I struggled mightily with the shape of the hat and face in this painting. The hat is now half the size it was and the face is twice the size it was!!! Figures are tough. But, I have the sense of the scene at least now – it feels like she and her bird are enjoying morning light through a high window. Maybe she’s off to school for the day? I’m off to the next painting! Ciao!
For more information email me.
I continue to discover new methods for using acrylic paints and mediums every week in my Monday mixed media class. The possibilities are really endless! Last week we used a variety of acrylic mediums and improvised tools to create physical textures on our chosen surface [canvas board, watercolor paper, mat board, or stretched canvas]. Each medium appears differently on each surface – do the math on that! Lots of opportunity to play for life.
In this example I started by drizzling gesso in an area and then flattened a portion of that with a palette knife and did some scrafetti into it. Then I pressed some light molding paste through a box stencil, spread some gel gloss [regular & and soft] and then scraped into, pressed into, and stamped into it with various items to create textures. After all of this dried I puddled dilute fluid acrylics in warm tones across the surface. The paint dries differently in each of the various areas of texture. It makes for an interesting start – but, most of the texture is not visible on this photo. [Note: all products listed are made by Golden]
We were meant to work with this start abstractly at least at the beginning but I find that very challenging. Without “thingness” I struggle to know how to move forward. However, I dove in and glazed some transparent areas then added darker passages and towards the end some opaque areas. I tend to see figures in everything I look at and this was no exception. It naturally evolved, what can I say?
Naturally, this process is a teeter-totter – if you make a mark in one place you have to respond to that mark somewhere else. Completing a piece could, quite literally, take forever. It’s a matter of knowing what you like and quitting as soon as you see it. Doesn’t that sound easy? HA HA… right!!!! It’s a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without any edges. The good news is that light areas can be lost and found and lost and found again – yay for acrylics! It’s a fun challenge. Here’s a photo of the piece as it was before class today, warts and all. I’ll have a new and improved version here tomorrow. Cheers!
Last week my Monday painting class homework was to work on a painting using acrylic paints thickly, somewhat like is done with oils. The week had shot by with NO time for me to sit down to experiment. Monday morning I awoke at a decent hour and got busy. I used a palette knife to do all but a few glazes over the entire surface. This little painting [about 5”x6”] was simply to get a feel for how the materials works with heavier mediums added to them. It was a lot of fun – I just played! 
Here are some more of the paintings that I have available for sale:
“Cosmos” [$50] and “Lilies" [$50] are both double matted and backed with archival material ready to pop into a standard 8.5” x 11” frames.
“Manitou Day Lilies” [ $60] and “Apple Blossoms” [$50] are both double matted and backed with archival material ready to pop into 12”x12” frames which are quite common.
If you have questions about any of my artwork please don’t hesitate to email me or call 403.242.5445. Enjoy!
The following original watercolor paintings are available for purchase [archival quality matting and backing as shown]:
$190 - “St Albert Elevators”, watercolor painting matted to fit standard 20”x30” frame size.
$45 – Choice of 3 small paintings of the same subject [matted to fit standard 11x14” frame]:
$140 “Spirit Island” [located in Jasper National Park, Alberta] watercolor painting matted to fit standard 20”x24” frame size. Click to read the story behind “Spirit Island”.
$45 – Choice of 2 small paintings of the same subject [matted to fit standard 11x14” frame]:
Please email me if you are interested in purchasing or would like more information. Cheers!
This blog has suffered some neglect this fall, particularly over the past 3 weeks while I matted and framed some of my paintings for the Market Collective last weekend. I’m excited to get back painting again. Also, I’m happy to report that my experience at the market was good despite the scary winter storm that we had over the weekend – it certainly hampered the usual traffic for the vendors.
Thanks to all of you that were able to come by the market over the weekend on those awful roads. Here are the pieces I sold over the weekend…I just love the look of these red dots don’t you?
Boneyard Chevy
Sheep River Falls
Rock Isle Lake
Stay tuned tomorrow for information on paintings that are still available and how you can make one yours. Cheers!
It’s been a long time since I posted on my blog… too long. But, I’ve made a lot of progress with preparation for the Dec 5/6 Market Collective. More on that soon.
This evening Sharon, Lindsey, Sheila, Heidi and I met for a little windup party for our altered book collaboration. It was so much fun to pass the books around and talk over the various methods used. What a talented bunch of friends I have!
Here’s the last installment for Heidi’s book. The hospitalitea theme was such fun to work on! This is a simple spread which began with black gesso over all but the animal parade at the top and the small teapot still life in the bottom right. To that I collaged a photo of one of my paintings before rolling some whitish/yellowish paint over a letter stencil to add some texture. Some old scrapbooking stickers and some collage bits from tissue paper [the kids are cute!] followed.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family in the USA!
Over the past few years I’ve accumulated a lot of paintings in various stages of completion. I did this painting and blogged about it about a year ago. This is what it looked like then.
Something has always bugged me about it but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I decided I’d give it one more chance by glazing the busy background and distracting colors in the leaves with a unifying, complementary violet. A friend was over here painting that day and she suggested that the left lily just wasn’t working shape-wise… [never-mind that’s how God made it, lol]. So, I went to work reshaping the top petal and pushing it back into the background. I also lifted some paint out of the lilies and gave them some highlights. One last step seemed advisable… I cropped the painting down to make the right lily dominant. I like it a LOT better. What do you think?
