Awesome Art Techniques

I’ve been fascinated with stencils and layering for quite some time. When I see paintings using these methods I see there is a richness and depth of color and texture that it simply begs to be touched and studied.

I was lucky enough to take a stencil class from Mary Ann Moss of Dispatch from LA a few months ago. Mary Ann is an excellent teacher, I would take another class from her in a heartbeat. She was funny and informative. She uses spray paint in her work and gives you all the pros and cons of using spray paint vs spray inks and the health hazards of each. Her class videos demonstrated many projects each, all the while telling you “here is how I do it, but there is no right or wrong way.” I love that.   The information in the class videos ranges from using found objects as masks or stencils to creating your own stencils out of stencil film or acetate.  After watching the videos for each class, I was inspired to create a myriad of stencils, some of which I have yet to use but am dying to. Since taking the class, I now have found stencils made of lace, punchinella, drawer liners, washers, and doilies. And cut stencils of birds, flowers, faces, swirls and borders. Not to mention paper stencils purchased from scrapbook paper aisle. 

If you’ve been reading my blog recently you know that I was also taking a class from Kelly Kilmer of Kelly Kilmer Artist and Instructor. Kelly is so supportive in her Prompt a day class that you never feel like you are making a mess with the layered paints and collage. She always makes you feel like you’ve gone a great job and that support is so important for new artists. OK you know by reading my previous posts that Kelly’s class wasn’t just about layering paint, it was really about journaling daily but paint layering is what I got out of it. The freedom to try splashing 6-7 colors on a page (dry page between colors) and seeing how dreamy it can look. She had us use colors I would have never thought about using together to create some really beautiful background pages, if I do say so myself.  :) What was really interesting was seeing the diversity of art work produced by the students, all of us using the same painting and collage prompts.

The best thing I got out of the two classes is the feeling that I can combine the information I cultivated from both to do what I’ve been wanting to do but couldn’t fathom how until now. To give you an indication of the style I’ve been lusting after here is a video from Gray Reef showing you how he creates his paintings, using the paint layering and stencils techniques.  His work was one of the reasons I really fell for the process in the first place.  His art is impressive. If you get a chance, click on his name above and view more of his technique videos.  He has a lot to offer.

 

I will probably take a short break from taking classes so I can practice my new found information.  However, I am looking for suggestions on classes. What are you taking and how do you like the teacher? Would you recommend the class to others?  I’m most interested in learning more about painting faces but I will entertain other ideas as well.

The last painting in the 30 Day Challenge

This is the last painting done for the 30 day challenge.  I didn’t create 30 paintings in 30 days but I was very happy with the 17 I did paint.  That is the most I’ve ever done in 30 days and I think my skills increased somewhat. (if I do say so myself, haha)  

However, the biggest lesson was to paint and not worry too much about mistakes.  Knowing that paper can be thrown away and canvas can be painted over with gesso is very freeing. It allowed me to let go knowing that I could cover all the mistakes with gesso if I wanted to get rid of  incriminating evidence of my painting ineptitude.  :-)

The second lesson was to learning to like abstract paintings, mine and others.  I learned when some are done and when they need more work.  A few of the 17 do need more work but I was working with the rules of the 30 day challenge, which was one painting a day, no going back to finish it.  OK, I admit that I broke that same rule a few times when the painting was going well but I didn’t have time to finish in one sitting.

If you ever have the opportunity to try a challenge like this, I recommend it.  I admit that it was hard trying to paint every day  especially when I wasn’t particularly inspired.  Some days I just sat there with paint brush in hand wondering where to start.  But all in all I enjoyed it and will do it again sometime.

Thanks again to Gary Reef for the 30 day challenge.  If you haven’t been to his site yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s now called Art from the Heart. He keeps changing the site’s name but I adore him anyway.

New Art

This was a little something I worked on for the 30 day challenge.  This is 9 x 12 on Canvas board.  The background is scrapbook paper.  The girl is painted with colored pencils and acrylics.  The flower is a 3-D silk flower and brad glued on to the image.   I want to live in that castle but I’d settle for having hair that looked this good. :)  I’m easy. 

I started another abstract but it's still sitting on my studio easel half finished. Maybe tomorrow night. 

More for the 30 day Challenge

 

 

The above are two ATC’s I made for both the 30 day challenge and a swap at ATC’s for all.

 

I think this is a unfinished.  I may come back to it later.

More from the 30 Day Challenge

Continuing on in the 30 day challenge:

May 5th: Copper Swirls 12 x 12 on wood

There is something about copper that calls to me.  Aged copper especially. There is a gorgeous building in Sacramento that has a copper roof with a verdigris patina that I love to look at every time I drive by.  This painting reminds me of that roof. OK so the roof doesn’t have swirls….. what can I say? :)

 

May 6th:  Silver Love (for lack of a better name) 6 X6 canvas

The silver paint bubbled when I tried to blow dry it and I loved how it looked.

 

May 7th – In My Happy Place  12 X 9 Canvas Board.

The flower is 3-D paper flower that is replica of the one directly behind it on the canvas board.  My husband really loves this one.  He’s directed me to frame it!! He’s such a sweetie.

Trying to get out of my funk

I’m back to blogging after two weeks away.  As you know from my last post, I went to NM two weeks ago to visit my girl and her husband.  We had a really fun time and I really hated to leave.  If I hadn’t also missed my husband while I was gone, I might have extended my stay.  But since I’ve been back, I’ve been in a funk.  I felt like my heart is split in two, one part here in Cali with my husband and the other in NM with my girl.  sigh…..

It’s helped that we have spent our weekends working on the bedroom/bathroom remodel.  We now have two walls up, complete with sheetrock and another is almost stripped away so we can add the third.  (I meant to add some pictures today but they are still in the camera.) And yesterday we bought the most beautiful frosted glass door for the bathroom.  It’s gorgeous!!

I also signed up for the 30 Day Art Challenge on Gary Reef’s Mixed Media Arts site.  It started May 1st and the idea is to complete one piece per day. and we are not supposed to go back to the piece another day to finish it.

I’ve decided that the main focus for the 30 days will on abstract art.  I may need to vary from that sometime in the 30 days, as I have to make 3 ATCs before the end of the month, but so far I’m staying on track.   Now I’ve never created abstract art before but  I thought I’d give it a shot. As you’ll see in a bit, it’s quite a stretch for me.  Not sure I’ll get the hand of it but if  one turns out good I’ll be happy.  …..OK don’t laugh ( well at least not so loud that I’ll hear you), here is

May 1st:

May 2nd:  Falling into place

May 3rd: Going in Circles

 

How do you stay inspired?

Creativity Where I Can Find It or What I Did Last Weekend

And again I haven’t had much time to finish any art work this week.  My creativity had taken on a much larger project.  What am I doing?  That really should read ‘What are we doing?"  My guy and I have been planning a bedroom/bathroom remodel since we moved to this house almost three years ago.  And for one reason or another the remodel has off and on and off again.  The biggest reason is the economy and believe me when I say we knew the problems with the economy were coming even before it was officially called an economic downturn.  So after receiving several $50,ooo estimates for the project we decided that it wasn’t a good time to go forward with it. 

However, I knew that if we really wanted to, the two of us could build it ourselves (excluding the plumbing, that we’ll have to hire out).  But it took quite a while convince my guy that we should do the bulk of the work.  He kept telling me that he was too old to be doing that kind if stuff. Please, he’s only 50… and I’ve got a few years on him and I think we can do it if we set my mind to it.  After all, the two of us remodeled the kitchen in our last house and it turned out beautifully.

What really helped my case is that my guy’s older sister (she’s my age) and her husband built their own house with the help of their daughters (no sons to help). Literally, built their own house, walls and everything and they did it in a year.  

Mind you this project has been planned out for a while now. We have our drawings, and above older sisters husband who is an architect has been here to give us lots of advice and it  has been discussed to death.  So we finally decided that we really needed the closets, badly, and that’s where we would start. and we would do it slowly so as not to kill ourselves.  So three weekends ago we went out and bought lumber, hauled it upstairs and let it dry for two weeks.

Then last weekend we started. we cut the wood and framed out three walls of our closet.  Here is a picture:

 

Do you see the walls behind the framing?  This weekend we will be putting up drywall so when we knock those walls down we won’t get a lot dust in the bedroom. 

My closet will be on the left and my guys will be on the right side.  They will each have high ceilings for the extra storage. The break between the framing will be a hallway that will eventually lead to the bathroom.   The inside will be made up of Ikea closet units. I can’t wait because ever since we ripped out the bedroom closet (it used to be behind the white door on the right), we have clothes in all the closets in the house. I can’t find anything.

My advice to anyone considering doing something like this?  Get a framing nailer.  It saved us and each section of the wall was put together in ten minutes. 

Well, I haven’t been totally art free but I just don’t have anything finished to show you. I am working on two paintings. One is a floral inspired by Georgia O’Keefe due to the Gray Reef ning site. And the other is the portrait I’ve talked about before. When I get done with the floral, I’ll post it.

Sunflowers

Gary Reef issued a challenge to draw a sunflower painting and I’m not sure this is what he had in mind. I think it’s a little primitive for his class.  Looking at the art work posted on that site really intimidates me but I posted it anyway because the prize was one on his arts works.  So I took a chance on being embarrassed just to win because his work is that good.    Be sure to stop by his Ning and take a look see. Here is the website:  http://garyreef.ning.com/