Turn Up the Heat

Oh well!  Things don't always turn out the way we want.  Yesterday I wanted to finish my "Inlets to Illusion" painting and photograph it.  I did manage to finish it, but I didn't get the picture taken while I had good light. You see, I don't have studio lights for my art, but my porch just so happens to get perfect lighting for photographing a painting, but only for about an hour or two a day.  So I have my porch set up for it, with nails in several places on the front door so that I can hang the paintings there, set up my tripod, and take the picture.  Well, yesterday I let that "golden hour" pass, today I'll be at church during the "golden hour", so I'll have to try tomorrow.

Now, that painting took months to finish, and it didn't require a lot of realistic drawing because it was mostly abstract op-art.  So I have been feeling out of practice on my drawing.  I decided to sketch something, I looked around my house for something to set in front of me and sketch.  I decided to sketch my space heater.  Now bear in mind that I didn't use any rulers or vanishing points, I just looked at the heather and drew freehand.  I also didn't spend a lot of time at it, it was just a quick sketch, for practice at drawing what I see. The heater has wood casing, and a decoratively curved lip in front on the top and bottom I struggled with that lip, I think I cane closer to getting it right with the bottom.  I realize I should have cleaned up my eraser lines more, but as I said, it was just for practice.

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Don't Leave Me Hanging!

Don't you hate it when people leave you hanging? They start to tell you about something, and then never finish, or never let you know the outcome to something they were excited about?

So do I, but sometimes I still end up doing just that.  An example would be that way back in May of 2014 I showed my readers a painting from start to finish, and told them it was going to be entered into a juried show.  Then I neglected to let anyone know if the painting had been accepted to the show or not.

Well, better late than never right?  To refresh your memory, this was the painting:

And it was one of three that I was going to enter into a juried show.  Well, it did get accepted, it was the only one of my paintings that did get accepted.  Now, this show gets hundreds of submissions, and rejects most of them, only showing a handful of what is submitted.  So even being accepted is a huge honor, especially for a completely self-taught artist like myself.  However that wasn't the end of the honor.  When I went to the exhibit, I noticed this attached to the wall next to my painting.

It turns out that in the category of paintings they gave three prizes, and I didn't win one, but each Juror also got to select ONE work from ALL categories that he personally felt should have been awarded the prize, and give it an honorable mention.  So juror Venker chose my painting from every single work in the show, and he personally told me that he had voted for it to win in the painting category.

Okay, so sure, I'd have liked to have won a prize, but to get accepted was a big deal, then to get an honorable mention out of all the works there.  I was very pleased.

I will soon be adding this painting to my etsy shop, I have to photograph it in the frame as well as the photo above so people can see how it will look in their home.  However prints of it are available right now, the photograph below is the print quality one, that best shows the true colors and values of the original.  Click on it to see a much larger version on Fine Art America.

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you see, please consider following this blog with Google Friend connect, or follow me on Google+, or if you prefer, you can follow by email and get notified each time the blog is updated. See the right hand column to follow in any of these ways! I welcome your suggestions on how to make this blog more interesting to you!

 

Somewhere, in the Far Reaches of Space

OH NO!!!  Somewhere on a distant planet, in the far of reaches of outer space, there's an Alien swimmer who forgot their towel on the branch of sphere tree.

Okay, okay, its not outer space, its just the space between my ears, and the planet exists only in my mixed media sketch book... but still...

Alien Landscape, by Vicki Maheu
Watercolor pencils on vellum.  Copyright Vicki Maheu, all rights reserved.

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Word for the Year

Have you noticed the trend on blogs of selecting a word for the year?  I have been debating what word I want for my year, it could be "create", it could be "vibrancy", both of those struck me as worthy of being selected... but instead, I am choosing a word that might come as surprise to many.

That's right, my word is discipline.  Why? Because its what I need in so many parts of my life.  I need it in the area of health and nutrition, I need it in the area of housekeeping, I need it in the area of spirituality, and I desperately need it in the areas of art.

If I am going to improve my art and see my life as an artist grow, I simply must discipline myself to work on it regularly.  I love doing it, but so often I put it off, and don't start.  I need to at least sketch four or five times a week, but preferably be working on more than just simple sketches and putting in time on my paintings, try new mediums, and learn new techniques.

So my word for 2015 is Discipline.

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Something Old for the First Day of the New Year

Well, I was glancing through my sketchbook earlier, and I found a sketch I completed over a year ago, when Al, the man who facilitates an art group I was part of challenged me to do my best to draw him in no more than two minutes.  Well, I don't have a photograph of him to show you by comparison, but I can tell you that my daughter, who hasn't seen the gentleman for a very long time, saw it and right away asked, "Is that Al?"

Sketch of Al Mulkey, by Vicki Maheu

This reminds me that I need to get back into frequent sketching, and sometimes putting a time limit on it doesn't hurt anything, after all, by limiting the time spent so severely, it forces the artist to pick the important features that identify the subject, it kind of trains your mind what is important to create a general likeness.

Of course, this is just a sketch, if I was trying to do a real portrait I would take more time, use more details and do some shading, but for just a quick sketch, I think it turned out pretty good.

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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".

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

New Abstract Piece in Almost Done!

Well, I've been working on a new abstract piece for my sister's "red and black" room, and I've nearly finished it.  I thought it might be nice to post some photos of the process today, then in a few days or  maybe a week or two when I'm finished, I'll post a photo of the finished piece.

First, I started off with a 30x24 inch canvas, and the only three colors of paint I would use for this painting, pyrrol red, titanium white, and mars black.

My first step was to cover the entire canvas in a coat of titanium white, of course, the canvas is white so this may seem silly, but it does serve a purpose, it gives me a much smoother surface to work on, and insures that later if I need to use some white to cover up and mistakes or splotches (or arm prints), the spot that I cover with it will match the background of the painting.

The next step was to use mars black and randomly divide the canvas into sections by making lines from edge to edge in a freeform style, and then to paint a black border all around the edge.

Then I proceeded to add details and designs into each section, using only the three colors I mentioned above.

 

Each time I worked at it, I added a little more detail, and tried to use different designs in each section. I decided to also make designs in the black lines that divided the canvas, but not in the border around the edge.

Some sections took longer than others, because of the extremely small detail I chose to use.  I started the painting on August 5th, but not only did I put in a lot of detail, I also became a grandma, took a three week road trip to my home state of California, and dealt with the holidays, so its now December 30th, and the painting is still not completed.

But, it is getting much closer! As I got closer to the end, I decided I wanted a few more "just" black and white sections, so I added a striped sphere like section on top of another section, and also did several sections with no red.  

So, I still have at least 4 more hours of work on this just to finish the painting, then I'll need to put on the isolation coat and varnish. Last of all, I need to come up with a title, I am toying with "illusions" as a title, but I am unsure right now if that is what I want to call it, feel free to comment with your suggestions!

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