Sharing a Memory

"Memories"

Set up outside starting painting, raw canvas clipped over a 2 x 4 foot wood board.

The last few good flowers 

 

   I am sharing a personal story today.  About a week ago my wonderful greyhound Maggie passed away.  She was a retired racing greyhound we adopted when she was finished racing.  Maggie was a sweet and wonderful pet.  We lost her to a stroke.

The day she passed away I had to work third shift at the hospital, and needless to say it was a long sad night for me.  In the morning when I was headed home I was in tears because I knew it would be the first day in a long time that I would not be greeted at the door with a happy dog waiting.  When I got home I opened the door and on a table waiting for me was a jar full of carnations and chocolates, my husband had set it up so I would still come home to a welcome feeling, he is a very thoughtful man and I really appreciated it.

   Today the week flowers were wilting, a few blooms still hanging in there.  I separated the good ones and set up my canvas and paints outside.  Spent the day painting what I call

“Memories”.  Thought I would share the out come, a 4 foot by 2 foot still life. 

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

 Zazzle

the 2 keepers

 

last look before saying good bye

painting over what I did not like

the remake in process

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

 

 

 

 

Rough start

Today's painting: "Urban Statues"

 Thought I would share my latest painting, start to finish.  I have been working more and more with palette knives and loving it.  I started this by hanging a 5 minute figure drawing on news print from a class last year on the wall for reference.  Then I picked a canvas 20 by 24 deep wrap, love these because they look so good with out framing.  Next I opened my jug of thick black gesso, a bottle of white gesso,  picked up a palette knife and went at it.  Using the knife keeps the structure loose and creates a lot of texture.  With the rough sketch done I left it to dry over night.  The next day I started adding some color.  With shape and color in place I left the painting out where I could view it and find areas to change and correct. I do spend as much, if not more time, just looking at my paintings between actual painting sessions.
   I liked the basic idea but want to pull the far right figure forward, and work with more neutral color.
As I was working on this more ideas came to mind for a couple more paintings....more to follow later.
   More art on my website  mary-schiros.artistwebsites.com

rough black and white gesso start

Midway, through.