Up coming Show in White Rock BC

  

I have been quite busy getting ready for an Art and Craft Sale tomorrow and have put the 120 paintings (see blog entries below) on hold while working on all of these pieces.  Please click on the images to see them larger.

 

'Dreaming' -  Mixed Media on Wood

                                           'The Traveling Monkeys' - Mixed Media on Wood

                                                       'Play' - Mixed Media on Masonite

                                                    'Dream' - Mixed Media on Masonite

                                                       'Poppies' -  Acrylic on Canvas

                                                       'Poppies' - Acrylic on Canvas

                                           'Poppy' - Acrylic on Masonite                                                                        These are 4 separate paintings and look like ceramic tile in person.  I should have scanned them separately but was pressed for time.  

                                            'Meow' - Acrylic on Cedar Shingle

                                                 'Mr. Mittens' - Acrylic on Canvas

                                               'Fretting Mittens' - Acrylic on Canvas

                                                       'Imagine' - Mixed Media on Masonite

 

'Be Who You Are' - Mixed Media on Wood

                                           'Ladies of the Forest Series - Annie'  - Oil on Canvas

'Ladies of the Forest Series - Jessie' - Oil on Canvas

 The above two pictures you really need to click on to see Annie and Jessie.

All the above work (except those on canvas) have wire with beads attached for hanging.  It just looked quite cluttered when I scanned them showing the wires and beads.

EDM #24(? again?) and Painting #3 of 120

Painting #3, I don't like this one.  I don't mind the melon but I hate the background.  I wanted a soft soft barely there pink, not the 1968 bathroom pink. ( and this is toned down)  What did I learn?        
1.  Practice mixing paint   2.  Mix some paint up and test it out before laying it down.  3.  Do what I did for this one... Move on, it is a bad painting, I'm going for 120 of them and this is just one of them.
I hated the cat in the entry below and thought he was horrible until I loaded it with the photo of him and then I didn't mind it as much ( Yes, I made him fatter than he is, I see that now)

EDM #44 and 120 Paintings #2

 

The goal or purpose of doing 120 paintings is from the quote 'You learn a lot about painting from painting 120 bad paintings.'  (See entry below) I definitely learned a lot from this one.  I have done
a lot of sketches of my cats and one thing I learned is it was much harder for me to paint him then draw him.  I also learned 'relax'!  It is 120 'bad' paintings.  I started this last Thursday and it took
a lot longer than the one or two hours that you're supposed to give yourself.  I started fretting and worked really late on it until my eyes felt like they were looking out the side of my head.  I stopped and thought I was far from finished and didn't come back to take a look at it until Monday night when to my surprise I realized he was DONE!  I just needed to highlight his eyes.  I was shocked but it taught me something.  That is one mistake I keep making, I keep working and working on a piece and
over work them too often.  Walk away, leave it and look at it another day!

EDM #24 and 120 Paintings #1

I watched a Webinar  yesterday with artist Larry Seiler.  One of his statements was 'It takes 120 Bad paintings to learn something about painting.'  He encouraged us to get painting, do a painting a day for the next 120 days.  His only rules were do it small, post card size or a little larger but no bigger than 8x10.  Do it quickly, one hour,  2 hours max if just starting.  Use large brushes and paint loosely.  Paint
anything, just paint.  He even showed us a painting he did of his breakfast. A fried egg in the pan. He also gave us a link to one of his past students Jeff Mahorney which I found very inspiring. Well worth the look.  So here is my meager beginning.  #1   I thought the EDM list would help with the ideas.  Looking over it I decided on #24 Draw a piece of Fruit because I had just bought these apples for there beautiful markings.  Hopefully I am back tomorrow with another painting.

Finally I'm Back... and Blind Contour Fridays

Finally, I am back.  I didn't mean to be this long.  Busy, odd summer.  To keep it short, I was wounded for the month of July and the weather was cold.  I did manage to do half of an art festival (in pain) I sold a lot which was great but... I was in pain and forgot to take pictures of the items that sold.  Now they are gone and I have no record of them.  Oh well, they were sold and the people that bought them 'loved' them.

I thought a good place to start back was with the Blind Contour Fridays I do with my son to finish off our week of homeschooling.

A Card for My Cousin

This is the front of a card I painted for my cousin.  She came to visit me in British Columbia from Ontario and just loved our coast line.  One day while we were walking along the beach, she was picking up shells and looking at them, putting them down and picking up another.  She picked up a beautiful oyster shell and suddenly started to be stocked by a Sea gull.  All around the beach and along our mile long pier this Sea Gull followed her, its mouth wide open making a very intense wheezing sound.  I guess it figured she was stealing its shells.  Now she is back home and to commemorate her visit I painted this card titled 'The Wheezing Seagull' for her.

Sketchbook Challenge

This is for April's Sketchbook Challenge 'Branching Out'.  I know, it seems quite literal doesn't it?  But this is how I have been feeling for the last few months.  I took a course on marketing my art in January and was very motivated by new ideas and opportunities to enter a number of shows.  I started working in new mediums and with 'series' in paintings.  Suddenly the motivation turned to fear and I felt like I had stepped out on a limb in my rudey nudey.  What can I do? Put my hands in the air and say "Here I am world, take me or not!"  Thanks for taking a peek.

Blind Contour Friday

Finally, back to Blind Contour Fridays.  This is a large and small poseable mannequin that Benjamin and I drew.  Benjamins is on top and mine is below.  I liked the robotic look they have and the swirly lines of Benjamins drawing.

The Sketchbook Challenge - February

This is my sketch for the February Sketchbook Challenge 'Opposite'.  I thought of a bunch of ideas but those 28 days of February went so fast, March snuck up on me and night and day was all I got done.

Blind Contour Friday and Watercolor Science

This week we drew my daughter's jewelery box from when she was a little girl (when the movie 'Anastasia' came out)  She chose the theme this week and joined us.  It is nice doing blind contours with a group because you can look at each others interpretation and also see what they concentrated on. [top left: Tabi's, top right: Ben's, bottom left: The picture of what it looks like, bottom right: mine


Yesterday we had unusually cold weather for where we live,  and I had a thought seeing frost on the car window.  What would happen if you did a wash of water color and put it outside wet?  I got my answer.  It actually showed up.  What a happy surprise!

Blind Contour Fridays

This weeks entry for Blind Contour Fridays was an azalea plant my Mom sent me for my Anniversary.  My Son is very quick so when he was done he decided to draw the bird feeder outside the kitchen window.  Looking at his bird feeders and how detailed he got them and the curved hooks of the holder, I think that subject interested him more than the plant. I liked how the lines of the azalea came out in mine, probably better than if I had looked at my paper.

Life Drawing Wednesday's

I started in a Life Drawing Group every Wednesday and thought I would post every week, but the last two weeks, I was too embarrassed of my work to post.  I even started to wonder what I was doing in this group.  This weeks model was very inspiring and relaxed and I was happy with the results enough to post.

Blind Contour Fridays

This is the last Blind Contour Friday with Peggy.  My son and I enjoy doing them together and they have become such a part of our Friday Schedule (people with Asperger's like routines and schedules, completely opposite of my personality)  We will be continuing to post on the Flickr Blind Contour group if you are interested.  This week we drew my daughters gum ball machine.  Benjamin's is the top drawing.  I liked that he got the globe of it so round. Twice.  I also like that he captured the gumballs inside.  Thanks for following along.

Blind Contour Fridays - We're the featured Artists

This week my son and I have the honor of being the featured artists at Peggy Cox sight  http://blindcontourfriday.com/2011/02/blind-contour-friday-week-five/
We were both thrilled and happy to be asked.
With all the kind responses and followers my son receives at his blog  http://www.mixupfun.blogspot.com/       and then being asked to be the featured artist he had to ask this morning, "Am I famous?"
Benjamin has Asperger's Syndrome and found by Grade 4 the public school system far too stressful.  When I began homeschooling him I couldn't say the word school and I couldn't teach him in a formal school style.  So I began just doing art with him and from there snuck learning into the art sessions.  (flour dough mixtures to make North America and then paint it in, 3 dimensional models of the solar system, things like that)  When I started Blind Contour Drawings as part of a course I was taking, Benjamin was very intrigued and wanted to do them as well.  So we started doing them together.    When Peggy started Blind Contour Friday we made it part of  our schedule.  We look forward to ending the week of school with the blind contours.  Thank you Peggy

Sketch Book Challenge for January - 'Highly Prized'

 

This is my entry for January's Sketchbook Challenge - Highly Prized.  It is my goal this year to challenge myself with more difficult drawings like people and pets and more difficult poses.  No more easy way out straight on poses.  What better way to start then with the challenge of Highly Prized, of course I would pick my children first and then my cats.

Blind Contour Fridays

Funny how much better my scans look on my desk top.  You can really see my sons Blind Contour from last Friday through his today.  His is on the bottom and mine is on the top.  It is his laptop he uses for his school work and all his creations on his blog http://www.mixupfun.blogspot.com/ 

The First Dandelion of the Season

In 1996 my husband and I moved from Ontario to British Columbia because of Ontario's Looooonnnggg winters.  We do get a lot of rain here in the winters but at least we don't shovel it and when the sun comes out we rejoice at the greenness and freshness of everything.  We just finished a long stretch of rain (a lot even for us)  I said to my daughter in the fall, (after a heat wave) "I'm looking forward to the rainy days, making tea, lighting candles, reading and snuggling with a cat."  Monday I was done with that feeling!  I looked out the window at the dark day and realized it was 3:00 in the afternoon and we had the lights on. Enough, turn off the rain now.   Well today was one of those days to rejoice.   We woke up to sunshine and temperatures of 11〫C or  50〫F.   I went out to pull weeds that had taken over the front garden during the rain.  Something yellow in the lawn caught my eye.  Could it be?  It is!  A dandelion on January 26th!!!  (Yes, I know in a few more months, I will be saying 'enough of the dandelions'.

Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop - Week 4

This is my entry for Week 4 (the final week) of the Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop.  We were to add lettering or add to the journaling  we already had and then highlight areas and doodle to fill in.  Basically 'play', something I forget to do.  There are to more workshops coming up, one March 1st and the other May 1st and they are FREE!  Just look on the Strathmore website.  Thanks for watching the page progress throughout the workshop.

Blind Contour Fridays

This weeks entries for Blind Contour Friday's.  My son is a lot quicker than I am and did two before I finished my one.  I tried the one continuous line this week, which I think helped me line up the buttons.

Life Drawing Wednesday's

About 20 years ago a Life Drawing group was started in our area by some local artist.  I have been on the waiting list for just over 3 years and finally got the call, my name had come up.  The first group was this past Wednesday (and every Wednesday)  We started with some 1Minute poses.  In the past I have never been able to get much down in 1 minute but practicing blind contours and gesture poses at home has helped me, as most times I was able to get an out line of the model.  The last one was a 25 minute pose.  I enjoyed doing this one, I thought it was fun, but some of the other artist don't like props they just want to draw the form.

Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop Week 3

This is my week 3 of the Strathmore Visual Journal Workshop.  This week we were to add to the negative space.  This whole workshop has been about re-using.  Re-using copies of our own art work, re-using supplies each week and this week was particularly fun... re-using things we might throw away like bubble wrap and the mesh bag from produce, milk caps etc.

Blind Contour Friday

Finally, Blind Contour Friday with my son again!  My daughter had jaw surgery on the 16th of December and needed a lot of care, so I took time off homeschooling (It was the holidays as well) Today for math we played Shut-The-Box so when I asked him what we should draw for Blind Contour Friday he chose it.  Mine is on top and his is in the middle.  I liked how his handle and chain turned out.  When he was finished and looked at it he exclaimed, "Wow, I'm a great drawer."  Yippee! for him.