Pears Watercolor Batic on Rice Paper

This is watercolor batik #2 on rice paper. I think it's such a fun process but it really is like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're gonna get.  I had to do a little color correcting in the background with some acrylic and I lost some of my wax splatters but for try #2 I'll say it's done---and ok.  You know how I love pears!

I think I fractured something!

Thank goodness it was only paint!  This is Julie Ford Oliver's wonderful technique of "Fracturing."  I absolutely love the look of this technique and I really hope I can do more of this. You can watch her how-to videos on Daily Paintworks. I haven't had time to paint since I have been living the
"Lollapalooza" high life recently. I am taking a little break before starting to film Lollapalooza Three so I thought I better pick up a paintbrush before I started rolling backwards.

I painted her sample painting for my first time trying it. Next time I will paint a still life and see what happens.

Day 20 of 30-30 Challenge

 I am pretty much stepping out of the box here back into acrylics. I really admire and enjoy the paintings of Angus Wilson. In the fall he will be here in Jacksonville and I am looking forward to seeing how he does his paintings with acrylic.  I have seen the several YouTube videos he has but seeing him do it is person will be fun. This one is rather bold with that red and orange background. I was planning to put another color over the background but I decided to just leave it.

Below is the sketch I did with Tombo markers---same sketch that I used for yesterday's painting.

I actually have two places where I paint. At home when I get the itch to paint something I go into my little walk-in closet that's all pimped out with shelves at my fingertips and a good work surface. 

I transfered all my WSO oil colors to my other larger studio (Red Door Art Studio) in the bungalow because I am seriously thinking about changing over to all water soluble oils. (Unfortunately I have a fortune in regular oil color).  The OMS (mineral spirits) gives me a headache and the clean up is not easy for me. Here at my home studio I have used Holbien Duo oil paint for a good while now and the ease of clean up as well as the exact same consistency and results as the regular oils makes it much easier to paint--at least for me. But for now here at the Red Door annex, as my husband calls it, I have transferred all of my acrylic paint. Goodness, I had no idea I had invested in so many. That was back in my Robert Burridge days. I still love the way he paints in acrylic.

10 more paintings to go to complete the 

Leslie Saeta 30 Paintings in 30 Days.

Day 7 of 30 paintings in 30 days

"Ripe for the Pickin'"

12x12 on Birch Wood

Ok, so here's the thing. I have taken workshops by several different talented and well known teachers in the last year; Alice Williams, Dreama Tolle Perry, Connie Winters and I have Trisha Adams coming up in February. Every teacher has a different method of painting from start to finish. They have their own particular colors and brushes that they like to use. I wonder if all this instruction from these vastly different but fabulous painters is helping or hurting me. I need to rephrase that---it's helps tremendously if you want to continue painting like that teacher but then here comes another one who does it the complete opposite. Then there are the DVD's I have watched from wonderful teachers like Hedi Moran, Richard Schmid among others. My head is swimming with techniques.  After I do Trisha Adam's class I am just going to paint and see what gels from all this instruction. I am hoping that a little from everyone will come out in my style.  But so far I am not sure which way I want to paint. I love the way all of them paint.  In the fall I am planning on taking Angus Wilson here in Jacksonville. I absolutely love his paintings. That one should really shake things up for me! But it's all so fun just learning and absorbing and trying and sometimes failing and getting up the next day and trying again.

Red Vase--Day 5

"Little Red Pot"

12x12

Day 5 of Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days. 

Hope I make it!

I completely turned my studio around and put the big easel into my big room. Here is the new painting area. It gives me much more room to spread out and have a good runway to back up and look.  I have to add more cool natural light because you can see from the picture how warm the lights are in there. I can also set up a still life to my right which is something I couldn't do in the sun room. In the other room the light might have been a bit more natural but I was just too crowded. You can see below how small the little sun room is where I was painting. So I 

moved it all. It was a feat but well worth it.

I have moved all my calligraphy supplies in this room so this is a nice area to do calligraphy, watercolor and work in my journals. I will have to put all that off until after the 30 day painting challenge.

Here's some calligraphy just to remind you.

Painting over an annoying painting-Day 4

So this is Day 4 or Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings and 30 days challenge.

Sometimes I see an acrylic painting in my studio that was ok at the time but basically annoys me now. This was one of those paintings so I decided to just paint right over it in oils from a still life set up. I like it much better now and it was certainly good practice to sketch right over the paintings with my oils and go for it. A little bit of the original painting is peeking through. A closer inspection shows it better.
I wish I had taken a picture of the original and I know that it is posted somewhere on this blog but I couldn't find it. It was a little village with a graffiti-like background.  I probably would paint over more of these graffiti -like paintings but several of them sold a couple of years ago. Who would'a thought???

Pear Impromptu

Sometimes don't you just have to run as fast as you can to your paints and paint a pear? No? Well, sometimes I do. I love pears--and I love to eat a juicy ripe pear. An aunt used to send us a whole box of pears for Christmas when I was a child and we had pears for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As you see this is actually on cheap graph paper and I used some stamps and Caran de Ache for the shading. It gives a glazing effect which I like and will start to learn to do with my oils. I am way far away from that though. I have to do my value scale on the pot I drew first. Drawing the pot was the first hurdle! And it all comes back to the drawing...the hardest part.

Power to the Pear!

Two more Altered Photographs

These are the same pears and pepper from yesterday's post with the photograph. Neither painting was working because I was trying to make it too realistic. I was about to RIP then I thought, "ok, can this painting be saved"? That's what I usually ask myself before I RIP. So you know what my motto is---"when all else fail---PUNCHANELLA!! Well, that helped me start to turn them around. They are about 5x7 and ok---saved...

Workshop with Golden Open Acrylics

Ok well, I made the plunge---to try Golden Open acrylics. I loved this workshop with local artist Diane Fraser. She is such a great teacher and gave us lots of information (aha moments!) and introduced us to these great acrylics. They are more transparent than the regular acrylics so you use them along with the regular acrylics but the glazing and workable effect is amazing. AND they stay on your pallet and wet for an hour or even longer. She is an oil painter and she said this is a great invention by Golden. I loved them and had to get all the colors but I will use them for my faces since it stays workable and blend-able longer. So basically you under-paint with regular acrylics then glaze (and glaze and glaze, if desired!)) with the opens. I love em!