On to adulthood

I few posts ago I showed you picture of an "adolescent"painting still in its ugly awkward phase (click here to see). Here's the finished painting, all ready to be delivered to its new home. 

T.J.'s Winter, oil on copper

I'm so proud to have been able to usher it on to adulthood.  ;-)

T.J.'s Winter, detail

Drastic Measures had to be taken

New Beginnings and New Beginnings II

You may remember this picture of two of my paintings at the Birmingham Art Association juried show from this post and I told you here of some of the struggles I had with New Beginnings. However, I don't think I ever shared with you the kinda scary measures I had to take to complete New Beginnings II.  

I was having a REALLY hard time getting the shape of the egg right. It was turned at a sort of awkward angle and I just couldn't quite get the curve. One of the things I love about painting is that pretty much everything is fixable. Just paint over it! This time, though, more extreme measures had to be taken. I felt the need for a clean start in that area (a "new beginning," Ha!). So, I sanded it down. Yep! It was a little scary. Look below-

Sorry for the kinda awful photos. My husband had the good camera with him. Do you see the really shiny halo around the egg? That's where I sanded it back down to the bare aluminum. Then I turned both the painting and my reference photo upside down (a good little trick to turn off that voice in your head that says, "An egg looks like this,").

                                                 

I've written a lot about letting your paintings go through their ugly stage and not giving up on them prematurely (see this post and this post, for example). In this case, it just took a little more extreme parental involvement!

New Beginnings

 Hi all! I was excited to see some of you at the show the other night at Parkside. It was a really fun night- good turnout, relaxing evening. All in all I'd call it a success!

A couple of posts ago I showed you an area of a painting that I had to just leave alone for a while. However, I never did show you the finished painting! Here it is!

New Beginnings I

And here is a companion piece:

New Beginnings II

These are actually kind of big paintings for me. I typically work rather small (around 10"x10" size). These are both 20"x24" inches. I really enjoyed doing some bigger work, however, and I think I'm going to continue experimenting with size and scale.

Rock Garden?

My latest painting. I'm still working on a title, but I'm thinking "Rock Garden." 

What do you think?

I was reminded with this painting how much I really love realism. I love looking at something like a brown rock and seeing not just brown, but all the myriad of colors that make it appear brown. If you look closely, nothing is ever just the color it immediately seems. I'm not sure I'm ever more content than when I'm gazing at something beautiful and teasing out the unexpected colors that make up its highlights, shadows, and contours.

Shiny things

Here's a quick study of the little nesting metal canisters I unearthed in my messy studio

Common Mistakes of the New Artist and How to Avoid Them; Part II

Disclaimer: As I said in Part I of this post, there are no hard and fast rules to art. At some point you may purposefully choose to commit one of these "mistakes" to achieve a specific goal. The important thing is that you choose to do do it, rather than doing one of these things because of lack of knowledge. Ok, let's carry on!

Mistake #6: Bad Composition. Composition is one of those details that can truly make or break a painting. You might have an absolutely beautiful subject that you've painted wonderfully, but if your composition is wrong it may leave the viewer unsettled or bored. Here are some examples of bad composition and why they are bad. 

Exhibit A:

What's happening here?

The image above almost achieves an L shaped composition, which can be used to sort of "frame" an object of interest. However, there is nothing of interest in that vast expanse of blue so the picture is just boring and a little confusing. To improve the composition I may add a red balloon or some other point of interest to that space of blue.

Exhibit B1:

The edges of the subject just barely
 fit inside the picture, appearing forced.

The above painting of an apple is not great composition for a couple of reasons. Problem #1 is that it feels forced. The apple comes right to the edges of the painting, making it appear that the artist (me) was trying too hard to get all of the subject into the frame. To fix this problem, I would either need to zoom in closer on my subject, or back up enough that there is comfortable space between the edges of the apple and the border of the picture. Problem #2 is that the stem is pointing out of the picture. However, it is far enough away from the edge of the picture that it's not a serious problem. The picture below shows a similar problem.

Exhibit B2:

The beetle is walking out of the picture, possibly
leading the viewer's interest out of the picture as well.

Exhibit B3:

This is a better composition than B3
because of the position of the subject.

Exhibit C1:

There is no clear center of interest, making the picture boring.

Again, there are a couple of problems with this picture. Problem #1 is that the center of interest is not clear. Problem # 2 has to do with color and balance of light and dark. Most of the colors in the picture are of the same value (level of light or dark). If we zoom in like so:

Exhibit C2:

It greatly improves the picture, however it would still benefit from greater contrast between lights and darks, and perhaps in the colors themselves, as well (for example, a purple butterfly instead of one that matches the flowers). 

Once again, these are only guidelines. Don't let rules dictate your art (or worse, intimidate you from creating art all together). If you feel that your pictures are missing the mark somehow, however, a look at these tips may help you put your finger on the problem. Remember, experience is the best teacher and with time you'll develop a sense of what works and what doesn't. 

Common mistakes of the new artist and how to avoid them; Part I

I'm trying to provide plenty of visual examples, therefore this will be a 2 part post.
I've been looking at some of my older paintings and noticing the mistakes I made as a newbie artist. About 6 years ago when I started painting, I had no formal training. I just bought some acrylic paints and sorta went to town. Over the years I have gained some knowledge (both from mentors and formal training, and from experience) and the quality of my work (as well as my style) has WILDLY changed. I won't say that one style is better than the other, but my techniques have definitely improved. Below are some mistakes I made and that other rookie painters  tend to make and how to avoid or fix them.

Note: There are exceptions to every rule and you may choose at some point to commit one of these "mistakes" in order to achieve a specific effect.  However, the important word there is "choose." What I have listed here are mistakes people often unconsciously make when getting started painting. 

Mistakes to avoid:

Mistake #1: Making brush strokes go in all one direction. Check it out: 

Brush strokes should not go all one direction

Vary the directions of the strokes

It is especially tempting to make your strokes go in one direction when you're trying to fill a large space like an empty background. Varying your strokes looks much more natural. While we're on the subject of backgrounds...

Mistake # 2: Making the background an after-thought. Ideally you want to paint the background before the main subject. Especially on the last coat (or, of you work with one thick coat instead of many thin coats, you probably want to add to the edges of the items in the foreground of the picture at the end).  If you completely finish the subject and then try to paint the background, the edges will have a forced feel to them. I usually try to paint from back to front. For example, in the painting below, I painted the yellow and red marbles before the blue, since the blue one is in front.

Mistake #3: Finishing one area of the painting at a time. I know that you don't have endless time to paint and painting a layer over the entire painting at each sitting may not be doable. That's not what this is about. The mistake many new artists make is completely finishing one part of the picture before starting on another part. The result is usually a very disjointed final picture. Below are some examples of working on the whole painting rather than one bit at a time. These pictures show one of my paintings in progress.

See how the entire painting progresses from less detail to more detailed rather than filling in all the details of one part while neglecting the rest of the painting? If you find yourself getting too caught up in one little part of the picture, walk away for a few minutes and view it from a distance as a whole.

Mistake #4: Not using a reference or model (if you're doing a representational painting rather than a non-representational abstract).


Mistake #5: Painting what you think you should see instead of what you actually see.

Mistakes #4 and #5 go hand in hand. Say you're painting a picture of an apple. Your brain will probably say, "I know what an apple looks like," so you either attempt to paint without an apple as a model, or you don't look at your model and you paint a roundish thing with a stem. Even if your goal is not realism, having the subject in front of you and truly looking at the qualities of the model will improve and vitalize your picture. Try to turn off that little voice in your head that applies symbols to objects (example: "Apples are round, doors are rectangles, etc."). If you're working from a photograph rather than from life, it might help to turn the picture (and your painting) upside down so that it is less recognizable to your brain. If something seems off with your picture and you can't figure out what it is, it helps to hold the painting (and reference photo, if using) up to a mirror. By reversing the image, you can often see what is and isn't working.

Stay tuned for part II of this post! Are you having any painting problems that you'd like me to address? I love hearing from you!

Golden Girls rock

I have this sort of high-minded belief that you shouldn't buy art to fit a particular space or because the color-theme matches your couch. It seems like if you only obtain things you love, they all seem to work together somehow. However, I've amended this creed somewhat and have come to realize that sometimes the perfect piece for a room can make the entire room a work of art. 

This is my bathroom: 

Note the pink tile. It's not 50's bubblegum pink. It's more of an 80's mauve. The walls were previously a pinkish beige, which was fine with the previous owner's decor, but didn't really suit us.  When it came time to paint, let me tell you, we struggled to find a paint color that we liked with the mauve that didn't make it look like it belonged on the set of Golden Girls (click on the link to see a blogger who was totally inspired by the idea of modernizing the Golden Girls' style). Come to think of it, their couch was about the same color as these tiles. 

Then, I found these:

and inspiration struck. I would do a painting of river rocks for the bathroom, bringing in the pinkish color of the tile and paint the walls a beautiful river rock greenish grey! Perfect. So and painted the walls greenish grey, and I painted this:

And it sold before I even got to try it out in my own home! Not that I'm complaining at all. It sold to Energen, Birmingham's Natural Gas corporation, for their collection of Alabama artists.  I've painted a couple of smaller ones, too, but none have made it to their pre-conceived spot. Again, not complaining! So, I started a new one. I gave you a sneak preview of it here. Here it is now:

Stay tuned for more progress. 

The moral of this story? Inspiration can come from anywhere. Even pink tiles.

How about all of you out there in computer land. Ever been inspired by anything totally weird and random (a la doorknobs and faucets)? Tell me about it! Send me pictures and let me know if you would like me to share them on this blog. 

Coming soon

Here's a sneak peak at my current work in progress:

Stay tuned for more. Same art time, same art channel. (Click on the link for fun, or for you super-youngsters that didn't get my reference). 

For more posts like this, check out:

Work in Progress Finished- Take 2

Work in Progress Day 1- Work Past the Ugly

Lessons learned

I mentioned in my last post that I had learned a few things from my most recent painting experiment. So, in no particular order, here they are!
Lesson #1: Prime, prime, prime!

It's important when using oils on wood that you prime the surface. Over time, oil degrades wood and paper, so you need that primer as protection for the wood. This I knew and I did apply a couple of coats of clear matte medium to protect the wood. What I didn't fully appreciate was the importance of preparing the surface for me, specifically. If you look closely at the image above, you can see the bumps and roughness in the surface of the wood. I didn't realize how much that would distract me. I swoon for super smooth painting surfaces, so the texture of the wood bothered me. 

So, in short if you're working on wood with acrylics and you like rougher surfaces and texture in your work, don't worry about priming. Jump right in! If you're using oils on wood and like texture, a couple of coats of gesso or matte medium should work fine for you. But if you're a lover of glassy finishes like me, sand, prime, repeat ad nauseam.

Lesson #2: Use a good reference photo (or model if working directly from life).

This was my reference photo, which wasn't absolutely terrible, but didn't provide me with what I needed for this picture. Had I been striving to recreate this picture, it would have been doable, but to recreate the patterns and shadows of the face in muscle and patterns, I should have used a clearer, not so blown-out picture. 

Lesson #3: Get out of your comfort zone.

This experiment was pretty far out from realistic portraits of everyday objects and their reflections and that was great for me. Try a new painting surface, subject, or technique! You'll never know your own style unless you explore. Who knows, it may turn out even better than you imagined! Or it may turn out that it's not your cup of tea at all. Either way, the experiment will be a success. 

So what about you? Learn anything new lately? Discover a love of a different subject or technique? What have you been experimenting with? Let me know about it!

Like this post? Check out:

New Goodies

Life is just a bowl of... doorknobs?

A few of my favorite things

A few of my favorite things

 One thing you should know about me- I love, I mean LOVE mixing colors. It may be my favorite part of painting. Rarely do I ever use a color just straight out of the tube. So, now and again I'm going to tell you about some of my favorite colors and how I use them.
My mentor, Dori DeCamillis, taught me that when laying out your palette you should put out all, or almost all, your color whether you think you need them or not. The reason nothing is truly only the color you think you see. For example, what color are these apples?

Greenish yellow, right? So you only get out your green and yellow paints. Look again.

Do you see it? There are so many other colors in there. Pinks in the skin, dark grayish blue in the shadows, white in the highlights. I even see a little light blue in the highlight on the top of the apple to the left. So don't be scared of wasting paint and go ahead and get it all out. You may surprise yourself. Oh, and my color tip for the day? Try a little caucasian flesh tone mixed with blue for that funny little color you see around the base of the stem. 

Do any of you have any tips or favorite color combos you'd like to share? I'd love to learn from you. 

Another piece to the puzzle

Today's art bite:

To see more bits and pieces of this current work in progress (aka magical mystery painting) click the links below:

Art Bite 1

Art Bite 2

Have a taste

Here's another bite of my current work in progress

I'm having so much fun with it! Stay tuned for more bits and pieces.

Magical mystery painting

I mentioned a few posts ago that I was trying out some new painting surfaces since painting on metal takes so much time (not to mention the fact that I mount my own metal pieces). As promised, here's an update on how it's going.

This week I'm working on this...

lovely birch panel. At first glance (and first touch) it was super smooth. But, alas, wood is made of fiber so it didn't stay that way. Since I use oils and oils will, over time, degrade wood if applied directly, I primed the panel with a couple of layers of acrylic matte medium.

I'm super excited about my newest painting. It's WAY different than anything I've done in a while. I'm having a blast. Instead of showing you the whole thing in progress, I thought it'd be fun to show you little bits and pieces along the way. So, here's a tidbit:

You can probably tell from this little piece of the painting that  the surface is a tiny bit rough. So far, I like it pretty well, though. Stay tuned for more little puzzle pieces of my mystery painting

Work in Progress Finished- Take 2!

Oops, I lied. In my last post I told you that Bright Idea, my work in progress that you have watched me finish step-by-step, was done. However, the more I looked at it, the more I felt that something was missing. Let's play the "What's different?" game.
Here's the "finished" painting that I showed you in the last post:

And here it is now:

Do you see it? It's not the bolder color. Sorry, that was a photography error on my part. The second photo is truer to the actual painting. Look again. It's subtle and tiny, but I think that it makes a big difference. Do you give up?

It's the filament inside the lightbulb. I left it out on purpose originally because, though my work is classified as realism, I purposefully don't make it exact or photorealistic. That's where creative license comes in. Like I said, though, the more I looked at it, the more I realized it NEEDED the filament. My husband (and art critic in the best sense of the term) agreed. 

That's what I love about painting. No mistake is totally permanent. Some take more work than others, but everything is fixable. it's nice to have an area of life that's so forgiving. 

What do y'all think? Do you agree that the filament was a necessity? Have you ever thought something was finished and then revamped it? Maybe even totally. I'd love to see or hear about it!

To see the full journey from start to finish, check it out, here,  here, here, here, here, and here (in that order).