Finished in time for Mother's Day

So, remember that landscape I posted a few weeks ago?  Well I have finished it, and just in time for Mother's Day.

My posting here has been languishing, since I have been spending more time developing my new blog.  I still have not even posted photos from our month of April, though I do have them organized over on flickr.  Soon, soon.

Happy Mother's Day to all!!

Painting in progress

This is my first landscape, and my first official painting on a canvas rather than board.  It's not done, but I'm excited about the way it is shaping up.  Or at least I am excited about portions of it... (Is any artist ever satisfied?)

I think maybe Erik Johnson should have this one in exchange for the website he's designing me.  (Erik, what do you think?  I know it's been a while, but I'm still into it.)

Work in Progress ::

I'm so excited about this one I have to post it.

Hopefully you can get over the poor winter-indoor yellowish lighting.

And another thing that excites me about it is that Adam, who doesn't really like abstracts, likes it too.  :)

SOLD (and shipped!!!)

For the first time in my life, I have SOLD a painting!  If you have been around awhile, you will know that I painted this back in February.  And I made some touch ups to it since I took this picture, but maybe only I would notice them.

Like two months ago actually, to my dear friend Izetta.  And since she lives in Dillingham, it took me a while to send it off to her.  Plus I procrastinate like crazy.

But I am happy to report, it shipped TODAY and will arrive at its destination by Wednesday or Thursday of next week.

I'm working on lots of things around here.  You may have noticed, but I am starting a new etsy shop.  It is still under development, but I will be listing items very soon.  And I am so excited I can't wait to share the new stuff with you all.  And in case you are worried, if you place an order I will actually ship it right away.... :)

Work in progress

Any suggestions?  Britt?  (Britt is my sister by the way.)

The painting is square but is just leaning against the wall, so the proportions are not right in the photo.  It is also a whole lot brighter than this picture lets on.  It was taken with a yellowish light on it.

I'm thinking about pulling a bunch more light blue over-layer and also minimizing that one bit of pink which looks too blobby.

I'm getting more and more nervous about exposing this to the world so I better just hit send already.

Argh!

Flower Piece

I suppose the inspiration for these was tulips, though to be honest I thought of poppies a lot too.  This is officially painting number 2.  And I had the same struggles photographing it as the last piece.  There is a lot more white than you can see here.  And the painting is brighter overall.  I'll get the hang of photographing art sometime I'm sure.

I used a lot of layers to create this.  And the original underlying drawing was created out of frustration.  I had been trying a lot of different techniques in order to learn and felt like the results were overly complicated.  I wanted to make something simple instead, so I painted these bright red flowers and stems and said, bah!

Detail 1

The result was appealing to me though, and I began to layer it with bits of paper and different colors of paint.  Hopefully once my technique is better my work will become progressively more simple.  I think it will at least.

Detail 2

Detail 3

So here you go, these are my flowers.  What do you think?

Birch Piece

I tried to take a better photo of this painting.

Here's how we did it.  Adam drilled a screw into the kitchen wall.  Based on its orientation and because the kitchen has windows facing south, this room and this wall seems to get the best natural and indirect light in the house.  You can still tell that most of the light hits the lower right corner of the painting.

Photographing artwork is a serious challenge!  It is amazing what the camera does to the color and the way it changes the light.  Or perhaps, the way it captures everything exactly, whereas the eye does some selective modifying when it looks at things.  Either way, a challenge.

Afterwards, I cropped it and adjusted the exposure using picnik.com.  It was useful since I don't have Photoshop on our new awesome computer.

More about this piece... I created a painted frame and green box based upon my drawing habits in college.  I have always had a hard time facing the blank white page.  (I recently watched this film about Georgia O'Keefe, where she said something like, "Each time we face a new canvas we are facing our whole life, from birth to present."  I wish I could get the quote right, because I like it.)  At any rate, I had a hard time deciding upon a first stroke.  So in came the box, and it freed me up.  I tried this technique with my painting.  Plus, it gave me a chance to play with creating textures with a palette knife, which is something I had wanted to try.  I also used a masking technique to create it, but this doesn't show in the finished painting.  The other thing about making the box was that I recently discovered the bar that Judith Murray uses in her beautiful paintings.  I like her bar, but I probably won't continue to paint boxes around my paintings.  When I look at this painting, I wish it was all forest and no box.  But sometimes you just have to stop and say, "enough is enough."  I'd rather have a finished painting than continue to work on this one.  So maybe it shows that I'm a beginner... but hey!  I am.

My First Painting

I've got a new passion.

That is not to say I'm any good at it.

I've painted over so many interesting almost-paintings.  But I just don't want to call something done until it is really done.  The layers are interesting to me.

I'm working on building up the "canvas."  I put that in quotes since I am working on masonite board. Adam is mounting the board onto 1x2's for me and it gives them a lot more presence.

Birch trees

I'm trying lots of things out, so as my paintings emerge in this space do not expect a theme!  I have had some thematic ideas come and go, but mostly just want to play.  My next two pieces are a nude and a landscape.  I have been dreaming painted images and been having so many ideas.  One involves red and blue dots.  But then, the images of my mind never match what ends up being created.  I wonder if truly great artists can actually create what is in their mind?

Detail

I did one of underwater at water lilies that I just could not commit to and painted over.  Too bad I didn't take a picture first!

More to come.

PS Sorry about the poorly exposed iPhone shots.  The painting is much brighter than it looks in these pics.