Category: Uncategorized

Think I have things with my blog back to where it was before I deactivated it.

My Bluehost subscription is going to expire. I’ll be selling my trailer. There’s no reason to post the steps of my paintings. So there’s no reason to continue posting and no reason to pay Bluehost to continue maintaining this domain. This is my last post.

I gave MidJouney AI Image Generator parameters to create maybe 100 images. I chose these to paint. I’ll start them as I finish the ones I’m working on now.

The large, bold landscapes I’m working on are not meant to be realistic landscape paintings. Some of my favorite art is California Impressionism. Also, I like Georgia O’Keefe’s and Maynard Dixon’s landscapes, American Modernism landscapes, and some American Regionalism landscapes. California Impressionism and American Regionalism were active during the Depression. Thomas Hart Benton was an American Regionalist. I think Jackson Pollack studied under him.

I am attempting to do realistic still-life paintings.

I just finished transferring the five images to their canvases. They are in the Menu as Landscape-Original 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Landscape-Original 3

Landscape-Original 4

Landscape-Original 5

Landscape-Original 6

Landscape-Original 7

I’m in the middle of transferring the five MidJourney AI images to canvases using the grid method. Old masters used that method but some look at it as cheating. It isn’t. I could draw them freehand but it would take a long time and there would be a lot of erasing and smearing of graphite on the canvases.

WordPress distorted the first image from my post earlier today so I deleted it and uploaded it again.

When I asked MidJourney to create these images I asked it to use the style of several different artists that I really like, Maynard Dixon, Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond, William Wendt, and Georgia O’Keefe. I like O’Keefe’s landscapes but am not a huge fan of her flowers and skulls. Not sure what style these five paintings would be labeled with, something like simple realism.

Just got back from Dick Blick which is less than 15 minutes from home. Bought a stretched canvas for each image. When the images were created I specified aspect ratios that are the same as standard stretched canvas sizes. 

Next, I need to transfer a drawing of each image to its canvas and then I can start painting. I’ll have ten unfinished paintings.

All I’ll need is the discipline to paint every day. Can’t buy that.

Last night I played with MidJourney for a couple of hours telling it to create simple, modern still life photos. For whatever reason I added a floating striped bass to the mix. I had it create maybe a hundred. I like these three quite a bit. They would be challenging.

For several years I’ve been following an artist on YouTube, drawmixpaint. He also has a website drawmixpaint.com. A person could learn how to paint well from his videos. Recently he has been painting landscapes using AI-generated reference material. Yesterday I subscribed to MidJourney the Artificial Intelligence App he uses. Ten dollars a month. MidJourney is strictly for generating AI art. You can specify what you want in the finished image, how realistic, a style, etc., and an aspect ratio.

For the following five landscapes, I requested a painting of a California landscape with rolling hills, cumulonimbus clouds, oak trees in the foreground, mountains in the background, and in the style of William Wendt and Maynard Dixon. It creates 4 images that you can adjust and download. Pretty amazing.

For this one I requested a view of Kansas farmland on an overcast day in the fall.

For the next three I requested a photo of a crystal clear stream with a rocky bottom.

These were done on my first day with the software. There is a lot for me to learn. Imagine what can be done with this software.