Missy Princess

This is the latest picture I'm working on. I thought it'd be cute to paint the cat that used to come over and visit us at our house!! On the day she left we finally found out her owners were living 2 doors down from us and in true cat style, she snobbed us! Still have a way to go, just having fun working this one up!

Believe it or not, it was this picture that I've made abstract into that painting below! Squint your eyes and maybe it resembles something........... :-P

Over the next month Kerry and I decided to work up pieces from some of the techniques we've tried out over the last few weeks. I decided to have another go at the aluminum foil technique, I'm not sure whether I really like it yet, I'm still working it up. I worked off a photo I took on an Artworkshop in Jandowae two weeks ago. The style of painting is inspired by Grace Howland. I really got to see her in her element in the country and could see how her eye pans across the landscape and how she captures the essence of the area in her paintings.

Week 11 "Forest Floor Technique"

With this exercise, I used contact that stuck too well to the paper, but I like the effects of the water colour on the Gesso.

Week 10 "Technique using Plastic"

This was my second attempt after catching up with Kerry. I had trouble working up the textures and with the first attempt I used glad wrap which was too difficult to control. Kerry gave me some plastic that seemed to work really well. I'm not sure if I've quite finished this one but I did enjoy trying it again. I'd like to work up the paint a little more in this one.

Week 9 "Painting Macro"

I found this exercise in a which suggested looking at things close up and either photographing or drawing the detail of what you see, or taking

a portion of what you see close up and blowing it up to a larger scale.

I first chose a brown dried up leaf and after talking to Kerry, thought I would try out using oil pastels for a bit of diversity. I wasn't completely happy with it and wished I had prepped the paper so it at least had some texture in the background. So I decided to do another one, this time I did a wash in acrylic with red oxide and then looked in the fridge and found half a capsicum in there so decided to draw that. I was happy with this one. I wouldn't mind doing a few more random ones like this.

Week 8 "Painting with One Colour"

I've been a bit slack with updating the blogsite. In week 8 we painted with one colour but we could use white and black to create different tones and shades. So I decided to use yellow. The shades didn't come out as well as I would have liked. I just used acrylics but I think using oils would have created better shades and been more forgiving.

Week 7 "Painting to Music"

This week I wanted to play around with a different medium, so I decided to use water colours. I really have no experience with water colour but I wanted the washy blend of colours in my picture.

I put my headphones in and put on a relaxing playlist from my iphone. It was a self-made compilation of artists like zero 7, cowboy junkies, regina spektor and sia.

I found myself drawn to blues, drawing in a horizontal plane. I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, for such a quick job. I think I really got in to mood and painted my emotions. I painted this one at night, which is when I'm alert but relaxed. I think this helped :-)

Week 6 "Metal or Rust look Exercise"

I was quick to get into this exercise, I was looking forward to trying this one out. I think I'll try out a few others, with thicker acrylic. I may even try scrunching the alfoil to get a different look.

Week 5 "Paint what you hear" continued

This was my bad attempt at "painting what I heard". As I said before, I really didn't enjoy this exercise nearly as much as some of the others.....but here's the explanation anyway. The top left flicks are the crows cawing, the top right circular flicks are the smaller birds cheeping, the swirling to the left was the motor of the fridge kicking in, the circular continuous lines were people talking on t.v. - big loops were when the tv was louder or a female voice was on, there were mono-tone voices in there too. The "sun bursts" was the clock ticking over, the bottom, left lines was water coming out of the kitchen tap and the musical notes on the right was music from the tv. Done!

Week 5 "Paint what you hear"

I did the week 5 challenge but didn't really enjoy it too much. I was too inspired from last week and wanted to paint another picture in the style of Kelly Rae Roberts. I caught up with a good friend from high school recently who has always been very encouraging when it comes to my artwork. I decided to paint her a picture, this is the initial collage I started with. I had in mind reds and greens but as you can see it didn't quite turn out that way! I put a green through the gel medium and it sort of turned out lime.......I was looking at it and thinking "I don't like it!" but I've learnt from good teachers that if you don't take it too seriously and keep going you then usually aren't afraid to try different things and end up with something great you didn't expect!

To be honest, I wasn't even happy with the way the collage turned out, it had too many dark colours and I didn't like the lime green! I then started with dark purple in mind but for some reason put white in it. I still "didn't like it!"......It was going to be warm tones but I let my creative flow do what it had to do.........

I started putting in the figures

Started with some details

I got rid of the wings and darkened the eyes as a suggestion from my boyfriend. And here's the finished product! I really enjoyed doing it, so much so, I've never finished a whole picture in one day. I finished it and gave it to my friend the next day! It's called "Kelly & Eboni"

Week 4

This week our challenge was to follow steps for a piece similar to an artist that Kerry found, by the name of Kelly Rae Roberts. It uses the technique of collaging and painting over the top of it. It also suggested painting affirmations on your painting. She has a very informative and creative blog site too.

So here's my attempt......I created the collage and fell in love with it and had a hard time painting over the top of it. I liked the reds and blacks in it and I put some red in some gel medium to stick the pieces on. Because I don't scrapbook I didn't have scrapbook paper, instead I cut up newspapers and magazines.

I then got stuck into it after looking at my collage for a very long time. I started with the colours and was freaking out about choosing the wrong colours then worried about them not blending properly. Finally I gave in and let go and chose a figure I drew on the collage. I have to say I suprised myself and am happy with the results - more than I thought anyway!

Sorry about the sequence of the photos, I'm having trouble editing my posts!

Week 3 Challenge

Hi, I found this one really challenging like Kerry did too! It's taken me till today - the due date - to complete at least one painting. I woke up this morning with motivation. In my head I thought, "That's it!?! I need to make time for this and get it done!"

I got up and set myself an hour minimum and put on "Saturday Morning Cartoons" Compilation. For some reason when I woke up I just wanted to listen to that banana splits song "tra la la" and it really suited the mood. I just wanted to be playful and a little childish and have fun! Half way through I found the songs were a little more "rocky" in beat and that's when I started painting with more mark making and also put in darker colours.

I also started with watercolours and water soluble pastels but they just didn't cut the deep colours and textures I wanted to create with this music on.

I also agree with Kerry that once I listened to a few songs it was easier. I think I would like to do more paintings and also like to revisit this exercise. It'd probably be good to do every second week to let things go and loosen up with our painting.

Week 3 "Dancing to the Music"

I'm having trouble getting started on this one. I haven't made time. I'm finding other "things" are taking over. I feel the deadline coming soon.........argh! Help!

Week 2 "Mountainscape"

Ok, I have a problem! I had trouble finishing this off properly! This is the start of my landscape. I still need to work more with the acrylic. I had trouble interpreting the instructions and decided to stop in fear of making a mistake rather than just making it up as I went on.

I think it may be worth doing another one rather than just pondering on this one. I must also remember to loosen up and not expect a master-piece at the end of it! I did enjoy working with Gesso and the Gel Medium and working out how they interact with the pain. I did enjoy watercolours more than I thought too! I loved watching them bleed together to see what would happen.

Week 1 "Finger Painting"

The last exercise was to do a finger painting. I wanted to paint a picture and keep it neat then I realized with finger painting you could let loose, not just do strokes, but blot and splatter and rub and leave large areas of paint on the paper and mix different colours on the paper. Fun!

Week 1 "Picture With Your Name"

Kerry came up with the great idea of incorporating your name in a picture. We could use any media we liked and create as many pictures as we liked, as long as we completed one.

The first thing I thought of was using my letters of my name to shade the picture, it seemed a little intense for my first piece so I then moved to putting my name into my hair.

As you can see, I technically didn't finish the picture, I think I find myself not completing pieces because I get to a point where I think too much, feel like I've gone to far and am unsure about going too far ahead. Something I need to work on............still really enjoyed this one, I liked that I thought a little outside the box.

Then I thought I should loosen up, I saw what Kerry did that week with her name and was inspired to do another name picture. I remember doing plenty of doodles in black pen when I was in high school and uni. I even cut them out later in the year and stuck them together to make a collage. So this was my bit of a trip down memory lane.

I had more fun with this one because I wasn't thinking, just letting the pen go where it wanted to.