A redhead and her best friend

When I saw the photo, I couldn't resist trying to paint this little redhead and her cat buddy. And although I don't think I quite did them justice, I'm glad I tried it, for the variety of challenges it presented. I'm pretty happy with the faces, less happy with the cat body, which admittedly disintegrated into an amorphous blob in the reference photo, not giving me much help. But the warm colors of the child contrasted with the cooler colors of the cat were fun to do, and I hope the subject of the photo doesn't mind my borrowing it.

This is pencil and watercolor on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress paper,

12x12 inches, and it's called "JSBnKitteh."

Venting

I have been so beside myself with rage and frustration for the past 48 hours since the "Supreme Six" made a travesty of the branches of government by handing over the very extraordinary powers to the office of the President that the founding fathers worked so hard to exclude from that person that I needed to find some way to work out the anger. The worst of it is that we all know that immunity is only given to cover the lawless and depraved acts of their sociopath of a candidate and that any attempt to use this so-called autonomy by the Democratic holder of the office would be a booby trap of epic proportions, even if that person could imagine using that immunity for self-interest or the partisan interests of his party, which he would not. It is truly unbelievable what they have been able to "accomplish" in the name of fascism and domination over a nation that does not espouse their views and does not want them as our rulers or arbitrators, simply by relying on our moral compass.

At first I thought to do a portrait of the three justices who stood strong, united in horrified dissent, and I may still do that at some point, but what I really wanted was to wreak my revenge on the six who betrayed us. And while working on it gave me some degree of satisfaction and relief, it is such a deadly serious subject that I couldn't do what I really wanted, which was to caricature them in a Deb Weiers-like portrait, as I have previously done with others from that side of the aisle. They look all too attractive and lifelike to satisfy my frustration. But I did manage to surround them with words of condemnation, revelation, and disgust, so there's that.

Here are the Supreme Six, or the Six of January Six, since their objective was to follow through on the intent of that day.

(Can I just say that I am particularly, overwhelmingly disgusted that a woman would choose to stand with these corrupt assholes against the interests of her gender? That I find the hardest to understand or digest.)

Uniball, acrylic ink, and watercolor, 16x12 inches on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress.

My intention was to parody them as I did the former architects of our destruction—McConnell, Cruz, and Graham—or a couple of hate-filled MAGA fanatics that I captured as they "protested" the good acts of the Democratic Party and let their own priorities be known.

Marking time

 I haven't felt too inspired lately, so I've been marking time by picking up on the projects of others and redoing them to suit myself. They haven't completely done that, but at least they have kept my hand in. This girl was a portrait that someone published on a Facebook page, asking for help with the likeness (a person new to portraits) and I decided that she was sufficiently arresting that I wanted to paint her myself.

The second is a challenge being put out there by Dana Primrose Bloede—she's posting one copyright-free image a month and asking people to paint the portrait and share. None of them have names on them, so I called him "This Guy." I enjoyed the darks and lights on this one, but I'm not a big fan of painting men's facial hair!

They are both 9x12 inches, painted on 90-lb. paper I bought for watercolor workshops, so not quite as clean as they would have been on Fluid.

Departure

I was reminded this week that I used to do drawings/paintings of all kinds of things, from recipe ingredients to flowers to street scenes, in my sketchbook, but that since I took up portraits, that's all I have painted for a few years now. And, well, although they are still my first love, it is possible to get a little stale no matter what your subject matter. So when I saw a photo of Lynn's hollyhocks on Facebook this week and remembered having painted them once before, I decided to do a new painting of that subject, with nary a face to be seen.

This is pencil and watercolor on 90-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, 9x12 (including a 1/2-inch border all around). It's good to keep your skills up with other subject matter occasionally!

Here are my other hollyhock paintings—one done in France in 2013, the other done from a photo in 2019 as part of the 30x challenge.

Canine Cutie

Today's watercolor and Uniball sketch is Marlie J. Dogg, the bookstore manager and all-around potentate in the household of L.S. Quinn, Executive Director of The Reading Room CLE in Cleveland Ohio, aka Galinda Upland (don't ask me!).

Marlie has ruled that roost for several years now as the worthy successor of Cha-Cha the Beloved, and I have signally failed thus far in my duty to memorialize her in art. So today, here she is in all her heavily ironic glory, giving us a slightly jaundiced grin and a wink from the comfort of her car bed (which I took the liberty of rendering in color instead of sticking to its rather dull charcoal). I know she is a highly discerning critic, but humbly hope she will be at least satisfied, if not flattered by, this fond portrait.

Drawn in Uniball pen and embellished with Paul Jackson signature watercolors on 90-lb. Strathmore watercolor paper, @ 9x12 inches. All Hail Mighty Marlie.

Quick Regency portrait

There was a woman on the "Dull Women" Facebook page who had such the look of Regency England about her that I couldn't resist painting her and altering her wardrobe to fit in with that era (what little of it that shows). A delicate Bridgerton beauty with pillowy lips and gorgeous flowing curls who was just crying out to be memorialized. She has unusual eyes—golden, with long thin pupils. I actually made them rounder than they were in the photo, because she looked alien when I painted them exactly as they were!

Anyway, this is Abbey, in pencil and watercolors, with a little silver Signo pen to make her necklace. I painted it on cheap watercolor paper that I use for my beginning classes, because it was the only thing immediately to hand (I have a block of Fluid somewhere, but...), so the background buckled a little when I gave it a second coat. But it was good to do it just to keep my hand in.

Mixed media muddle

I haven't been doing many of the Let's Face It 2024 assignments; I have to pace myself with the painting these days, and if I have an idea of mine that I want to carry out, I do that instead of someone else's. But I love Maria Pace-Wynters's work, and wanted to try her crazy mixed media portrait for myself, so even though I'm a couple of weeks late, I sat down today and applied myself.

It was difficult for me on several levels. First of all, I've never been a person to use things like collage or pens or pastels creatively and, as I have mentioned before, I draw for the sake of starting a painting, not because I love it. Maria loves to draw, and you can see it in all the tiny details she incorporates into her pieces. She also loves to layer and layer and layer, with paint, ink, pastels, pens, you name it, and I didn't have more than half of the things she was using, so I had to compensate with other stuff. 

I ended up with something that I didn't hate, but I don't love it either. Some parts stand out too much and others not enough, and my collage choices are clumsy and don't necessarily work (either materials or colors). And not having the right media meant that I ended up with a muddier result. It was fun (and challenging and frustrating) to try something different, and if I did this about 10 more times I might make something I really liked! But...I doubt that I will. Still, I'm glad I did this one.

She's called Hannah, because I used the face (though nothing else) from a woman named Hannah in my "Dull Women" Facebook group.

"Hannah"—acrylic inks, watercolors, acrylic paints, Uniball pen, Posca pen, gold metallic medium, Signo gel pen, colored pencils, and paper collage pieces, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress paper, 9x12 inches.