All” that’s left is to add a glaze or two to the floor, soften the lines of those shadows, add a little more shadow to the inside of the kimono... and maybe soften some parts of her hair, and/or add some shadow to her arm and leg. 

Here’s a photo of my studio set up for streaming. I told my husband that the brightness of the sun was too strong and I’d have to wait til later in the day to stream, and he immediately responded, “Let’s fix that!” And he put up curtains for me right away. I also received my second webcam today and got that set up, and spent some time adjusting settings in Streamlabs, so I have a working “Palette Cam” as well as painting cam. 

I’m planning on cleaning up the recording and sharing it to YouTube but that may take me a little while. If you’re interested, I’m on Twitch.tv as jennydavispaints. I believe Twitch saves the recording on my page for a few days (though they muted my audio because they noticed I was listening to my own playlist - next time I’ll set up royalty free radio, but this time I just wanted to get down to painting. And I’m really glad I did. I got a lot of work done (though it may not look like it) and had some great conversations.

Something is afoot!

Literally and figuratively.

I posted a new drawing time-lapse. Just a quick drawing to keep me sharp and prep for a new painting.





Since starting time-lapses, I've been experimenting with camera set-ups and interested in doing live streaming. So this weekend, provided I can get the broadcasting software working, I'm going to give it a shot! (Ha, another pun.)

Here's my studio set-up, and a bonus rainbow!

Friday Night

How me and Harry spend our Friday nights.

I spent a couple hours working on the model's left hand. I'd stopped working on it because (at the time) there weren't a lot of darks in the painting to provide contrast. So I finally went back and started adding in some darker shadows along the outside of her wrist and forearm. You wouldn't know it at a glance, but there's still a long way to go.

Bonus: All of the reference photos I've used for this painting.

New Portrait Commission

Here are the first few work in progress shots of my new graphite portrait commission. Started off with the heaviest shading on the left so that I won't smudge the subject on the right as I work.