Category: Acrylic

Lily Pond after Monet

Lily Pond After Monet
Acrylic on Watercolor paper

This is from my watercolor sketch book. I tried to paint a little project in watercolor. Of course the reference I chose was way too complicated for me so it didn’t take long for me to mess it up. But I was able to turn lemons into lemonade on this one and painted a mini session of Monet’s Lily Pond. I really like how it turned out. It was also pleasing to find out the the watercolor pad has some pretty durable paper. If I mess up, I can just paint acrylic over the screw up and PRESTO! No one is the wiser…Unless you spill the beans in a blog post, lol

Have you ever completed a painting from the old Masters? I highly recommend it…For me, it was a true pleasure!

Be Well and Happy!
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Owl

Owl

5 x 7 Canvas panel in Acrylic

This little panel took me a while, but so worth it!  I find that I really enjoy painting owls.  I think it’s the eyes that I love painting….yep…its the eyes in any subject that I love and in any medium and these stare a hole right through, lol

And I have some exciting news!!!!

 I have been invited to submit this owl in the Miniatures and Small Works by Tidewater Artists show at Charles H. Taylor Arts Center.  I am really excited and I really don’t know what to expect, but come December I will be there 🙂

On a side note:

The palette from this POST worked like a charm.  The paint remained wet for the entire painting process!!!!  It is so worth the money!  But I do have a little warning:  Do not shake the palette or the paint colors will run in to each other, lol

Happy Halloween and have a great…but safe week!

Be Well and Happy!

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Projects gone Amuk and a Review…

 

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It’s been a while and I really missed blogging, so I thought I would take a few minutes and say “HI!” and let you know what I have been up to.  I hope you are doing great and having a wonderful summer.

Things on my end are plugging right along.  We take our little Sweet Cheeks back to school next Friday.  (kinda depressing…and yes she is 20 years old and I still call her little pet names, lol.  I think secretly she likes it)  I am still loving my job and I adore the people I work with.  My time management is still terrible, but since I am actually posting…I am getting better at it. (YAY ME!)

I haven’t been painting all that much…which makes me antsy.  I mean I have started quite a few paintings and drawings  but I haven’t finished ANY!  Wellll, that isn’t exactly true…I did draw a couple of cherries at work, while I was on floor duty but other than that?  Not so much….I have one painting that it perfectly content to stay in the ugly stages forever and four more with nothing but a set of eyeballs. I won’t even discuss the three foot painting that I have started.  At first I thought that I was just being lazy (and it still may be a little of that) but I believe mostly its just access of the materials and clean up.  I just hated dragging everything out and set up every time I wanted to paint….just to put it all back….then drag it back out….then put it back…See where I’m going with this?

I saw the Masterson’s Sta-Wet Palette  at  Michaels.  The palette looked promising so I purchased it.  The palette was a little over 11.00 (using my coupon).  And boy am I pleased.  I loaded it with acrylic paint on July 9th and it has been 1 month to the day and the paint is still wet!  No bottles of paint everywhere I am not being  intrusive on David’s space, so  I don’t feel too guilty about leaving stuff out until I get the chance to paint again. It has really helped me steal bits of painting sessions when I am able to grab a minute or two. And it is especially helpful with my watering bucket (pictured on right)  It has two wells: one for clean water and one for dirty.  So when I want to paint, I just take the lid off of everything and when I am done I just have to put the lid back on, wash a couple of brushes and that’s it.  And if this doesn’t work?  Its all just laziness, lol

How do you deal with spatial issues of an art space?

Be Well and Happy!

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Extra Protection When Posting Your Art

Owl 2015I belong to a few on line groups and over the years I have heard some horror stories about artists getting their images stolen on line.  It almost makes you afraid to post anything these days for fear of being ripped off.  An artist can watermark their name across the whole image and somehow thieves find a way to photo shop it out and display it as their own. (If they only used their powers for good, huh?)  

The way I see it we only have two choices:  One to post and the other not to.  Personally, I like seeing all the beautiful art in the blogosphere and I love sharing my art.  Its scary knowing that there is no full proof way to protect yourself before the art gets stolen.   But we can after… and have been doing something to protect my work if it gets stolen.  Now as far as I know no body wants it, lol….but you never know!

Over the past couple of years I have been embedding stuff  with in my drawings that can’t be cropped out like my signature or a traditional watermark.  I mean it could be anything, a word, a symbol, a tiny picture, just anything your heart desires.  But it has to blend in using the same medium and so discreet that no one knows it is there, but you have to be able to find it.  I use to embed different things, but it was just getting too hard to remember what I did where, so now I use the same thing over and over.  Say, for example you are working in acrylic and you chose a heart to embed in your art.  So you paint a hidden heart in your painting.  Sounds easy, but it is pretty hard to do.  Because although it can’t be found by anyone at the same time it has to be proven intentional when it is found.

The owl above is embedded (and no I won’t tell you what or where it is, lol).  It is completely obvious to me but I welcome you to try and find it.  Enlarge the picture as large as you want…I bet you won’t find it 🙂

I hope you guys find this helpful and that you all have a great weekend and wonderful week!

What do you do to protect your work?

Be Well and Happy!  

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Owl

Owl 2015

Owl

Acrylic on 6 x 8 in. canvas

Hello!

     It has been so long since I have blogged that I don’t know where to start….So, I guess I will begin with the painting.

     This fluffy friend has been on my board since October and it finally completed and sold!  To be fair, I stopped and  put it away a lot but I didn’t struggle getting this completed which is very unusual for me, huh?

     This subject and on this scale is perfect for beginning acrylic artists, because it is basically two circles and a triangle. Give it a go!

Where I’ve been?

    I got a job in October and quit said job in January, lol.  I just didn’t like it.  So, I decided to go to Real Estate School.  Then, after studying for a trillion hours I passed my State and National exam!!!! Now, I am with a Company and waiting for my license so I can get this ball rolling.

   Everything has gotten so chaotic that it has been hard to find time for art.  But I hope things will get back to normal soon.  Take Care!

Be Well and Happy!

Still Here…

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Things aren’t going too great on the art front I’m afraid. It seems that I have forgotten how to paint.  I have spent hours on 2 separate canvases and both ended up in the garbage.  So it is back to the drawing board for me and time to dig out some old  acrylic books.  I will admit that I am more than a little frustrated considering they were big art pieces.  I guess it is all in the experience. (A glass half full thing.)

I have been reading a little Art History and instead of Realism,  maybe I should give Impressionism a go 🙂

Since  visiting the National Gallery of Art,  I have been absolutely enthralled with Impressionism.  My love began with the piece by John Singer Sargent entitled “Repose”.  And then there was Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Renoir….I could on about these Masters of capturing light and darkness.  I have always appreciated art, but being in front of the actual work, the actual piece that they laid their very hands on almost brought me to tears and made my heart hurt.  But what I found very strange is that I didn’t care for the work of Degas  and I only liked one of Van Gogh’s pieces and that was “Starry Night”.

Although, I do love Monet’s work, I found  piece entitled “Death Bed” disturbing .  Death Bed is Monet’s wife as she lay dying.  And it bothers me.  It angers me.  His wife lays there probably in pain, scared and alone.  While he sits across the room and paints her!  Wow! he should win husband of the year!

In the book, it talks about how much Monet loved his wife.  He may, I’m not the Great Judge, but he had to have loved painting more.  He was a great Artist though and I am doubly glad David is not an Artist….he does golf though…..

Be Well and Happy!

Ode to Jackson Pollock…

3 -18 x 24 Abstract

Acrylic on Gallery wrapped canvas

They are finished and hanging in my living room:)  I got the inspiration from Jackson Pollock’s work.  I can’t say that I like all of his work…I don’t.  But I do like his paint “thrown about” paintings.  And that was the look I was going for here.  It probably would have been cheaper just to buy a print I reckon, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun, that’s for sure.  I slung paint everywhere!!! (very therapeutic)  I’m still a little unsure of hanging my work in the house, but it isn’t like we entertain or anything, so I guess it doesn’t matter much:)  And if I ask David one more if he likes them, I will probably get a remote thrown at me. But a girl’s gotta ask, and I haven’t slapped him yet for asking me if they should be in a frame.  Ahhhh…true love.

Anyway, please click on the picture for a better view!

Be Well and Happy!

Christmas Commission #2….

Pet Portrait

Graphite on Bristol Board

       I had forgotten to post my commissions and since I am in the middle of a painting, I thought this would be a good time to post one of them.  This was actually the final commission, but I can’t seem locate the other picture.  It’s in my computer somewhere, but I can’t find it.  The two with the paw prints have sadly passed on to that great rainbow bridge.  I had heard that when she opened this she was so happy and overwhelmed that she cried.  I don’t know how I feel about the crying part.  I can’t stand to see someone cry, it just gets me all upset.  Yes, I am filled with goo, but I also remember how I felt the day we lost Sam.  It’s still just horrible if I let myself think about it, so I can’t even begin to tell you how difficult it was for me to draw these portraits.  I hope I get to the point where I can draw a pet and I will fondly think of him with a smile, but so far I just can’t seem to shake the look of helplessness in my husband’s eyes and the hurt in my daughter’s.  It just makes my hair stand up….See what I mean?  I had no intention of bringing him up…and there it is!  When I least expect it, it comes and slaps me in the face.  Soooo…let me move on to something else.

   The painting.  I have been working on 3 16 x 24 (I think) museum wrapped panels for my living room.  Right now, it has so much paint on them that I had to put them outside to dry.  Outside it’s in the 60’s with a breeze…really nice.  I just hope the creepy crawlies don’t decide to crawl, jump, fly in, run, or walk on them.  I’ll post a picture soon (hopefully).

Be Well and Happy!

Owl Finished…

“Owl”

Mixed media on gray card

As I was uploading this I noticed that the owl looked like he was in the middle of a dance step…“You want it, you got it baby, you want it, baby you got it ..Just bust a move” Phahahaha.

In my last post, I had said that I didn’t really know if I would be able to finish this owl.  I don’t know how, but I managed to…..somewhat.  I wanted and planned to put in a background which was supposed to be skies and blurred trees.  Fear won out, and I ditched the background for a little limb and scratched in a little blue.  I think next time I will do the back ground first.

Have a great weekend!

A Tour…

We have a really small bedroom and trying to figure out what to put in there was really difficult.  But I think we did a pretty good job maximizing our space and I love it.  As promised, I’m posting the results of our labor. Beware!  There are a lot of pictures:)

 This is our new bed.  We have been wanting a leather headboard a LONG time, so this is a real treat.  The beautiful handmade quilt was a gift from Mrs. Ottaway. 

We wanted nightstands on both sides of the bed but there just wasn’t enough room.  So David bought shelves with some polished silver floating shelf brackets.  Presto!  We have night tables on both sides of the bed:) Above the bed is more storage with reading lights that David installed under the cabinet.  The lights are on a dimmer which is great.  Loving to read like I do, this is perfect because now he can sleep and I can read.  And the curtains?  I didn’t make them.  The fabric I wanted was more expensive than just buying some panels.  The curtains touched the floor, so I did shorten them. 

This is at another angle to show you the shelves on both sides of our bed and cabinet.  We also installed an outlet so we can charge our phone and use our computer in the bed if we want:)

This rug inspired a lovely argument.  I loved it and he hated it!  We went to Home Depot and Lowes a half a dozen times with me being irritated and David praying that I would like something else.  It never happened.  I won.  And now that the room is put together he likes it as much as I do and had to admit defeat. hee hee

This wardrobe fit perfectly inside the inset of our wall and replaces a dresser, chest, TV stand and jewelry box and it’s huge!  On the left side there is three cubicles with fabric boxes, a shelf for sweaters, a jewelry drawer, a wire rack drawer, and 6 long drawers.  Below is with the right side open to give you an idea

See how long the drawers are?

This is a very tall and narrow unit.  It holds my perfumes,  make up and other crap.  It will be a great place to store books too.

 

 These are the paintings that I managed to complete over the weekend.  I had no idea what would look right so I just grabbed a bunch of tubes that matched the colors of the room and I painted stripes in metallic and the bright colors of the quilt and rug.  I like it, it’s simple and colorful.

     Also, I believe these paintings meet one of my creative resolutions, I did say that I wanted to paint an abstract.

Through this whole experience I learned a valuable decorating lesson.  If you have a small room, the more free floor space you have the bigger the room looks.  It doesn’t translate in the pictures much, but our room looks alot bigger even with the huge furniture. This is very handy, because my other rooms are small too.

That’s it for the virtual tour.  I did warn you that it was going to be a long one. 

I hope you enjoy your day:)

 

Be Well and Happy!