Flying High

Well, I think they are improving with time, don't you? Last night I pulled out the old horse books and started studying anatomy in earnest, and that is sure to help some more. My brush work is shaping up as well. I have some more abstracts, but didn't get good pics last night (must try again today). It's true what they say.....put more miles on the brush, and you're sure to gain skills! So back to my brushes I go. I sure do love my art life now that the perfectionism is gone for good. Even when I screw up, I just chalk it up to experience and keep right on painting. No stress, no anxiety, just fun and lots of paint on my hands. What a relief!

New Stuff

I'm making more progress with photos, although I had to toss a bunch because they were too fuzzy. These are not perfect either, but at least give you an idea of what I've been up to. I particularly like the grey unicorn with the dark purple wings. That turned out really well for some reason.

Still painting and painting and painting and having a good time.....

Ketchup

Hi, this is a bit of ketchup (catch-up) blog. I've been very busy painting and painting and drawing and painting and painting some more. So busy I haven't picked up a camera in quite some time, months really. Well, today I finally did pick up the camera. I didn't photograph everything, but I did get some good clear photos of things I've done (or am doing).

The main reason I didn't worry about taking photos so much was that I didn't want to interrupt the incredible stream of creative energy I was experiencing, the first of its kind (but dear Lord please not the last). It's not that anything I did was so brilliant, but I just had SO MUCH FUN!!! I did a lot of abstracts (in acrylics and mixed media) and lots of winged horses (in Caran D'Ache Watercolor Pastels). Not sure why it turned out that way, and I know I'm in a rut, but it is a good, productive, creative rut, and I'm not done with it yet. Eventually I will get tired of abstracts and winged horses......but I'm not there yet. And that's fine.

Playing with Paint

When I was originally investigating watercolors, I was taught to make swatches of color mixes. Friday, I got some more paint colors (Golden) so I decided to go ahead and do three swatch pages: yellows and blues (greens), reds and yellows (oranges), and reds and blues (purples). This was a very unscientific process where I made charts and mixed each pair approximately 50/50. I tried to vary the mixes a bit and paint multiple different mixes in each pair; some colors, like the phthalos, I had to stray from the 50/50 ratio fairly drastically to get close to the target color. This was a very interesting and useful process because now I have a permanent record that will tell me which colors to use to mix a wide variety of secondary colors. I also learned which primary colors make good secondaries and which do not (Pyrrole Red does not make good purples, but makes nice oranges, for instance). If you haven't tried this with your paints, I recommend it....it's tremendously educational and also fun.

Wishing for Mad Camera Skillz =-)

For some reason I am having the best time painting and the worst time with the camera. Yes, the new one. Sigh. Part of the problem is that they paint is glare-ey. It's all my fault, because the paints I prefer are the glittery, glitzy, glowy ones. So I'm paying a price for my magpie tendencies. To make matters worse, I had to go and glue stuff onto the abstract. I am so happy with how it turned out. I'm thinking of naming it Turmoil after the recent tornadoes that have plagued Illinois--it does have that spiral aspect (can you tell with all the glare?). Then there is the unicorn, which looks pretty surreal with the glare that is on it; in person it looks a little sloppy around the edges (because I am still in the process of developing my brush-handling skills, which are in their beginning stages). However, it looks less anemic than it did before I plumped out the belly of the unicorn. I think maybe I made the butterflies too brightly colored; do they detract from the unicorn? I have a lot to learn.....but at least I'm having a good time with it.

Cute

Here are three photos of things I consider cute: my daughter, Daphne, and my pegasus painting (well, sort of cute, I dunno....). The painting is being given to one my coworkers tomorrow as she asked for something mythological. That's never a problem for me as I like fantasy better than any other genre when it comes to art. The painting technique is fairly primitive, but not too bad for my second painting on canvas board.

Another Paisley

I wish I had photos of my new acrylic work for you. I did two paintings, the pegasus and a centaur, and both turned out fairly well considering my lack of experience; however, they are proving very difficult to photograph. I used a lot of metallic and pearlescent paint, and while that makes them very pretty (in the opinion of myself, given that I like those types of things), it makes them very glare-y to photograph. I'm thinking I may have to try again with my better camera after I figure out how it works. In the meantime, here is a little something I started at my mom's house New Year's Day and finished Friday in a hellaciously boring meeting. I think it is better technically than the monochrome one (I screwed up less), but the sharp angles and straight lines make it less visually pleasing to me.