Monday, May 28, 2012

Art Series


the 3 completed, lined up out on the patio 




  

I made a resolution this year to paint in series of three.
Some times I end up with 3 paintings that are wonderful and go well together.
Other times it takes 3 tries to get what I want.  So far I am learning a great deal from painting this way and plan to keep working with this practice.
   With my last series of three, I ended up two that are perfect together and one that got painted over.  But even with the one that didn’t work out, it started me in another direction. 
  The two I like I call more sky writing, the idea that everything about the world is there before our eyes, only in a language we can not read yet.  The one that I painted over fell away from that direction and frankly reminded me of a bad Bob Ross painting.  But after painting over about 2 thirds of it I saw an ocean pattern developing and decided to start writing by waves.
    
Mary's websites:
Artavia       Fine Art  
   Artmajeur


the 2 keepers


last look before saying good bye
painting over what I did not like
the remake in process





Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Painting with Leftovers

Acrylic 10 by 8 inches, acrylic skin and paint knife


      
I Thought II             I thought I would share a neat way to use leftover acrylic paint.  Depending on what you use for a palette, often the dry paint film can be pulled off.  There are palettes of plastic that are made for just that, but plastic sheets used as drop clothes work well to.  I often cover the whole table I am working from with a plastic sheet then use the whole table as a palette.
Once there a     Once there are enough dry layers of acrylic you can catch an edge and peal it off.  Usually, the under layer is the most interesting.  You can then cut the piece of acrylic film, often called a skin, and glue it down to a painting surface with an acrylic gel medium, let it dry and paint over and around it to make a new and interesting piece of art.

A dry acrylic film ready for my next work

This is the underside, it is usually shinny, smooth and very interesting