Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Click to buy
A new friend from Europe was looking at my online gallery
a few days ago and noticed that my style
varies wildly.
I get bored.
One one hand, that's a good thing,
it makes me explore new mediums and techniques.
It makes the world of art appear limitless.
I can do whatever I want on my little
 world of canvas or paper.
Lots of fun.
On the other hand,
it seems to annoy galleries, collectors and
European friends.

Hmmmm.

So, my internal artist has been digesting this.
Wandering around the internet,
looking at artwork by artists I admire.
Sure enough, they seem to have a rather static style.

So, in the interest of switching things up once again,
 I've decided to start with
the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge
hosted by Leslie Saeta.
I've already committed to it.
Now I am setting parameters for myself
such as subject, canvas size and surface, palette
and now I am thinking style must be added.
Can I paint 30 paintings all in one style?
Of course I can.

Can't I?

Well, we will certainly see.
The last two angel paintings as well as the first couple were all painted on canvases that were first prepared with black gesso.
So I am thinking that at least ten canvases must be prepped with black gesso.
The angel in shades of gray was done on a surface prepped with
a modeling compound.
So ten will get modeling compound.
I'm leaving ten as wild cards.
They may get surface preps and they may not.
They key will be they will all be more or less in the same style.
Mixed media acrylic (less expensive than my oils)
big brush, expressive and a touch of linear.

The angel in this blog is in that style,
big impressionist strokes,
scraped in lines.
Click on the bottom
to see more details.

Check back for more information on the upcoming 30 in 30 challenge.
I'll be posting information on my preparations
and daily paintings right here!


Thursday, July 21, 2016

New works and a bit of catching up


Oh my!
It's been a long time since I've been here.
So I've tidied up a bit.
Changed a few things here and there.
Preparing for the next big project.
Yep, I've got a surprise coming for you, but that's for another day.
For today, we"ll play a bit of catch up.
Last up was my first angel.
Since then I've been painting and drawing angels
like a mad woman.
Some have wings, some are just little angels.
Angel faces.
You know I work in a photo studio
that caters to children and their families.
I love my work.
I love creating beautiful images of the children.
So it wasn't surprising when I started to want to draw tiny faces.
The Renaissance artists called them "putti",
baby angels.
Their tiny faces have an entirely different proportion from adults.
What I really love is their expressions.
So honest, even when their sad, like the little one above.

Sometimes I just got carried away and the little ones went WILD!

I had no idea I could have this much fun with a pencil and an eraser.
I actually only use the eraser to add shapes and highlights.
I have some erasers that look like pencils
and I can sharpen them to tiny points to get details.

I am also using some water soluble pencils and charcoal.
Everything gets sealed so not a single smear or smudge can happen
once I am finished.

That's it for now.
Next up will be my winged angels.
I've painted one for each of the terrorist attacks.
Just painting them helps soothe me
a little, gives me hope,
and a prayer for a world with a bit more
peace.