A Portrait of My Husband.... or Wait, is that Ken?

I haven't posted, or painted for a while.  I started a new Low Carb, High Fat diet.  Initially I started this diet because I had gotten so fat I couldn't stand to look at myself anymore.  I chose a low carb diet because we watched Fat Head, and later Sugar: The Bitter Truth.  These movies convinced me I needed to know more, and the more I read, the more convinced I was to try a low carb, high fat diet.

Once I started I was even more convinced.  A list of things I'll never miss from my high carb days, debilitating insomnia, excema on my scalp, tooth pain, fatigue, brain fogg, depression, my large stomach (it's still shrinking).  So for the past month I've been soaking up as much information as I could find online about my new diet.  Sometimes I've felt almost evangelical about it, as you'll know if you talk to me, or are a friend on facebook.

However, my new diet has nothing to do with painting, so on to the subject at hand.  I wanted to paint a portrait of my husband to match the one I did of me.  My plan was to make his skin white with a green tint to complement the white with a purple tint of my portrait.  I was very excited to do this because I had better paintbrushes to work with.

Once I started I was just not liking the white and green color scheme I had going on, and as I'd bought some raw umber, and raw sienna I tried my hand at mixing a skin tone.

I like this painting, but it looks nothing like my husband, nothing at all.  I bought a drawing book a while ago, and I'm thinking that maybe I should spend some time drawing through the lessons in the book to help me with proportion, and realism.  Things like that.

As you can see this looks more like it could be a Ken doll than a real person.  After this painting I'm a bit stumped for ideas.  I've got five canvases waiting for paint and no ideas.  One of these days I think I'll just sit down and doodle for a bit, and we'll see what happens.  Maybe I'll find a good picture at Rendesvous this year, of a TeePee, or some people in period clothing.

In Life and in Painting a Goal with a Plan is What You Want

I painted a self portrait.  At first I didn't like it at all, but the more I look at it the more I like it.  It is far from perfect, but I got some things right.  The proportion is wrong, the nose is too small, the mouth is hugemongous, the eyes are kind of scary, but for all that it still is kind of cool looking.

I used the Photo below to paint from.  As you can see not entirely successful, but still similar enough that I have hope I will grow this skill if I continue to practice.

Then once I was finished with my painting and didn't want to do anything else to it.  I still wanted to paint.  I couldn't figure out what I wanted to paint.  My husband suggested I paint a bowl of fruit, I thought that might be an interesting experiment.  As I didn't have any fruit to put into a bowl I went online for images.  There was a dearth of anything I thought was interesting and I could paint at my current skill level.  I finally found a pencil drawing of some apples, bananas, a lemon, strawberries and grapes.

My attempt was a complete failure, I didn't like the colors how I mixed them, my proportions were way too wrong.  So I stopped and painted over it all with all the colors I had mixed, I have a muted rainbowy background waiting for a painting on it now.  It got me to thinking.  I listen to motivational speakers on CD when I'm driving to and from work, many of them talk about deciding what you want in great detail, writing it down, envisioning it.  Until you know exactly what you want how can you work towards it?  A good painting is much the same as living a good life, you have to have a plan, and know what you want, or you will just aimlessly be putting color to canvas.  There are people who say that abstract paintings are like that, and maybe some are.  But I think that the good abstract paintings convey an emotion, a feeling of being in a specific frame of mind.  You can't fall into that by accident, you must create it.

So, my next painting I'll spend more time actually planning it, up til now I've just kind of played.  The most planning I did was to find a picture of myself I thought I might be able to paint, and modify it so it would print decently on our little black and white printer.

I'm not sure what I'll decide to paint next, though I am thinking of a bowl of fruit.  If I do paint a bowl of fruit, I will first go choose fruit from the grocery store.  Then arrange it in a bowl and take photos of it.  I'll then get the photos printed, and paint from one, or all of those.  I will probably look into how to get a good handle on proportion.  I may even attempt a sketch first.  So I'll get back with you once I have my planned out painting done.

You Get What You Pay For

When I initially got set up to do my hobby paintings I went out and bought the cheapest of everything that I could find.  Initially I was happy with everything, but the more I did, and read, and saw; the more I wanted some nicer paints.

Wow, what a difference nicer paints make.  They are brighter, and the colors mix nicer; not muddy like the last set that I was working with.  I set out and did a "color wheel" background, and once it was done I thought it needed something else, so I did a tree silhouette.  I am still not good at this whole tree painting business but I hope to get there.

I like how bright and happy the colors are here.  I had a lot of fun painting this one.  I got myself set up in the basement with lamps and my new easel and paints.  I was going to find a little table for everything but we had a shelf screwed into the wall for the cats to sit on that was the perfect height, and since we don't have the tv down there anymore they don't use it.  So it has actually turned out perfectly for a space.

Here's a picture of my new paints.  I'm very excited to see what I can do with them.

When I did my first few paintings I was just playing, trying out the water so to speak.  Now that I've gotten my feet wet I want to learn all sorts of things.  I'll look at things around me and think about what it might take to accurately portray them in a painting, or how I would portray the feeling of them if I didn't want to be representational.  I've been realizing that I haven't stretched myself creatively in a very long time, it feels good to get those muscles out and stretch them.  I'm sure as I go I'll get stronger and stronger if I keep up with my plans and goals.

Wish me luck in my next endeavor, I think me trying to paint myself might be a disaster in the making, but we'll see I guess.

Playing with Paints

I was looking online at all sorts of painting tips.  I was drawn again and again to photos of abstract paintings.  And then I stumbled onto Jonas Gerard dancing with a paintbrush in his hand.  (The original video is gone, so I found a new one)  Suddenly the tiny paintings I've been doing didn't seem quite so much fun.  I wanted to have a paint party with dancing too (still do).  One of these days I think I'll enroll myself into a class, but first I want to spend more time playing.

I had read in the free ebook I mentioned in my last post that cardboard was a good medium to paint on.  So I did this next painting on Cardboard, I wanted to play with mixing colors together, and also to try my hand at something abstract.

Before I started I had the image in my mind of a guardian angel.  You can kind of see the wings.  I don't like the cardboard because it warped, and also because this painting won't last very long on it.  I actually really like this one.  My husband said he really likes it too, although he thinks it should be the other way around, cause he says its a flower.  On its side I think it looks like a fish, so multifunctional.  I used red, yellow, blue, black and white paint for this painting.  I really like the turquoisy blue, near the bottom, I am not so enamoured of the fry sauce pink at the top, but it works.

After the experiment with the cardboard I went to WalMart to get some larger boards to paint on.  (I have been researching putting my own stretched canvases together, but that's a topic for another post).  While I was there I saw their line of acrylic paints for crafters and was very intrigued by the metalics.  So I bought some, and painted this painting.

The picture didn't turn out very well, the background isn't quite as dark as it looks here.  My tree is kind of retarded looking, but I still really like this painting.  I think I'll revisit the idea once I've improved my skills, so I can make a really cool tree on a cool background.

For now I am thinking up ways to put together a better painting space.  Everything I've done so far has been done in our front room, perched on a reclining chair, with my painting stuff laid out on the couch next to me, and the painting itself proped up on a folding chair.

I found a nice aluminum easel on Amazon.  I think I'll set it up in the basement, then I'll just need to take one of the lamps down.  I'm thinking I might want a stool, but we'll see what happens.

I have one more painting that is a work in progress right now.  I was swirling together some red and blue metallic paint.  I wanted some purple, but not all purple which is what I got.... So its back to the drawing board with that one.

One of these days I will be set up do be able to dance with a paintbrush in my hand like Jonas Gerard.

The Description of an Artist

I've always been good with words.  From a very young age I wanted to be a writer.  Create magic worlds for people to escape into.  Storycraft always made sense to me, in comparison Art seemed magical.  No words used to create a beautiful painting, or sculpture, or drawing.  Yet so much can be comunicated by a single piece of artwork. 
Artists are magicians, instructors, interrogators, instigators, detectives.  Their work can in turns; reveal, conceal, communicate, transform, unify, divide and so much more.  The world of art seemed like one I had been denied entrance to.  Now I see that artists are struggling with life's questions through their work, the same way everyone else does.  The end product of their process is just more accesible to the world at large.

I did some searches online to see if there were any tips and tricks to this painting with acrylics thing.  I found This Website where I got a free ebook for just sending in my email address.

Now, in some things I am very good at following instructions and getting good results the first time.  I found this process to not be one of those things.  I got the sky down pretty well, but the clouds escaped me.  They look ok, but not as realistic as the instructional photos.  And the trees are covering up my failure of a mountain range in the distance.  I don't know whether it is my paint mixing, or my technique... probably both, but the trees don't have nearly as much depth as I was going for.  But I figure the only way I'll get better is to practice, and learn, and mess up.  So here is my second effort on my second week.  I am determined not to give up just because I am not getting immediate results, that is one of the repeating failures in my life.  I am not going to fail because I quit this time.

My First Painting

I have never considered myself to be an artist.  I've known too many people with much more skill in bringing their creative vision to fruition.  This is a prevailing issue in my life, comparing myself, and my life results to other people.  Why I can't just relax and enjoy the things I have accomplished, and allow myself to learn and grow I don't know.  My inner critic has a very loud voice, one that sometimes I would like to silence.  Recently though I've felt that my vision is lacking, or absent.  I don't like that feeling and for whatever reason painting seemed like the answer to my problem.  Maybe because I know I won't be the best, the voice of my inner critic isn't as important?

This painting came mostly out of my desire to play with the Modeling Paste.  (a tube of paste to make your paint thicker, and keep it's shape when it dries)  I didn't go in with a plan.  I'll have to sharpen my skills so I can make a plan and execute it.  If I tried to paint anything specific right now I don't know if you'd be able to tell what I was trying to do.

As you can see my skills at taking a photo of a painting are just as rudimentary as my painting skills.

I'm calling this one Blood Moon.  Cause it's the first thing I thought of once I got my sun and stars together, it's not actually a sun.