being treated

when hubbie took the girls to visit family on saturday it finally gave me some time to paint!

i was so happy for some quiet time to make some ideas concrete. i know where im going now!

so happy.

we treated ourselves to a coffee machine. it is a life changer. unfortunately we did not meet george clooney when going to stock up on the gorgeous little capsules but i do enjoy choosing different flavours to suit my mood in the mornings.

have a great week.

arctic portraits



grizzly bear



 



musk ox





dall sheep

   

caribou

polar bear

i have always frowned upon watercolours thinking they were only used in 'pretty' landscapes. with my youngest running around, not yet 2 years old, and no extra room to spread out and paint with oils i decided to try watercolours. it took a while and a good  few sheets of watercolour paper before i got into them. i still have a way to go but i love the idea of the layering. the patience part is still a little problematic as i want to dive in with the deeper colours..

i have really enjoyed the process and have moved from arctic portraits to human ones :)

happy thursday!

back to the drawing board

i think its about time i stopped making excuses and return to the drawing board. i was tidying up lately and came across this painting. at the time i considered it unfinished and more of a sketch. i want to do more of these. i want to do a lot. a couple more hours in the day would be so useful. i read an article recently about creating art and that no matter what full days we have, we should make the effort every day to go into the studio, spare room, corner, whatever - and do something creative. even if its for half an hour. so this is my new resolution.

the heat is already with us. but of course, it is june today!!

a sad goodbye to the wonderful artist louise bourgeois who passed away yesterday at the age of 98. what an amazing artistic career she had.

finished painting

the summer holidays have begun and the heat is near unbearable already.
hope yours is a little cooler.

lessons 21 & 22

i have really enjoyed this one. being bolder than i am used too.

next week is our last class. i shall miss the structure of the course. but i have plans for next year :)

new

a wip

lesson 20

i havent painted from a model for such a long time and i do love it. i began this painting this morning and hope to finish next week. theres something about getting into the rhythm of a painting. i really could have sat there all day.

happy tuesday friends.

lesson 19

finished!!

lesson 18

nearly there - i am not going to 'fill in' the whole painting - i like the idea of keeping it alive.

i think the face looks rather raw but i am so proud of myself that i didnt go into all the little details. definitely a learning process. looking at it now, i realise that i have cut out half of the forehead.. to be fixed.

lesson 17

in this lesson i continued with my painting ... enjoying the bold shapes in the background..

we looked at some wonderful works of matisse and discussed how he used so much pattern in his work.

so full of life and such a major part of the paintings.

lessons 14 - 16

my first real oil painting attempt and i am in my element with this medium. i chose this photograph of my neighbour in london from quite a few years ago. i really wanted to try a portrait and i do love the details in this shot.

feeling quite hesitant in the beginning.. getting a feel for the oils and the idea of layers

this week we talked about pattern in art and how we can use it. once you start looking around you notice just how much pattern is used everywhere. and referring back to the image i am painting, its obvious that more than 50% of the picture is made up of pattern.

lessons 9 & 10

this is the stage i reached with my pink lady. there are quite a few problems with it. too much white paint for one thing. also i tend to lack in patience sometimes and dive in with a final colour instead of using more layers - therefore not allowing the light of the background through and not allowing the painting to 'breath'.

i didnt want to continue with it and so today continued with the next lesson.

first, a drawing of the still life - two peppers. to work out composition on the paper.

then a tonal study using only black and white paint.

and finally colour - but each time we took some paint from the pallette we only painted one stroke before taking more paint - building up the paiting in this way. it felt good to finish all three works in one session - the energy flowed from one to the other (with a short coffee break in the middle of course!)

here is the finished painting from the previous post.. i showed it to my teacher and he pointed out the amount of detail which i am aware of and would really like to avoid more. there are more problems with it but i have learnt a lot from doing it.

new work

hello friends,

the last year has not been too fruitful on the creative side but i am so excited and happy to begin 2009 with some new personal projects, a colaboration and several new ideas that have been brewing for a while. its time to bring them alive and the creatives energies are high up there on the scale.

i have begun this painting which will be part of a series but this is more of a 'draft' as i am putting into practise some of the points my teacher made. i am not sure of mediums to use - acrylic or gouache? i would love to hear your thoughts on different mediums.

i would also like to say a big thank you for emails and comments from friends.

have a lovely weekend. ours will include some quiet family time. xx