Teaching a SLOW Student!

Have you ever tried to teach anyone something?  It can be difficult!  Its even more difficult if the student you are teaching is just NOT getting it, now imagine you are doing all that, WHILE you are trying to teach something you don't know!

That is the struggle of the self taught artist, trial, and error, and more error.

Lots of error.  I am trying to get the sky in a painting just right, that is how I am seeing it in my mind, it is taking a lot of error.

Here are some of my practice sheets where I practiced different techniques to try to get the results I wanted:

Real quality art there, right?

But its all part of learning without a teacher.

Eventually I moved back onto my canvas, and its not perfect yet, but I feel like I know what needs happen now, its just that the paint I already put down needs to dry before I can do more, otherwise my colors will mix and I will end up with a green sky.  I also keep reminding myself that it won't just be a sky, there will be land and a bridge, and water, the sky will end up being only a backdrop for everything else.  I keep telling myself that, but I want to get the sky perfect anyway. It is getting close to what I see in my head, and I think I'll be able to bring it around to that point in t the next painting session.

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Fine Art America is the place to go for Prints of all my Paintings.

 

My etsy shop is the place to go to buy my originals and request commissioned work. A few select prints are available here as well!

More Progress, and a Title!

Well, yesterday I posted some progress photos of my latest painting, and asked for suggestions on the title.  Today I put in several hours of work and I'm pretty much finished with the painting, I do need to do a little minor touch up work where a stray drop of paint has landed or where an earlier layer of color shows through a top layer that is supposed to be opaque, I'll also paint the sides of the canvas in black all around, and then put an isolation coat on and a coat of varnish... but the basic painting is done.  Once the touch up is done I'll set up good photography equipment and take a high quality photo to post, but for now, my cell phone photo is going to have to do.

I've also given a title lots of thought, and to me, each of the sections in this painting is like a door or portal into an isolated world of optical wonder and illusion.  So I'm strongly considering the title "Inlets to Illusion".

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I'm back, and I have a Lot of New Work!

I haven't been posting as regularly as I should, and there are many reasons for this.  One of them is that I've been very busy actually creating art, and therefore taking less time to blog about it.

I've made a lot of new pieces, and I've been showing them every chance I can, here I is my stuff at a local Art Walk in August (that's my hubby sitting on the chair feeding his face!):

I know this blog needs to made a little more interesting, so soon I will be doing some video postings about art.  

Here are some of my new pieces:

 

Thank you for reading! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

Walking Wine...

Just thought I'd pop in to share my latest work in progress.  The gallery owner requested wine related paintings for a "Wine Walk" that is coming up.  (For some reason I get a mental image of someone walking a bottle of wine on a leash like a dog...)

Anyway, here is my first of the paintings, it still needs a little touch up around the bottom of the bottle, and some color blending on the grapes, as well as needing to be photographed properly for prints... however, here is a quick snap shot of it.

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New Painting, "Dusk On Puget Sound" progress

Well, my new painting titled, "Dusk on Puget Sound" is finished... well almost.  I actually still need to get a good, high quality photo of it, and then varnish it, along with a few others that I've finished lately.

I finished the actual painting tonight though, and took a quick snap-shot of it to share, I'm afraid the colors on the photo aren't quite accurate... when I get the good quality photo I will post that, but for now this is the best I could do.

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Gallery Acceptance, and What's on My Easel

Yesterday was a great day for me art-wise. I went to the post office to ship off a painting that sold, and while I was there I noticed a gallery in town that I'd never noticed before. This is probably because I rarely go to the shopping center near the post office, there is another down the street where I usually shop.

Anyway, I went into the gallery and started up a conversation with the woman there, who seemed very interested in seeing my work. Then the owner of the gallery came in, and he was also interested. So I gave them my website to view my portfolio, and also went home and gathered up some of my paintings to show them in person. I am very pleased to say that they will be displaying 5 of my paintings!

 I've also been making progress on my Peacock paintings that I started at the art walk. Here is what is on my easel right now:

I was thrilled about the gallery, and I still am, although the person in my life who should have been most encouraging was absolutely not encouraging at all, and in fact seemed very irritated that I had taken time out of my day to bring paintings down to the gallery.  Oh well, I guess some non-artistic people just don't get it, to me, getting my work in a gallery was far more important than the day's chores, or doing a load of laundry, or anything like that.

 
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The Chrome Monster gets a New Name.

Once upon a time there was, living in the mind of an artist, an idea to paint a picture of one of the coolest cars in the history of American cars.  So this artist, although she had never attempted to paint anything shiny or reflective before, decided to paint a Chevy Bel Air from the mid 1950's, she ended up deciding on a 1956 since she had reference photos of that year available to her.

So this artist started off, and kept telling herself that she could figure out a way to paint all of that shiny red metal, and silvery, reflective chrome.  She had no idea how she was going to do it, but just started painting what she saw, carefully matching values and colors, though she changed a few things like the photographer's reflection in the bumper of the reference photo.

It was a difficult painting, and while working on it the artist bestowed on it the name of "Chrome Monster" as she realized just how much of that challenging, shiny surface the 1956 Chevy had.  In her head, as she painted, she kept reminding herself, "don't worry, paint what you see, the printer didn't have any metalic ink, and it managed to produce a picture of chrome, so can you.".

Finally, after many days, she stepped back and looked at the painting and realized that it was done.  She was so happy with the result that she no longer saw it as monster, and instead decided to name it the "Chrome King".

And here it is:

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Chrome Monster Progress! Taking Shape!

The Chrome Monster is starting to take shape, I think for my first effort at shiny metal, and my first effort at a car, its coming along pretty good.  What do you think?

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Looking for a Gallery

I am really wanting to find a local gallery to represent my art, but so far have not had much luck.  I actually had one gallery owner look over my pieces, and actually say that he would put them in his gallery if I produced more animal art, which he said was one of the strongest selling.  So I went home and produced four of my best animal paintings, he looked at them and apologized, saying that he had filled the spot in the meantime while I was making those, and to check back in a few months. At first I was very irritated that I spent so much time preparing paintings specifically for him (see the paintings below) and he didn't end up putting them in his gallery  but then I realized that I thoroughly enjoyed doing them, and had learned that I had a knack for painting animals, which I didn't realize I had before that, so I really wasn't too upset.

Now though, the issue remains that I still don't have gallery representation.  I can keep trying to sell online, but honestly, a gallery is an artist's best bet for getting sales.  So, after the artwalk on April 13, I am going to start really pursuing that gallery representation.

   
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The "Chrome Monster" in progress.

I just thought I'd share a picture of my latest piece in-progress.  I'm jokingly calling it the "Chrome Monster" because it is so absolutely loaded with shiny, reflective chrome, which is a challenge for me to paint realistically.  I think the real name of the piece will be "When Cars Were Cool" or something like that.

Anyway, all I've done so far is outline everything, paint some lines to indicate main value areas, and start blocking in some of the darkest value areas.  I went a little furter than that with the hub cap though, and blocked in all of the main value areas except for the brightest highlights, which I will save for last.

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Working, working, working....

So, I've been continuing to work on my art pieces.  I finished an abstract yesterday VERY late at night, and I finished another pet portrait today.

The pet portrait was of a cat named Biz Biz, I got the photo, which was taken from a cell phone, so it wasn't the highest quality picture.  I made due though, I started with this:

Well, right away I decided to crop the image, and focus more on Biz Biz's face.  Here is the cropped picture:

Then to help me see the subtle nuances of the colors, I cranked up the saturation on the photo:

Then I was ready to sketch and paint, and the result was this:

The title doesn't show all the way on that preview, it is "Biz Biz Another Green Eyed Tiger".

As I mentioned before, I also completed an abstract last night.  I had been looking at lots of Kandinksy's work earlier in the day, because of seeing a friend's work that reminded me of Kandinsky.  So I combined the bright colors that I had been seeing in Kandinsky's work, with the the type of abstract pattern designs I use in a lot of my abstracts.  The result was "Tranquility", named such because that is how I felt while creating it... tranquil.

 

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My Freedom Series

I'm sure if you've read the past several posts, you've noticed a lot of bald eagles in my sketchbook.  That is because I am working on a series of paintings I am calling my "Freedom Series".  I'm not sure how many I will paint in the series, but the first two are finished.

The first one I call Freedom's Hope, and its a bald eagle, symbol of Freedom for so many, looking up to the maker, continuing to hope in good times and in trials, as Americans have done since the birth of our nation.

And the next one I call "Freedom's Pride", it depicts a A bald Eagle, symbol of American freedom and pride, perched on a branch overlooking part of the beautiful Puget Sound.

While I haven't decided yet how many will be in this series, I do know that I'll do a few more, however, before I do I'm going to do a few pet portraits, in preparation for an upcoming art walk where I plan to advertise that service.

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New (old) Additions!

I've been combing through my jpeg files, looking for digital versions of paintings and photographs that are fine-art-print-worthy but haven't yet been posted to my website.  I have been a photographer for a long time, so its going to take a while to go through everything.  Today I added four new images three were photographs I took some time ago, and one was jpeg of one of my paintings that I just didn't get around to posting yet.
Now I want everyone who reads this to know that while I do try to sell my art, by no means do I want this blog to be just an extension of my selling website.  Rather, I am hoping to make it a more general art blog, with suggestions, perhaps tutorials, pictures of the process of creating, and thoughts in general.
I hope this blog will be of interest to people who like art, even if they don't plan to purchase any.
So here the newest additions to the website, enjoy browsing even if you don't wish to purchase!  And share your favorite images with your friends!

 

  

Thank you for reading! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

A Sell!

As a still emerging artist, each and every sell is exciting to me.  Well, yesterday I sold one of my original paintings!  It was "Green Eyed Tiger", you can see it below.  I will still be showing this work at my art walk exhibit, but it will be marked "sold" and will be given to the purchaser right after.  Prints of course are still available for purchase!