Growing a Painting by Mary Schiros

With the snow falling outside today, thought it would be fun to grow a painting.  Capturing photos of a work in process is like watching a plant grow with time lapse photos.  
So I thought to brighten the day, here is a little sun shine and flowers.....
From the set-up to the completed painting....

 
Hope that brightened your day
Mary Schiros
Schiros_Art
 

Saving Ideas

Paper collage cover of a sketch pad

       Just having some fun today and thought I would share.

When a sketch pad is full, and I want to save it for future ideas,

I have some fun making a cover for it. 

The cover marks it as "complete"  and a "keeper". 

I have stacks of these sketch pads, and get some of my best ideas for paintings from them.  

    Thought I would share some covers (mainly made from collage of magazine photos) and a few of the sketches from them.

     Covers:

 A few sketches ...... (Just simple ideas for later)

 

 Sometimes sorting in the studio can be fun, cut, paste, and cleaning...didn't think you would see those words in the same sentence:)

Mary

Schiros_Art

 

What you see and more

Red Vase III,  16 x 12 inches, Acrylic on 300 lb watercolor paper

     I will often mention that the painting I enjoy the most is painting what I see. 

That can be outside or a set up on a table.  But having said that, those paintings will not be photo like images in paint of what I see.  I may paint the subject, but change the color, mood, even leave out some of the content.

     This is an example, the set up contained more objects than I thought were needed.

The color changes were due to necessity, because on site I had a limited choice of acrylic paint colors.  But, I think that a limited color range is just a fun puzzle to figure out, and enjoyed this one even more because of it.

   So remember you’re the artist and that give you “artistic license”, use and enjoy that license.

Nice set up, but like my version better;)

Mary
Schiros_Art

One good goal

  
  This is one of those simple ideas that just has to be shared.
Never have an empty easel.   I just realized that this simple fact is one that keeps me painting everyday.  Always having a painting to work on is one of those things that I just do, and never think about.  Today I was cleaning up my picture file on the PC and noticed there were a lot of easel shots, various works in process, and had a DUH  moment.
   So thought I would share some inspiration .....

 
 Now go get something to paint on 
Mary
    Schiros_Art

Finger Painting

        Bid on at DWP

     This small still life really did start out as “finger painting”.

I often start a painting by putting down a colored gesso as my base to paint on, usually orange.  But in this case I used a light wash of red oil paint, thinned out with some odorless mineral spirits.  To do this, be careful to not get the paint so diluted that it actually runs, just thin enough to lift off easily.  The panel I used is an Ampersand gessobord which is ready to paint on.

      I covered the whole panel with a light coat of red, then used a soft cloth over my finger and pulled off the shape of the glass and bottle, especially the high light areas.  After that I mixed up a slightly thicker blue to put in the dark outlines and shadows, still mainly using my fingers and a soft cloth.

     With this paint being thin and wet it is easy to make corrections to shapes at this time, and really what I am looking for at this point is the over all masses of the composition.

    I let that dry over night and the next day finished the painting, this time using a brush and thicker layers of paint. 

Mary