What's on my easel

December 4, 2013

I began my first acrylic painting (mixed media actually) after getting my acrylics paints, easel and brushes back. Sometimes a good studio purge (provided you have a friend who understands that you might need to get some things back) is very good therapy. It reduces the over-stimulation long enough to let you see more clearly what it is that you can't do without. Acrylic painting on canvas, my whimsical images with layers and layers of brush strokes and collage, was something I did not want to do without. Art journaling and watercolor and sketching from life is great, but it's not enough for me. I was itching to stand in front of a large canvas and let it flow with no concept of what I was going to paint, no realistic drawing from life, just an idea in my head of what I wanted to say with this piece. Then just throwing caution to the wind and beginning. No drawing on the canvas first, just wild abandon. I mean after all with acrylic, if you don't like it you can cover it up later and just keep layering. It's scary at first and you work and work and think - what if I screw all this up and can't recover it and lose all this time and paint and effort...but you keep going. 

December 29, 2013

I knew the quote I wanted to use - "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman. I love this quote! ALIVE. I want to be alive and I want my paintings to be alive - alive with color and lines and shapes and words. 

I stopped with the above version for a while, but it wasn't alive at all. I was just afraid to move forward. So I was stuck for a while.  

But then I decided to pick up with brush again and keep working. I got out the oil sticks and just went wild again - fearless.  And then!  It came alive!!!

And then it made me come alive all over again! Just look at these juicy flowers and swirls of oil paint on top of the acrylic colors. POP!

And look at the fireworks popping out of the flower centers! Love it.

Assignment from Letter Love class

The beginnings...
I did these flowers a while back and upon learning from Joanne Sharp's Letter Love (see: http://joannezsharpe.blogspot.com/) class, I added gridlines...


And tons of color using my new Tombow Markers and watercolors! Oh the love!



And can you BELIEVE I mispelled the word "Persistence" as "Persistance".
Now that is sad. I had it spelled right on my reference material - and to think I used to win spelling bees!!
Gee whiz, is this what happens in your early 40's!

A close up view...


And a peek at all my lovely supplies!


And one last look at the pages! Ooohh don't you just LOVE bright colors and letters!

A New Day, Fresh Inspiration, and What is Snow Cream

Today's efforts turned out okay. I just painted without worrying about who would like what and who would receive what. I just painted - for me. I will give these as gifts and I hope that the receiver will like them, not because they match their taste in colors, but because they're painted from my heart. Bright colors and all - I can't match a person's house - I just have to paint what's inside me. And it felt good!

Now what is snow cream everyone is asking:

Well Snow Cream is simply snow mixed with sugar, milk, and vanilla flavoring. Better than ice cream :-) I don't measure so I don't know how much to add of each ingredient, I just get it to the texture of ice cream and flavor it to taste.

Merry Christmas everyone!