In The Studio

It’s another day in the studio and I am working on a new collage/painting. For the theme of this painting I chose the I Ching hexagram Tui which represents happiness, joy, success, and good fortune.

The trigram Tui also denotes the youngest daughter and is symbolized by the smiling lake which is associated with freshwater in low areas: rivers, lakes, and marshes.

I began by prepping the canvas and then sketched the face below to represent the young daughter then glued the face, Tui symbol and the moon to the canvas.

I decided on a palette of cobalt blue, turquoise, primary cyan, and burnt umber, mostly trying to stay with yin colors which are said to bring about healing and relaxation.

Tui #1

Tui #2

 

Whew! This is what I have done so far. Tomorrow I will take a fresh look at what I’ve done so far and begin fine tuning it.

Collage

What a beautiful morning! The sun is out … the air is crisp, and from my studio window I watch people hurrying along the sidewalk,  listening to the sound of  fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet.

With coffee cup in hand I begin prepping canvases by laying down a coat of gesso.

While the canvases dry I make some preliminary sketches then choose the ones I want to use and transfer these to watercolor paper. I cut out the selected images and apply a light coat of gesso to the back of the watercolor paper and leave it to dry.

When the canvases have dried completely I apply either Golden ( soft or hard) molding paste with a large painting knife and put these aside to dry. This gives the canvas the look of aged plaster.

At this stage I may choose to apply the individual watercolor collage components using the molding paste or wait and use gel medium to glue them down after the molding paste has dried. The above picture shows the images applied with molding paste.

Now I am ready to apply acrylic paint to the background. First I lay in a light wash of color and let it dry before I begin adding additional layers of color, making sure  not to completely cover the first layer because I want each layer to show through.

While each background layer is drying I usually begin painting the collage elements using watercolor, acrylic, and inks.

Below is a photo of the under painting and it is at this point I can make any necessary adjustments to Kuan Yin’s face and begin adding stamping, text and more collage elements. In this painting/collage I have added the I Ching hexagram Tai which means harmony, great powers, and the flow of good things.

I Ching – Collage/Mixed Media – 8 X 10 inches on canvas

In the Studio

Spent the morning working on a painting and I’m almost finished! Hallelujah!

Later I played around with a couple of new ideas I wanted to try.  As with all things, especially related to art, there are no guarantees.

After a couple of hours I finally had one painting which kind of worked for me. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I had fun creating it

“Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the Phoenix.” – Christina Baldwin

“It’s best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix Bird in you so you can rise from the ashes.” – Anne Baxter

Creative Play

Creative playtime is often one of the most important activities we can engage in as artists. I believe taking the time to play with new ideas, new mediums and color palettes, keeps us in touch with our creative child. After all, our child just wants to have some fun. Taking risks and experimenting is key to our growth and makes us feel alive, and rejuvenated.

We all know that it’s fun to create and make things, and yet we tend to go straight from the idea to the finished painting, without giving ourselves some precious creative goofing around time in the studio.

You know what I mean, maybe your a water-colorist or oil painter, and those pastels you bought way back when, has never been opened . The time for trying something new is now, for later seems to never come.

Go ahead, give yourself permission to goof around with something you have always wanted to try, but never did.

Just Breathe, let go, and flow!

 

 

Back From Vacation

We had a wonderful vacation! On Monday, I spent some quiet time puttering around in the garden and recouping after a long week of being constantly on the go.

Today I worked on The Swan Maiden painting. The swans are now finished and I added a pearl necklace which still needs work. As I was finishing the bottom strand I noticed they were not draping the way they should. C’est la vie!

Tomorrow I will go in and correct the problem. Too tired to mess around with it this evening.

The Swan Maiden – Combined Media – 16 X 20

The Swan Maiden

I have been working on this painting since February of this year. The inspiration for this piece came from reading the novel “Daughter of the Forest” by Juliet Marillier. She is a very gifted writer and folklorist. This beautiful retelling of the traditional seven swans fairy tale set in ancient Ireland, sent me on a quest of inquiry into a myriad of myths surrounding swans.

During this research, I was drawn to the Irish legend of a beautiful swan maiden “Caer Ibormeth”. Daughter of Prince Ethal Anbuai of Sid Uamuin in Connacht. Legend has it that every other Samhain she would change into a swan and would remain in this form for a year before becoming human again the following Samhain. This romantic Irish myth has become the main focus of my painting.

I have done several preliminary sketches of flying swans and will be adding these later when I have finished painting the maiden and the background. Sometimes when I am working on a painting, it becomes necessary for me to plan, to mull, and let some of my ideas percolate for awhile before I can proceed.

I will post this painting again when I am finished.

The Swan Maiden – Combined Media – 16 X 20 inches

The Swan Maiden – Sketch Charcoal & 2B pencil – 16 X 20

Life is a Journey

Life is a Journey, and the experience of being immobile for a few days, really makes one appreciate the little things we take for granted everyday. It taught me patience with my own body, something that can be very difficult to do these days, with everything needing to be done yesterday.

I feel so much better today and looking forward to getting back in the studio, and I can hardly wait to work some more on my new painting. I have miles to go before it is finished.

I did have some extraordinary dreams while recuperating and hope to develop sketches of the ones I wrote down in my journal. My dreams have always been a source of inspiration for many of my paintings.

Work In Progress

Today I experimented with burnishing the painting below. I used a stainless steel spoon and applied it in a circular motion to the dried surface of the painting. This process makes the pigment shine, giving the painting a lacquered effect, which creates a rich luster and warm glow.

The paint must be completely dry before burnishing, I used this process on the plant pot, the womans eye, and the darker background areas. It gave the dark area of the eye a mysterious glow, which my camera did not capture. However, you can see the effect on the plant pot.

Tomorrow I plan on adding more layers of color and detail to the background, etc.

The image below is a close up photo of a portion of the painting.

Lady & Nature – Acrylic & Watercolor – 9 X 12 inches

“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.” – Linda Hogan

“Everything in nature contains all the power of nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

Painting Another Heart

I started another heart painting a couple of days ago. This is my third painting with a crystal heart as the main focal point. I can’t help myself, I feel drawn to paint this ancient symbol.

Throughout history, the heart symbol has been considered a religious icon. The ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the center of all consciousness, the center of life itself. For the Christians the heart represents hope, charity, and forgiveness.

For many others the heart was the center of thought, emotion, the soul, the center of one’s very being.

Celtic Heart – Combined Media – 12 X 12 inches

Figurative Abstract

I had some extra time today to work on my painting, so I began adding three abstract figures and collage elements to the background.

The inspiration for this piece came from some reoccurring dreams I’ve had over the past year, in which these very elongated tall abstract figures float over the landscape. They usually travel together in family groups.

Unity – Acrylic, Mixed Media – 16 X 20 inches

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.”
-John Muir

“I am the country, my eyes the sky, my limbs the trees,
I am the rock, the depth of water.
I am not here, in order to control nature or exploit her.
I am even nature.”
– Hopi