A short and speedy clip

I discovered the hyperlapse setting on my phone! Yay! I love watching artists in their speed painting videos so I decided to try it myself. Yesterday I set up my little blue flexible tripod with my phone in it and did a clip of me working on the next bird nest painting. This is only the second time doing this. Hopefully these little clips will get better with practice. Light can be an issue in my studio so I might have to experiment with the placement of my easel and I have to figure out a way to get closer to the canvas too.

Anyway..... here's a short clip of a work in progress. It's an 8x8 canvas that I first textured with super heavy gesso. After letting that dry overnight I painted the whole canvas red, sketched the design and then applied gold leaf. Here I'm working with acrylic. I'm not done at the end of the clip, I still have some work to do so I'll share it when it's finished.

Thanks for watching!

No tricks, just a work in progress

I've been back in the studio painting- nests of course. I'm not sure how long I'll be painting these but for now I'm going with the proverbial flow. As long as they keep hold of my heart and mind then I'll keep on making them.

Recently, one of my students was wondering what my process is for painting the nests so I thought I'd post a few work in progress pics.

Here you can see I've already got the gold in place. Before I can apply the gold I prep the canvas. The first thing I do is apply a layer of Super Heavy Gesso with a large palette knife. You can see the texture on the canvas surface. That layer of gesso is pretty thick so I leave it to dry over night. When it's dry I coat the canvas with a primary red acrylic. 

Then I use a white charcoal or pastel pencil to sketch in the outline of the nest. This gives me a map for the adhesive size used to adhere the gold. Once the size is tacky - that takes approximately 15-30 minutes - I place the gold leaf, brush off the excess, and this is what the canvas looks like.

In this next step I've coated the rest of the canvas, all areas without gold, with burnt umber. After the paint is dry I use the same pastel pencil to sketch in the main elements. I mark the edge of the nest opening, the largest pieces of leaves, plastic, or other bits of debris the birds used for building.

I paint those large pieces in first and then use a liner brush to start building the layers of grasses and twigs that are woven together. When I build these layers I work from dark to light starting with a burnt sienna\burnt umber mix and adding other colors as I get lighter and lighter.

Fledged

12x12

acrylic and gold leaf

The final strokes are the lightest ones, the ones that make the painting pop and give it depth. I think the toughest challenge about these paintings is photographing them because of the gold leaf. In every photo the gold looks a little different. It all depends on the angle, the time of day, the light- if it's overcast or sunny outside. You can see the difference even in these progress pictures. At the same time, that's my favorite thing about these paintings- the way the painting changes with the light. It's not a trick but sure is a treat! LOL, I know..... way too corny but couldn't help myself. 

Happy Halloween ya'll!

So many paintings... so little time.

Hope everyone's good. I've been busy in the studio since the last post. Finished this nest....

And then painted this one..... sold another one.....

Then for a change of pace I started this landscape with a flowering tree. I wanted to play with some different colors and shapes. I've done a couple of other pieces similar to this one and love the blue-greens against the gold leaf.

From this angle you can see the texture and shine of the gold. I'm using metallic gold acrylic to drybrush gold along the edge of the leaf. It softens the edge and makes a good transition between the 2 areas. And it shows off the texture too. Love the texture!

So right after starting this landscape I found an old nest in a tree in my yard. I got on a step stool to get some shots of it to paint from. It was well seated in between the branches so it wasn't easy to take photos.

The next day I decided to see if I could get the nest out of the tree without damaging it. It was tricky but I did it with only losing a couple of little twigs. 

Of course, now I'm dying to paint the new nest!!! It's going to take some discipline to make myself finish the landscape first. If I don't, who knows when I'll get back to it. There are so many nest paintings I want to do- bigger, smaller, different angles, doing some with copper leaf instead of gold.... 

So many paintings- so little time. LOL

Beach week and bird's nests

Beach week was amazing!! What did I do? Nothing. I went from condo to beach and back again. I took walks, listened to the waves, read and slept. I guess those things are actually something but you know what I mean- nothing that was required of me, only what I felt like doing when I felt like doing it. To me there is nothing more peaceful and rejuvenating than being near water and listening to the sounds of nature. After I got back my husband got me a white noise machine for sleeping that includes the sound of the ocean- perfect! I might be back inland but when I go to sleep I can listen to waves crashing, feel the fan blowing and pretend I'm dozing on the porch of a beach cottage as I drift off to sleep. 

 I love how these ripples ended up looking in this photo. It might end up a painting at some point.

My son and his family came out to spend a day and he brought the big bubble stuff with him. I think I enjoyed that more than the girls did. All they cared about was sand and water. :)

So beach week is over and now I'm all refreshed, excited to paint again and back to the easel. The first thing I did was prep 3 canvases. I used the heavy body gesso as usual. After letting them dry overnight I coated them with red acrylic, mapped out my design and then applied gold leaf to all 3.

One was for a landscape, one for a floral and one for a nest but I couldn't decide which one I wanted to start with. My sister-in-law said I should do the one on top first so I did the landscape...

Daybreak

12x12 

Remember the nest painting I showed you last time? It's already sold and delivered! Now I'm working on the second canvas. I said I might do something different with the next nest painting as far as the texture goes but no, I just couldn't help myself. It isn't giving me as much of a problem as it was before so that's good.

I'm not too far from being done with this one. I should finish in another day or two and then I'll move on to the third canvas- the floral. I'm sure you'll see it in the next post. So, until then, I hope you're doing something artsy. 

No excuses, inspiration and summertime

No excuses. I saw this video on Facebook this morning and I thought- what an inspiration! I've had some issues lately with my hands due to a long time living with Rhuematoid Disease and of course the first thing that goes through my mind is.... what will happen if I'm not able to use my hands anymore? What if I can't hold a paint brush or colored pencil? Then I saw that and thought- hell, I'll just strap the brush to my arm if I have to. If you want to create or NEED to create like so many of us do, you'll find a way.

"Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway." ~Robert Henri

So.... on to painting. Remember the bird's nest from the last post? Airborne is done- 12x12, mixed media on canvas. These are fun and a challenge to do. You know how much I love texture but I can't decide if I like it with these particular paintings. I think the nest itself might be easier to paint if the canvas were smooth but I do prefer the texture behind the gold leaf. Putting the gold directly on the canvas without texture tends to show off the weave of the canvas too much for my taste. I'll do the third one with the texture but maybe I'll play with something different for future pieces.

In the meantime I received a request for a portrait from someone who loves the gold leaf that I use in the landscapes but wants it done for a baby's portrait. Here's my first foray into gold and people painting. I have 7 grandchildren so I'm never without subjects to test techniques on. This one is Mila Blaze.

I think this will take some experimenting with surfaces. I love using Canson Mi-Teintes for portraits because I love to work on colored paper but the adhesive size for the gold does make the paper buckle. You can tell in the photo- especially on the left side. I did this one pretty small because I had a feeling that would be the case. The paper size here is 8.25x11. Maybe it would buckle less if the paper were larger? I don't know. The Canson also absorbs the size so it took 2 coats of the adhesive in order for it to work and get tacky. We'll see how the next one goes....

In the "catching up" post I shared some new landscapes. Since then I've shipped them off to the Signature Art Gallery in Tallahassee FL. and my wonderful rep Vera emailed me the photo of how they have my work displayed there- you can see the brand new ones on the left. I love this gallery and am so happy to be included with the fabulous artists they have there. Check out their website, or better yet, visit them if you can.

What's next? NOTHING! I'm not painting a single thing for the next week because tomorrow I head to the beach. I thought about taking some art supplies with me but then I thought about the hundreds of books on my kindle and decided to make a dent in that list instead and this will be my view for the next 7 days. Ahhhhh.......

Here's to creativity, inspiration, summertime, relaxation, peacefulness, and sunrises over the Atlantic. I hope you're getting your own time to rest this summer. See you when I get back.

I went a little crazy

with texture.

 Passage 51, 12x12 mixed media

 Passage 51, detail

                                   

These two paintings are part of an ongoing series of textured mixed media abstracts that I've been working on for a while. Aside from landscapes and a couple of series involving social commentary, I love playing with different materials - papers, glue, paint, polished stones, texture gels, Styrofoam, tissue, whatever I can glue to a canvas. I just want to make something that's fun to run your hand over and feel the bumps, cracks and wrinkles. Fun!

 Passage 52, 12x12, mixed media

 Passage 52, detail

A Walk in the Park

16x16

acrylic on canvas

I decided to surprise everyone and do a landscape on something other than a red underpainting. This canvas had been painted blue with an abstract painting in mind. I decided to change that idea too. I think the early summer heat has me wishing for the spring temperatures to last a little longer. If I can't have the temps then at least I can paint something cooler.

One weekend Kelli and I took a girl's weekend and went to Hontoon Island State Park. It's an island east of us in Deland. We arrived by ferry and then spent the better part of the day wandering and taking pictures. This was one of the cooler areas. The nice shadowed trails were a pleasure with little bits of sunlight bouncing off the vegetation here and there. Other areas were more open and definitely hot. We were afraid if we didn't get off the island soon a park ranger was going to find our bleached bones scattered among the palm fronds. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not by much. 

It's a beautiful place. I'd like to go back one of these days. I'll just plan on being a little smarter about reading the map.

From Jersey to Florida

Today was stay in the studio and paint day. I needed a day to create with no interruptions. It's been difficult lately to have a span of time to really focus so since Kelli was able to open the studio for us today I was able to stay home where it's peaceful and quiet. Well.... quiet except for the Sopranos. I've got all the seasons on DVD so Tony and Carmela keep me company when I work. 

While the tv was taking me back to my state of origin (thankfully location is the only thing I have in common with the characters on the Sopranos) I was making a landscape from FL, the state I've called home for the last 39 years. Years ago I did a series of colored pencil paintings of Paynes Prairie. I felt like revisiting those scenes in a different way so I pulled out my references and my acrylics. My first step was to texture the canvas with Super Heavy Gesso and then I toned it with orange acrylic.

 After sketching in the basic shapes with a white charcoal pencil I started blocking in color on the background trees and foreground grasses. I love, love, love, painting landscapes on hot color backgrounds.

Adding sky and more foliage. I used some of the sky color to soften the greens.

Time for tree trunks and branches.

Finishing.... warming up some of the greens in the foreground, adding highlights on the trees and punching up the yellow in the foreground where the sunlight is coming through the trees. The icing on the cake is pushing the values in the darks and lights.

Overall, I'd say it was a good productive day. I'm ready to start on the next one.

More projects.....

 This is just another sneak peak at the project to be unveiled in September. I'm getting into some detail stuff now and it's a lot of fun. I wish I could show you more.

 This is the beginning of an oil on canvas 48x36. It's part of the adoption series. I haven't quite worked out all the elements yet.

You can see the red coming through in places. I love toning my canvases red. For me it gives a certain glow to the finished work.

Progress Report

 Well, here's an update on a canvas from last post. Remember the crazy one with the straw glued to it and gesso over that? This is where it is now. I decided to apply copper leaf to most of the canvas.

And now there are layers and dribbles of phthalo blue and cobalt teal acrylic. I can blame this part on Eddie Izzard While I was painting (just staring at the canvas actually) I was watching his show Dress to Kill and there on the stage behind him was this gorgeous backdrop that looked like gold, copper and blue. I looked at the tv, looked at the white mess of a canvas, looked at the tv again and said AHA! So there we have it. Where does it go from here? I have no idea, I wonder who else I have on DVD.

PS: LOVE THIS PART..... Engelbert Humperdink

This is what happens.....

 when I can't sleep at night. I ended up working on the computer at 3:00 in the morning. First I was rearranging the Etsy shop. Then I was downloading 12 new free books onto my Kindle (I think I love my Kindle almost as much as I love chocolate). Then I was reading emails and Facebook and now here I am putting stuff on this blog. It's now 6:15 - kind of pointless to go back to bed, so I thought I'd show you what happens when a couple of canvases sit around the studio for over a year because I have no idea what to do with them. Both of these canvases have a mix of media on them. I pulled them out, decided I really didn't like where they were so I gessoed over them. The top one you can see is just partially covered with gesso and I liked the way it looked. Now I have to decide how to finish it. I'm really liking the texture, especially on the bottom so now next step is a wash of color on top.

This little canvas (both of these pieces are 6x6 by the way) started out with a blue wash of color and then I got the bright idea to glue a handful of straw to it.  So now that it has the layer of gesso over it I'll see where it goes from here. Nothing like pulling out old unfinished work to get the creative juices going.

From Above

16x16

mixed media on canvas

Does anyone else do this - talk to their paintings in progress? This painting started out as a bright yellow non-representational painting and turned into a cool colored abstract that's reminiscent of sitting in the window seat of an airplane looking down at the planet from high above the clouds. That's not what I intended to paint. Sometimes a painting just takes on a life of it's own. Maybe we're not really the painters. If we can get into that zone it seems as if the painting happens all on it's own without much input from us. Getting into a zone happens for me when I take the time to listen to the painting. I start by actually asking what the painting needs. Where does it want me to go next? Then listen - like a good friend would do. Maybe that sounds whackadoodle but there's something to it. When I was working on this one I started with torn paper collaged on the canvas and then started adding the yellows and oranges in washes. I stopped. I looked at it for a couple of days. I put it away for a lot longer than that. It was just wrong. Maybe if I had been a better listener I would've figured out sooner that it didn't want to be a bright yellow painting. Instead it wanted to be a cool aerial view landscape with golden undertones.