R is for Rosy

Its a rainy day, its a rainy month. I needed something radiant to warm me up. These rosy colors, acrylic on canvas board, do the trick.

Sometimes you just need to experiment to see what will appear - and then, enjoy the gift from the color spirits.

O is for Over the Moon

I notice that moon images have been appearing in lots of my work lately.

I am not exactly sure why, but it is a change from the suns and sunny compositions I was doing.

Then again, things feel dark these days and the moon is an excellent source of illumination.

And, of course this is also the time of the Super Moon, so maybe that is the explanation for this little piece which is part of the ten boards I have painted for the Big 500 show.

Like the others, I gessoed the board, layered with acrylic and topped with acrylic paint pens. It was a lot of fun to do - just letting myself add lines and dots and color as I pleased.

H is for Hippie

Let it POP. 9x12 Acrylic on Canvas

When my husband saw this little painting, done in preparation for a lesson on pop art landscapes, he began to sing, "we all live in a yellow submarine." Though his singing is not necessarily a good thing, I got the point.

Then a senior student commented, 'your hippie roots are showing." I didn't mean them to come out, but I admit it - as a child of the sixties, I love this wild and crazy use of color and light. Call me what you will ... this is fun.

And my young students definitely thought so too. The work that came from my classes was filled with light and beauty. The kids  were thrilled to work in acrylics. I was thrilled to see (and hear) the utter focus as every students worked hard to blend colors and create a sense of depth in their paintings.

AVG

TJ

F is for Flowers

I love to paint flowers - simple abstract flower forms, botanical reproductions, single flowers, lush pastels, huge painted bouquets, I love them all. My flower paintings line the walls of my home and fill me with joy.

When I am in teacher mode, flowers are a great way to teach about how geometric forms and simple shapes can combine to create dazzling beauty. And then of course, there is the color!

I like to work with a limited palette, and in my classes, this approach nearly eliminates the muddy mixes and disharmony that can happen with too many choices.

This little painting in acrylic is  9"x12" on canvas board. It did not seem to "gel" until I added the white lines and repainted the vase with turquoise (not in the original palette.) I'm the teacher, I can break the rules.

Y is for Yellow

Red used to be my favorite color for my paintings. Cadmium red medium to be precise. But that is so yesterday. Today, I am in love with yellow - cadmium yellow is my new favorite. I buy it in the extra large tubes. I especially love the shades that I get when I add white to the mix. Pure sunshine.

Today's painting was done in my Dynamic Abstract class. The assignment involved a set of complicated instructions - including standing outside holding a flower in the sun to create a shadow and sketching that shape - repeating it, adding a prescribed number of lines and circles, and limiting to only one color with black and white. Lots of fun to do. Art projects may be the only time in my life where I enjoy being told what to do :-)

This is "18x"24, acrylic on canvas.

X is for eXpress Yourself

Every so often I have the urge to paint a face.

This one, though it does not resemble my actual features, is called Big Idea - and somehow expresses my inner self. And my white hair.

 I really enjoyed "fracturing the image" to create the light and interesting lines. So, painting a face, and abstracting what I find with color and line is one way I like to express the artist in me.

This is acrylic on canvas - "16x"20.

B is for Background

One of my greatest challenges is deciding how to begin a painting. Sometimes its easy - I start with an idea,  a line or a patch of color, and just go. Other times I struggle to find my direction. Lately, I find that building on a background can create good results and allow me to really let my love of color take center stage.

This approach started a while ago when I found an early canvas in my collection of "not suitable for seeing" stash. There were lots of great colors, but the image seemed beyond help. As I looked at the work, I realized that the oripalette of strong hot colors just called out for some cools to balance - and I began to paint over it.

The painting that resulted has become a favorite, and I have used this method - either by painting a new background, or overpainting something else has had good effect several times. In fact, each of the paintings I have in the Instructors Show at Multnomah Art Center were painted in this way. I like knowing that I that the painting on top is hiding another story, and letting just little bits of the past influence the present.

By starting on a painted background in this way, it is easy to select a limited palette, and all that lies beneath offers a subtle texture to the finished work.

Each of these painting is 18x24 acrylic on canvas.

I is for Intuitive Painting

 Always on the lookout for inspiring ideas, I saw a YouTube video about Intuitive Painting. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I am trying to get out of my own way when painting - putting down lines or shapes or colors and seeing where it goes. But I had never heard of Intuitive Painting - which is essentially smooshing a bunch of acrylics paint onto the canvas, and in this method, covering it with saran wrap and pushing the paint around. When you take off the saran, you spend time looking at the image to see what appears.

This seemed like a great idea - which actually led to another one. I chose my colors, in a cool mood, smooshed and pushed the paint, but when I peeled off the saran I saw that there was plenty of paint on the wrap as well as some pattern. So, thinking about printing, I laid the paint covered saran back on the painting and smooshed and pushed some more ... and did it again, layering paint and pattern. The image on the right shows the work in progress.

At some point, my inner voice said stop. Staring at the painting I saw mountains in clouds, a stream, grass lands and lovely cool light. This all called out for trees - so I painted them in and the painting felt complete.

In my explorations of the Art Every Day Month Challenge, I came across this site which shows another version of this process and gives a good description of the method. Check it out this post about plastic wrap art technique at Art by Serena Go to My Art Projects.

G is for Georgia on My Mind

Dahlia ala Georgia O'Keeffe

One of the most effective tools I use to inspire and teach my senior students is a PowerPoint presentation. I regularly gather information and images to introduce and talk about an artist or a style of art.

My students all enjoy seeing the presentation displayed on a large screen TV, and for me, its a great way to show, not tell, what we are going to be working on in class.

Last week our presentation was on Grandma Moses. She, like many of my seniors, lived and worked in a farm community. Her work is simple and accessible, and very appealing. They totally "got" her. I loved sharing facts of her life, including that she came to painting in her 70's, and lived to be 101. In my research I learned that before arthritis made holding a needle too difficult,  she created paintings in needlepoint, embroidering in thread on cloth. Lots of my older students are or were very handy with a needle, so this small fact made painting landscapes is her style seem a little more possible.

Lillian Pakos

Today, my presentation is about Georgia O'Keeffe (lived to be 98). I have found, whether teaching kids or adults, whether aiming for realistic images or abstraction, drawing and painting flowers yields great results. So, the lesson today will be to draw just one large flower to fill the space of our page, and design and color it as we like. I will provide a wide selection of single flower photos from my own collection, and see what appears.

My dahlia above is an exercise in limited palette, 8x10, acrylic on canvas. The other drawing, by Lillian Pakos is a beautiful example of the kinds of work I see in my classes.

E is for Effects

Foggy Day

One of the things I most enjoy about my life as an artist is looking at the work of other painters. I had some work in our annual Festival of the Arts this summer. The weather was horrible, which meant that I had lots of time to wander the show and really study the paintings that appealed to me. One of the things that really struck me was the use of fabulous and fascinating textures as backgrounds for images. How do they do that?

I asked. When I saw a painting that impressed me, it was not hard to strike up a conversation with the artist - to offer compliments, and ask questions. One artist in particular was especially gracious - and shared some of her secrets to her luminous colors and awesome textures. So, I went home to play.

The more I experiment, with solvents, with sprays, with laying textured materials on the canvas and painting over, with scraping, scratching and pouring, the more fun I have, and the more interesting the results. Suddenly the central image takes a back seat to the feeling of the whole, created by messing around until I get the effect I am looking for. This image, Foggy Day, is 9x12, a mixture of mediums on canvas, was completely fun to create ...

So, I knew my kid students would love to create their own effects as well. (This process is too messy for my more finicky seniors). I provided bottles of thinned paints, sponges, brushes, and water color paper, as well as pans for letting paint drip into - and everyone poured paint until they "saw a picture." Then, there were crayons and markers for enhancing anything that popped out.  It was a great lesson in color, contrast and creativity.

Through a Glass

Through a Glass

I am having a great time playing with the creation of backgrounds. This one started with a layer of prussian blue, thalo green and white paints - smooshed into the canvas without a pattern - just a layer of changing color. Then, I applied a pattern of lines with painters tape, sprayed a light layer of gold paint and rubbed it into the surface. I love the indoor outdoor feeling of looking into the sun that appeared. Next, I used charcoal to drawn the curving lines and began to add paint in the same colors I used in the underpainting, with the addition of yellow ochre. I love the opacity of that paint. 

Once the paint was in place, I retraced the lines in black oil pastel.

This is acrylic on canvas 16"x20".

Building to a Conclusion

I have worked on this same canvas four times - building layers of paint and color without arriving at a satisfactory result, until today when inspiration struck (in the bathtub).

I am currently intrigued with understanding how to develop texture and interest under the layer of paint that shows. As I study the abstract images I find most successful, I am becoming more aware of all that appears to be going on under the surface. So, I thought I would use this much painted canvas to create a color field painting. I applied a surface pattern with tape, and just for the heck of it, added a thin layer of gold paint to the existing (now under) painting. There was already lots of texture in the paint, and I thought it would work through. I chose a limited palette of blue, turquoise, yellow ocher and white.

I used my new fat brush to lay thick paint in the taped areas, mixing on the surface of the canvas, dried with a hair dryer, untaped, retaped the areas that I wanted to work on next, and repeated the process. I added a touch more gold, and thickened some texture. If you look closely, you can see lines and swirls, darks and light subtlely through the stripes. Finally, I think this canvas is done ... at least until the next inspiration strikes.

Exploring Variations: Finding Ideas

Evening in the City 

In the last post, the image, Koi, was painted with a deliberate plan. The painting is for my son and his wife. He asked for something that somehow "went with" a beautiful Japanese image of a large orange Koi fish.  It was  easy to find my inspiration for this piece - colors, layout and size were all "givens."

This painting, though clearly related to the last in style and composition, began with no plan except a desire to play around with a pallette knife. I am currently reading and working through Painting Abstracts, by Rolina Van Vliet, considering the images, techniques and approaches. As a result of what I am learning in the book, I knew I wanted to combine larger areas with smaller ones - but had no vision of where I was going (I hate that.) I started by using the palette knife to lay down a multicolor layer, experimenting with textures, and combining light and dark,colors. Ugly - but an interesting background.

I am still enthralled by the abstract trees I've been painting; I love the outlines and individually defined shapes. Oh, and also, I have a great fat new brush that holds lots of paint and creates wonderful texture. So, using the new brush, and laying colors directly from the tube, I began to paint a pattern of squares. Soon the trees appeared, (good, I thought that was to be the plan) and then they went away.  A city scene appeared ... at least to me.

I so often struggle with knowing what to paint, especially when I am on my own and not in a class. But today's project, in which I did not stop when I hated the results, and just kept on messing around to see what would appear, is a success.

Not because it is beautiful (is it? I can't tell yet, but I know it gives me that good feeling) but because I allowed it take its own shape and I learned in the process. This is the reason I believe it is important to work regularly, and as often as possible, and to work with no particular outcome in mind. I find it so much more difficult now that I am working in the abstract mode - because in my more realistic working past, I always could find a photo to guide me. This is different - a photo can contain some of what I want to appear - but a lot is now needing to be drawn from imagination and abstraction.

What do you think? What is the best way to build skills? What inspires you to just jump in and paint? How do you handle "artist's block?"

Goals for the New Year

Koi (for C and H) Acrylic on canvas 18"x24"

New Years Resolutions are a good idea. According to the book I am reading for book group, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, resolutions not only increase your productivity or decrease your thighs, setting and keeping resolutions can make you happier. I would be happy to be happier all the time. One way I can see that I would be happier  - is if I were a better painter.

So my resolution for this year - to constantly learn how to paint.

I have a strong start on this goal - beginning last summer when I picked up a paint brush to experiment with tempera paint I got at a garage sale. At the same garage sale, I bought, for a dime, the Watercolor Lesson-a-Day Calendar. These are tiny sketches to be painted and colored, of 365 paintings by dozens of artists and styles. I really enjoy looking at these images, and found myself sorting them into types - with consideration for how each was painted. I was looking for simple images, and ideas for paintings I, with my limited skills and ability, and especially, my young students, could try to paint.

I have written before about how I stumbled into abstract art in by seeking ways to teach, and by seeing with new eyes, the works of Klee and Kandinsky, Matisse and Miro.  Since summer, as I have been combining learning to use acrylic paint with my study of abstract art, I have learned a great deal. Not the least of which is  how much I need to know to become a better painter (as defined by my own criteria).

To accomplish this, my primary goals for the moment, until I discover what I need to know next, is to learn and improve technique  -the How-to's

• how to create texture with paint
• how to create better brush strokes
• to use paint like pastels - blend on the surface
• use a palette knife 
• create 'impressions' with paint
• learn to abstract 
• learn to be more impressionistic, trees, flowers, simple shapes to create  impression 
• ... abstract impressionism, expressionism

Based on my experience and the process of learning to paint,  I know I am doing some things right. I am taking classes in Dynamic Abstract painting at PCC.  I have befriended a helpful salesman at Aaron Brothers, where I buy my (steady stream of) art supplies. He is always willing to share a book recommendation or a bit of advice on paint, pigment, tools and materials. And, he figures out how to make the most of my coupons.

Another great resource has turned out to be the internet (what a surprise!). I have learned so much, and gotten so many cool ideas from videos that artists and teachers post of themselves painting and teaching on YouTube. And course, there are books. Amazon is richer for my growing collection.

The greatest teacher in this process has been practice. I feel as if I am learning to cook - trying new ingredients and recipes every day.  I have filled canvases and sketch pads and pastel sheets with color and images. I have generated quite a bit of work - even some that I am proud of. I can not express how much I gained from the Art Everyday for a Month challenge.  As a result of making art often - with no goal except learning from the process,  I can see progress, change, confidence and pleasure in what I am doing - so, I want to keep doing it.

Therefore, I have saved my last two resolutions/goals for last ...

I believe that for me to meet my goals, I need to to paint or draw or work digitally - at least 4 times a week, to build my skills, and expand my creative arena. To really be happy doing this, I need external motivation - I need to connect with other artists and teachers, anyone with the desire to learn to make art, or to share what they know. So, I want to:

• to teach my own classes, based on my own ideas, and 
• become part of a painting group - for a regular opportunity to meet, work, critique, share and learn with a group with common goals.

And one more thing, I also want to learn how to market art ... but first I want to make more of it ...

What are your goals as an artist? How will you meet them? Any ideas for me?

Happy New Year.

Pieces of the Whole

Though I miss the dailiness of doing a painting a day, it has been nice to have some time to work on something larger. I've also had the time to explore a new book (which I will write about soon), and continue with my PCC class.

With everything I learn, I realize more and more clearly, that I am drawn to playing with color, discovering how they interact with each other, and how the combinations can create moods and atmosphere.

This image is a piece of a larger painting -  part of a series I began as A for Abstract. Each time I revisit this theme, I discover new ideas, new palettes, new techniques and new questions about how to bring these paintings to life. I have noticed that there are at least several small lovely areas - each of which might be smaller abstract paintings on its own. I tweaked this in Photoshop to darken the scene ... just for the fun of it.

Dd is for Day 30 and Done (at least for now)

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves 

over and let the beautiful stuff out. 

~ Ray Bradbury

This year's challenge is drawing to a close - and I am experiencing a collection of emotions; relief, sadness, exhilaration and satisfaction for the chance to focus on a daily creation. Everyday brought the question of what to do - but it got easier over the days, and less scary to put something out there.

Today, I reviewed the last 29 pieces I have posted, and I am slightly awed by what I have done - by the variety of techniques and styles I used, and by the fact that, even on my busiest days, I followed through on my commitment to do this. If I were an athlete, I would say that I feel that my muscles are stronger and more limber for all this practice.

Of course, so much of the inspiration to keep at this, has come from  the ideas, comments and support I have received from friends, and from other participants. There are so many talented people working out there - doing so many interesting things; I want to try them all. And, I want to thank all of you who visited the blog and shared your thoughts. I have learned SO much - and I have enjoyed every moment of this month.

As I said at the beginning, my goal for this month has been to develop my ability to work abstractly. Today's post - the grand 2011 finale, is an abstract painting, acrylics on canvas, completely from my imagination, though related in theme and style to another, smaller work I created a month ago (see A is for Abstract). It is the largest I have ever attempted - 36"x24" - and it was pure pleasure to paint. I can't wait to start on another.

Aa is for Abstract and Acrylics

My teacher always reminds the class to look for the "one perfect square inch" in every work. I find this advice to be a great way to look at a piece that is not entirely successful, and yet see what is working.

Today's image is a part of a painting on canvas I have been playing with for weeks - still in progress.

One of the charms of acrylic paints is that they can be painted over, build upon and altered - the layers adding texture and depth. I like this section of the painting which has gone from an awkward seascape to a fractured landscape. I am trying to find the balance of abstraction and readability, and in this part, I can see some of what I am looking for begin to appear.

W is for Wet

What better way to weather a this watery Wednesday before Thanksgiving than by creating a "flow painting."

This type of painting  is done by literally pouring watered acrylic paint over the canvas and letting it flow. The shapes are made by shifting and turning the canvas to  flow of the paint. There is very little brush work - but a little pushing does help create some good flows. It is messy and fun.

As each layer is dried, another is flowed on top. I chose the most watery and transparent colors I could to create this effect and I poured a final layer over the entire piece to give it a watery glazed finish.

N is for Nice and Warm

November weather is nasty more often than not. Its grey, its rainy. What could be more comforting that swirling great globs of sunshine colors across the canvas and basking in the warmth.

M is for Many Colors

So, what did I learn in school yesterday?

I am privileged to be studying Dynamic Abstract Painting with Illa Guttman at PCC this term. I have repeatedly referred to something I have learned from her in this blog - but yesterday's class was particularly enthralling.

The subject was Color Field painting "with its emphasis on stain painting and visual gorgeousness."

In class, we explored the often HUGE works of Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko, among others.

Often in museums, when standing in front of a work of art that looks like nothing more than a line on a field of color, I think, I could do that. This kind of work looks easy - but ...  Ha ha ha ... not so fast.

Yesterday was a chance to try. I began by finding a photo (a sea scene) with vivid colors that laid out in lines.) On  a canvas 2'x3', and following the guidance of my teacher, I laid down a strong underlayer of a dark violet. Then, using painters tape, I laid out a pattern of stripes and began to paint, changing, mixing and layering colors - and seeing the effects of the color that lay beneath.

I was lucky to have 4 hours to work - because I needed time for layers to dry, and to watch how one stripe of color affected the next (and to remove and replace tape.) In the end, the simple stripes were too flat for me so I added the other lines. I am not sure if this works, but I know that I learned a tremendous amount, and already have several ideas for ways to use what I have learned in some new work.