Rearranging objects with oil paint

I am taking another oil painting class from Timothy Widener this year, an excellent artist and instructor.  But today I just was not in a classical painting mood.

Oil, 12 x 16 inches

 

I got to class and as usual he had some beautiful still-life set ups ready to go.

I looked them all over picked one that interested me, set up an easel and couldn’t get going. 

 So I pulled out a sketch book I had in my bag, ( full of abstract designs) and one simple layout caught my attention.

When I fill up a sketch book I always paint the cover :)

Looking at the still-life and the sketch I got my brushes moving, and started having some fun. 

 But the best part was when Timothy came over to see what I was doing, actually had him at a loss of words for a few seconds. But then I got a smile and chuckle from him.

What I had decided to do was combine the colors from the still-life, the layout of my sketch, and try and represent different surfaces, like the glass, something fuzzy like a peach, and metal.  It was a fun experiment for the day.

   By the way Timothy has an excellent book available; "Painting Light and the Impressionist Method"

Mary

Schiros_Art 

(I also have a book on Blurb, of Still-life paintings)

Follow up

Ok Day 19 ....
One more floral, and if you saw yesterdays post I had a canvas panel left that had been used a place to mix paint, well I did use that for today's painting.....

"Dawn" Acrylic, 12 x 9 inches

                                                                                             Available at DPWs
A little different than it looked yesterday....

You know what they say a little bit of paint can give things a whole new look!

Mary
Schiros_Art 

Another day another painting

Day nine:

Oil on gallery wrap canvas, 8 x 8 inches, "A Lone"

                                           Available at DPWs
 
The tree sits in a field across from home.  
To paint this I picked that tree up and put it in the land I remember see while visiting California.  
It is fun to rearrange land in your mind, even better than rearranging the furniture at home :)

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

Thrift stores and still life

Cool Savings, 8 x 10 inches, Canvas panel

Available on DWP

      Ever second hand shop?   I love to visit thrift stores, second hand shops, the Goodwill, Salvation Army store and look for odd and interesting objects to paint.  I use them for a while, then donate them back. That way I can enjoy them, then pass them on again. I have gotten some strange looks, because I will actually pick up a few things and spend some time right in the store setting them up in a still life arrangement. 

    The piggy bank in this painting is one of those things I found.  The little guy caught my eye and reminded me of when I was young.   My first bank was a glass pig that I slowing filled up and later opened my first bank account with those savings.  I wonder if kids still do that now?

    With this little painting I wanted to create something classic and childish at the same time.  

   Just thought I would share my thought process on this one.

 

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

Art and Reading

The start

What is a good book?
 A book you can't wait to to start reading.
Once you start it, you can't wait to read it all.
By that  I mean, not just finish, but absorb it all, over and over again.
But the mark of a really good book; you have to stop, at many points in it, put it down
and act on the idea that grabs you at that moment, then go back.
That  is a good book.

My reading list right now:

"Ignore Everybody,and 39 other Keys to Creativity", Hugh MacLeod.
   examples: "Stay ahead of the culture by creating the culture." Hugh MacLeod.

  
"Steal like an Artist", Austin Kleon
    examples: "As Salvador Dali said, "Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."
                    "Steal it 'til you make it."  Austin Kleon

And a little sci-fi for fun: "Agent of the Stars", John Scalzi
    "I didn't know which was more fundamentally disturbing: that the ''jell-o was talking to me,
 that it had a sense of humor,
or that it had better manners than I did."   John Scalzi

Oh and between reading there is always some painting
Here is a start and finish...gotta share art when I blog....after all this is an art blog:)

(for more art visit my web site  on Fine art )

the finish

 

 

 

 

Drawing Ideas

When I am not painting, I usually am working with pencil and paper.

My favorite drawing pencils are Derwent Inktense, they are colored pencils that when you paint over them with water take on an intense colored ink appearance, and once dry are permanent. Places that you can find these pencils are; on line at  Dick Blick  http://www.dickblick.com/products/derwent-inktense-pencils/ and locally at Boundless Arts in Grand Blanc MI  http://boundlessarts.com/ .

      Some of the sketches I use as reference for future paintings, others are finished art, and still others become subjects for digital art.  An example is the red and orange tone drawing, that I photo copied and changed colors on my PC to see what a different version would look like.  The digital image looked so good on it’s own that it became an art work that I loaded to my web site; http://fineartamerica.com/art/digital+art/schiros/all 
For more examples of digital art check out Digital Art on Fine Art America.

original drawing

Photo shop changes to original

Cat Printing and Musings on Art

Cat helped printing

The Cat Artist…..I just want to share the finished work from my last post.  Also, sharing the secret of how the last print was completed.  I started with a red printing of my design and planned the second layer to be a light teal color.  I completed 12 prints that I proudly set a side to dry, when my crazy domestic Bengal cat managed to sneak into the studio and proceed to pounce on the drying pile of prints.  Six prints survived and 6 others had a variety of paw prints added.  After chasing my four legged painting partner out, I gather up the ruined prints and started to throw them out.  Throwing out art work in hard to do and I just could not let them drop in to the trash can.  So, I rolled out some fresh black ink and added one more layer.  Well, I guess my cat had a better plan than mine; the last six prints are now my favorite.

test print of the top layer

where I had planned to stop

printing over a mono print, there is a cat under that top pattern

 

My musing for the day….It is interesting looking at the printing I have been doing, I think the designs could be worked up in photo shop or cut and pasted from glossy magazine art.  But, the process of carving the lines and rolling the ink is what makes this art work.  Viewing the work you can see the texture of the ink, that slight rise and sheen that it creates and that is the character of relief printing.  I just hope that young artists don’t get cut short by technology and miss the process, that part of creating that comes only from working with ink covered hands.

And I always finish my printing day with a finger paint mono print from the left over ink.

Take it and run with it

first printing

Take it and run with it…

Recently I took a Zentangle class, if you are not familiar with that, it is a form of ink drawing, based on patterns.  I was not sure where it would lead but found the process interesting.  Working with the ink drawings has managed to lead to new ideas, and that is why I love to take class and workshops when ever I can. 

   The class had a project of that involved drawing with white ink on black paper.  Look at the designs from the class I noticed that those patterns would make a good template for ink relief printing.  The reason for that is when printing you have to think in reverse of what the final print will look like.  Thought I would share some pictures of the process and where it is leading.  These are just the first in a series of ideas that will end up as finished art works. 

   Hope this inspires you to try some new projects.  For more information on Zentangle check out; http://www.zentangle.com/, an look for friends of Zentangle on Face Book.

white ink on black paper

rough lay out for print plan 

foam printing plate

another plate for print

first inking of a plate

idea

idea

idea

and yet another idea

layers and layers

A habit I start some time back…is to work on more than one picture at a time. For me becoming too focused on one painting, no matter what the media, causes frustration.
It is too easy to over work an area, is one reason. The other is practicality, I hate to waste paint. I keep extra paper and or canvas handy so to there is a place to transfer the excess paint on my brush. In this case I have been working on a large figure painting but had t other smaller canvas boards near by, I used the extra paint to try out related ideas.
In this case it worked well because it made me step back from the large canvas, and yet keep the momentum of painting active.
Hope you enjoy seeing the changes, that of layers of acrylic paint, and the finished work that resulted on the extra canvas.