#30paintingsin30days Challenge Day 14-Painting #9

"Sol-fa-mi-sol", mixed media on gessobord, 4"x4"

It's Day 14 and I should be on painting 14 but I'm on painting 9.  Who's counting, right?

Finally found something to add to this small 4 inch square canvas.  Perfect size for a chickadee.

Not sure how I am going to varnish this one.  I might use Liquitex Pouring medium.

Thanks for looking at my work!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge- Painting #7

"Raven", Mixed Media on wood, 4"x4"

This is painting #7 that I skipped posting on.  

I painted the wood background in Liquitex acrylic gold paint and transferred on the wood the words to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven".  Raven was created separately on mixed media paper and attached onto wood.

Thank you for looking!

#30paintingsin30days-Day 12 (Painting #8)

"Symphony #9", mixed media on canvas, 8"x8"

Okay.  2 things.  I know that I should be on painting number 12 since it's the 12th of January and I know that I skipped painting number 7.

I'll scan and upload painting 7 tomorrow.  I coated it with Liquitex pouring medium and had to wait for it to dry.

I'm trying my best to not feel guilty that I haven't done 12 paintings and that I am 8 short.  After all, it's my challenge and it's not like I am going to kicked out of the challenge.  I am still accomplishing something and starting the new year off on the right foot!

The canvas for this piece I have had hanging around my studio for like FOREVER.  I just couldn't figure out what to do with it.  I loved what I did with it.  I painted it and textured it with rice paper.  I also used gold ink to highlight the music sheet pieces and the high points of the rice paper.  I also stamped fern leaves using real fern leaves from the woods in the back of my house.  This is kind of tricky if you could imagine because one slip-up and I would ruin the canvas below and I would have to fix it somehow or start all over.

The inspiration for the bird came once again from our Virginia snowstorm last week.  We had some cute yellow-rumped warblers at our feeders.  I couldn't remember what their name was since they are more or less a winter resident down here.

I woke up at 4am in the morning and couldn't sleep so I ended up drawing the bird and then applying him to the prepared canvas later.

I am really happy how it turned our.

Thanks for stopping by!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 9(Painting #6)

"Morning Song", Mixed Media on Wood, 8"x10"

I was happy to finally finish the painting above for the 30 day painting challenge.  The canvas has been sitting around my studio for a long time waiting for some sort of inspiration.  I had already painting it blue and added the music sheet on it named "Morning Song".  I know I wanted to put a bird on it but didn't know what kind and how it should look.

With the snowfall this weekend, I have spent a lot of time looking out of my kitchen windows watching all the birds at the feeders.  One bluebird in the yard tended to the thug of the yard and was chasing everyone off of the feeders.

The bluebird "thug" is the one on the left!  LOL!

At that point, I got inspired to draw a bluebird for the piece.  I worked on the drawing yesterday.

After I finished the drawing, I made a decision to only include one bird on the canvas although it seemed like I should have more than one.  I then decided to cut out different color lace pieces and add them over a piece of cheesecloth that I applied with Liquitex Gloss Heavy Gel.  Now that it is done, I think I am going to either use Art Resin for the top coating or Liquitex Pouring Medium.

Thank you for looking today!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 7(Painting #5)

I had a couple of non-productive days in regards to painting. I just didn't have time with everything I needed to do.  Luckily, a snow day here in Virginia has kept me inside in my studio where I have been working on a few pieces.  The painting below I finished today.  Reference photo came from MorgueFile.

Even though I don't own a Jack Russell I still wanted to paint this.  I am working on a few different pet portraits to display at my veterinary's office.

Think I am happy how it turned out but not sure yet.

Will look at it again tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!

"New" Refurbished Scanner

This weekend we are supposed to be getting a really bad snowstorm here in Virginia.  I was so excited to receive my "new" refurbished Epson V37 scanner yesterday.  I have all weekend to play with it while I am trapped inside my warm home.

I have been wanting to get a scanner for a long time but I could not find one that I could realistically afford.  I have been doing research on and off for the last few months.  I ended up finding a deal on Ebay through Epson on the scanner I liked for only $59.00 and that included shipping!

I thought I would do my first scan tonight on a painting that I did earlier in the week.  Below I wanted to show you the difference between taking a photo with my point and shoot camera and scanning it with my new scanner.

I am really pleased with how the scan turned out because it is more accurate than the original photograph of I took.  The painting is much softer than the first photo and you can see this in the scan.

So....if you are on the fence about getting a scanner, go out and get one. I don't think you will be disappointed.

I don't have any paintings to add to my 30 day painting challenge.  That is the bad news but the good news is that I have the whole weekend to spend in my studio to create some new work.

Thanks for looking!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 4

Today totally didn't go as planned which seems typical lately.

I don't mention it much on here that I am a mom of 3 kids(ages 16, 14 and 9).  I also don't mention either how I homeschool all three of them due to various learning disabilities.  I'm just throwing it out there in case anyone is wondering why I always act like I'm so busy all the time.   I AM!

It can be difficult if not downright impossible for me to paint or create every single day while I am doing what I am doing as a mom right now.  I feel like I walk a very fine line between doing what I want to do for self-fulfillment vs. my responsibilities as a mother.  Sometimes when I etch out that time for just myself, I end up feeling guilty for not being attentive 100 percent to my children.  I kind of felt that way while reading out of my daughter's environmental science book to her this afternoon.  My mind was wandering as I thought about making time for my painting challenge and thinking about what I wanted to paint today.  The struggle is REAL!

I had the schedule for today all worked out and then I had to take my dog to vet.  She looks like she has pink eye and the vet pretty much confirmed that.  So I jumped from homeschooling kids to taking dog to emergency vet appointment to painting today's painting before I made tacos for dinner.

What I am happy about is how excited I was today about painting today's subject as opposed to the "Pear Study" yesterday that felt very tedious to me.  Reference photo is from MorgueFile which is a free image repository for artists to use as reference materials.  I saw this photo and knew that it would look great cropped down into a square.

This photo makes me happy. Birds make me happy. Crows can make me happy because they are just so darn smart!  I love seeing those videos of people who have domesticated wild crows and the crow ends up babysitting their kids in the backyard while it sits in a tree.

I used my artistic license to change the background because I love how powerful the color red oxide is against the color black.  I was surprised that the crow's eye was not brown which led me into some internet research.  I discovered that young crows can have blue eyes like our subject above. Hence, the name I chose for the title.

"Young Crow", Acrylic on Wood, 6"x6".

"Young Crow" is available to purchase through Daily Paintworks.  Click here for the link!

Thanks for stopping by and I promise not to be so whiny tomorrow!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 3

What did I say yesterday about getting up early?  Yep.  It didn't happen.  Something about hearing the rhythmic dropping of the rain outside my window made me just roll over and catch another 2 hours of sleep.  Yikes!  I woke up and I felt like the day was slipping away!

Today's subject!

Today's painting idea/challenge came from the Daily Paintworks Challenge page.  Paint the same object 8 different times for only 10 minutes each.  The first 3 paintings I was totally stressed out.  I don't like to do any type of art quickly.  This painting gave me flashbacks of many different art classes where we had to do warm-up exercises for a few minutes each.  I hated those back then and I still don't like them.

Since I had only 10 minutes for each section, drying time was an issue as far as blending.  So....some of the pears have a lot more strokes to them as compared on how I might typically paint a pear.  I was trying to get a lot of color in the pear in a short amount of time.

I think the painting is successful as far as it made me think about different greens and yellows to blend and how to go about doing it.  I would probably do another one of these studies again the future.

"Pear Study", Acrylic on canvas, 8"x10".

It's 5pm and I don't know what I am going to paint tomorrow.  Kinda of stressed since I know that that I have to leave the house for a few hours tomorrow to take my son to violin and tutoring.  I am thinking maybe I should do colored pencil or charcoal instead of painting so I can do my whole "traveling artist" thing while I am out of the house.

See you tomorrow.

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 2

Well, I woke up thinking that I need to plan my 30 paintings in 30 days challenge better!

Starting tomorrow, I will be a lot more busier so I know that I need to schedule time to work.  I might even work on tomorrow's painting tonight.  What I will do though is plan out what painting I am going to do before tomorrow!  I literally woke up, made coffee and decided to paint my friend Cindy's cat Izzy.

This is another photo that has been on my desktop for ages.

I thought you might like to see "work in progress" photos.  First I drew in the cat and outlined it in Mars Black.

 I wanted to try something a little bit different because that is what this challenge is all about, right?  I decided to do a monochromatic study first before I added any color.

 Next I added the Yellow Oxide for the couch and this is the point that I realized that I had very little white left to do this painting with.  I have been meaning to buy a tube of white paint but I keep forgetting.  So....I was definitely rationing the white!

 Thought at this point-"Hey, why not add purple in the shadows and the cat?"

Final piece:

"Izzy", Acrylic on canvas 5"x7".

Enjoying the process so far although we are only on Day 2.  I am leaving the studio to plan for the rest of the day and will be coming back later to figure out what I am painting tomorrow.  I'm thinking I will need to get up extra early which is hard coming off of vacation.

Thanks for stopping by!

#30paintingsin30days Challenge-Day 1

I've done this challenge before about a year ago.  The challenge is to paint a painting each day for 30 days.  I really should have preplanned this a little better. As of this morning, I was not sure what I was going to paint.  The reference photo was taken by my BIL Christopher Byrd and I have been saving it on my laptop for awhile now.

Part of the challenge for me is to broaden my horizons a little so I am not planning on using a lot of my same colors and color combinations for these paintings.  I started by drawing the cup on my wood panel.

I looked on my color wheel to get ideas on what colors to use with yellow ochre because that was the main color for the piece.  I picked 2 colors that matched it on the triad color wheel which were Red/Violet and Blue/Green.  It took me about 20 minutes to find my tube of Turquoise because I never use it!

"Morning", Acrylic on Wood Panel, 6"x6"

I'm happy how it turned out even though I cringed a little before posting up on Facebook because it looks totally different than what I normally do.

Painting is available to purchase through Daily Paintworks.

Thanks for looking at my blog today!