The Big Grid Journal, etc...

Sometimes I get so focused on painting that I forget my big journal. 

I love creating these journal pages because I get to use all those stamps 

and supplies that I just HAD to have.

I also like to put little snippets of artwork that I have created into it and

to draw some girls.  Drawing faces is one of the most fun things of all.

It's funny about my faces...they are all either cousins or sisters.

I use Pan Pastels for the backgrounds, my calligraphy markers, Calligra-FUN

letters with Brushables markers, stamps I have carved and stamps I have bought, 

glitter and gel pens...and the list goes on and on. Sometimes I even use Puffy paint.

Every page is different and it's like a puzzle---where to fit in the next thing.

This one is about a week behind because I forgot to post it last time.

Also, I will be sending out the  September "Artsy Update" newsletter Saturday, Sept 1st. 

Among other artsy things, I am offering a 24 hour art sale.
 If by chance you wanted to purchase

any of my 6x6 daily oil paintings this will be
your chance to get one at a very low price.
They are piling up and some of these little children
just must be adopted out!

ALSO: If you don't receive your newsletter on Saturday,
check your spam folder. It might be there. Sometimes email
settings will do that.

And with that purchase
 you will also receive password access to my re-released tutorial,

"5 Minute Watercolor Flowers" 

 It a good compliment to my "Color Drop Flowers" class.

Here is a little sneak peak.

5 minute promo from Martha Lever on Vimeo.

So until next time...

Come Journey with Me

 

I had an itch today to carve a stamp.

I had to stop and think a minute how to transfer it onto the stamp. Xylene did the trick.

I also like the smell of it. It's like smelling gasoline---but maybe I am just weird.

 It is such an easy transfer. You have to have a toner based printer (I have a cheap HP one), then do your flip horizontal thing in an editing program, place the printed paper on the stamp eraser and coat some xylene on the back of the print with a paper towel. Go over it with a bone folder to crisp it up. It makes a very crisp transfer. 

It was rather tricky. I am not practiced up on my stamp carving skills but it was fun.
Nice change from the smell of my oil paints. I like that smell too.

:))

UPDATE:

Marjorie has commented that xylene is toxic, so just to be clear---
I am NOT recommending this product. 
She says it's also in Sharpies.

NEWSLETTER DAY!

I hope everyone received their newsletter today and I and so excited about the subscriber response. Thank you all so much. I knew that I wanted to expand my outreach but just didn't quite know how to do it. Now that I have found the Fine Art Newsletter format I am really excited and had a blast creating it for this week.

If you want to subscribe it's never too late to see a back issue because you can find all of them in the "Read Past Issues" area
HERE

Here is another little ditty I did this week. It's just one of those late night "gotta scratch my art itch" paintings.
It's a 5x5.

Hope you enjoy the newsletter!
PS...If any of you Subscribed after 7:00 AM today, August 10,
go HERE and scroll to the bottom to "Read Past Issues"

NEWSLETTER IS COMING!!

I have been thinking about doing a newsletter for quite some time but really didn't know how to go about it. My new web site is from FASO and they offer a newsletter format which comes with my package so I thought now's the time. 

 Don't worry because your email will never be sold or given out by by FASO to any other company.

Here are some things that I will be including in the newsletter:
Giveaways, tips, videos, supply suggestions and the supplies that I think are the best, daily paintings, calligraphy, insights into my art journey, my art inspirations, updates on new classes and discounts on art work, and much more.

If you get tired or bored of me you can delete me when I come in or you can unsubscribe. 
No worries!

When you subscribe you will receive an email in your box saying that you have subscribed to me and when you open that up you will have an area that says, "Quick Reply." If you want to, I would love for you to send me a little note as to who you are and what kind of art you do and what things you would like to see from my newsletter.

So with all that being said:
If you are so inclined...
SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER
I am working on Friday's letter so when you sign up you will receive it in your inbox on Friday.
Thank you! 

And the Winner Is...

STEPHANIE!
http://stephanieestrin.blogspot.com/

Congratulations! Daisy is excited about comeing to your house!
Send me your address and I will send her right off to you.

Thank you all for your sweet comments and I wish I had a Daily for everyone.

The View from Friday Part 3--and a giveaway!

Hey Y'all. Hope everyone had a good week. I can't believe it's already August. It's surely the Dog Days of August here in Jacksonville. Almost too hot to go outside but I know that I am not the only one so I know that others can join my summer heat pity party.

I didn't paint a daily painting every day because I am also going through the workbook of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," by Betty Edwards...because if you can't draw you can't paint. That's the sad truth. Well, I will rephrase that--if you are trying to paint what you see, that is. I also got stuck with my nose in my book (no it's not 50 Shades of Grey--and I understand that is not an art book on learning to paint a value study!) :))

So first off, here is a little video that I filmed yesterday of my new toy.
This box is the Belly River.



I am extremely excited about my new pochade box but as I said--- now I have to bit the bullet and go do it YIKES!. When the weather gets cooler then I will go. Chauncey said he would go with me so he can fend off the gators.


Here is one called "Ethereal Flowers" that I painted at 11:00 the other night. I painted on some Japanese paper that I had glued to a panel. Love this paper.

Andbelow is the other one called "Daisies in Red" that I painted after doing Lesson 6 of Dan Edmondson classes. This one was also painted on Japanese paper so it would peek through. This doesn't look too much like the still life we were suppose to paint but he has given us permission to translate any way we want.

And here is a cute little book Lori and I made at a workshop the other day. It's Coptic stitching a book using single sheets. It was rather complicated but you can see the cute braids down the spine. I enjoyed making it though and it's always fun to be with Lori.

And if you are interested, here is how I shoot my photos. You can get the set up here:

It works great and you can fold it up in a snap and put it away. The lamps are not included of course but the little lights are.

So now for the giveaway. These daily paintings are certainly piling up so I thought I would start to give some away.

This is "Daisy" and she would love to come and live with you. She is 6x6 in oil.

Just leave me a comment and Sunday night I will let Mr. Random.org pick a number and I will post  the winner on Sunday night.

Have a wonderful week and I will leave you with this quote:

"The older I become, the more I realize that drawing

 is the most important of all the problems of picture-making."

--Joaquin Sorolla

The View from Friday

Ok well to start off this daily painting week my intention was to paint lesson 5 with Dan Edmondson which I am enjoying so much. I am learning to paint things that I would never even try to attempt, like a martini glass with a pear in it with grapes! YIKES. But that is later this week.

I am working on painting 120 paintings, some pretty good, some not so good but I learn more with the not so good ones.

Here is the first one. This one is an 8x8 on a linen panel.

Below are the abstract poppies that I painted at 11:00 the other night. I should never so that because it keeps me up but sometimes I just have to go into my little painting closet and paint to keep from going to bed. I never liked going to bed even as a child.

Then came this one that I thought was going to be so cute from the photograph but came out not so good to me. I am not sure why but I think the pink flowers are rather garish. I just didn't feel that little tingle that I sometimes get when I feel like I nailed it. I seem to get that little thrill more when I paint something from my imagination rather than from a photograph.
But my goal is to paint from real life and photos that I take.

Most of these daily paintings are 6x6 or 6x8--and sometimes 8x8.

These next two were painted the same day. Again these were just intuitive paintings and not looking at a photo.

This one has some collage tissue in the background. You see, I am reverting back to my "grungy" style but using oils rather than acrylics. I am really liking the oils now. I use water soluble oils as well as the regular oils. As I paint through my regular oils I think I will probably just stick to the water soluble oils.

The thought is rolling around in my head to do an online class on using these water soluble oils and paint some flowers and make a little masterpiece..because you know that everything painted in oils is a masterpiece!

Here is the one I painted yesterday. It's a 6x8 collage with oils. I enjoyed painting it and it looks like alot of other paintings I have painted. I always go to these safe background colors but I need to branch out and get adventurous.

 Ok, now for Lesson 5 of Dan Edmondson's class. I put this one off as long as I could because I was intimidated by the martini glass. Well it actually wasn't that hard. You just paint what you see and not what you think you see. That's easier said than done. Of course it helps to see him paint it also.

So there is another week of painting. As always if you would like to purchase any of these paintings you can do that at my website or Daily Paintworks.

Have a wonderful weekend and have a creative week!
I will leave you with this valuable and  oh so true quote:

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Weeks Worth of Paintings

I thought I would post a few paintings I have painted this week. I actually did this one yesterday.
One of my favorite artists and teachers, Kevin Macphearson, says in his book, Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color, to do 100 "starts" of paintings. He explains in his book that this is just a beginning of a painting. There is no detail just shapes with the base colors with the lightest lights and the darkest darks. At this point you don't finish the painting or lay in any details. This is what I did in this painting above. As you see in the reference photo there are many details and I have chosen to crop the photo to fit on my 6x6 canvas size.  I think this will be a good exercise for me because I tend to fiddle way to much on my paintings. I paint from the image on my iPad in Filterstorm app and blur the image and paint the shapes. Surprisingly it looks like something after the "start" is finished. Then if I have a good start then maybe I will have a better chance of getting a good painting. I have a really hard time stopping though. He wants you to stop and don't finish the paintings. It's just for the practice.

I posted this one of the "Itty Bitty Berry Picker" on FB so some of you might have seen her. I am going to try and paint little children but not their faces. I am not ready for that yet. This one was from an inspiration photo I found. It's just on canvas material because it's a practice painting.

This one was from a still life that my art buddies and I set up in my studio to paint. It is very blue-- Old Holland Caribbean Blue that is! And it looks nothing like the still life. The still life, as you see below, had material for the background and lots of folds and shadows. I decided I have a new policy--I DON'T PAINT FOLDS! Well...never say never I guess. It's just a shape so what the big woop.
 As you see I had quite a different interpretation.

Below is a interesting one and it also is just on canvas material (no panel) because it's just a practice start but I got way carried away and painted the house red.
It looked easy to paint but it wasn't easy. I fiddled way too much and it was only suppose to be a start.

And one last thing... I was very excited this week because Daily Paintworks picked this painting to be one of their picks of the day on their Facebook page. I felt like I had died and gone to oil paint heaven. Here it is.

One last thing...you know I just have to use my stamps and try to 

make these oil painting have a grungy mixed media look (it's so much easier with acrylics) so I stamped this pear that I had painted several weeks ago with my Harlequin stamp. The painting has to be dry to stamp on it with oil paint. That takes patience. I am learning patience as I learn to oil paint. 

If you would like to see more paintings please visit my Fine Art Website.

And also... Happy Birthday Lori!!

See y'all later---maybe next Friday I will post again and show you what I have done. 

Just Checking In...

Even though I have taken a blog break I sure haven't taken a painting break. As I said before I took the break my next goal in my art journey is to learn the ins and outs of oil painting starting from the ground floor up so I can learn properly. I have watercolor knowledge as well as acrylics but to really learn to paint what you see with the correct colors takes practice. It's fun and frustrating at the same time. I am still working on my 120 paintings and I am taking an online class with Dan Edmondson. He is teaching me some good tips that I needed to know about oil painting and he sends a video critique of your work. Pretty cool!

Below are a couple of the completed lessons so far. I am only half way through. I never thought I would be putting dark backgrounds on anything but it's so good to learn how to do that. I am certainly not anywhere close to where I want to be but so far so good.

I have also been building a new website and have been extremely busy with that. It is up and running.
Here it is:
www.marthalever.com

I will continue to paint and might check back in next month. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July yesterday and hopefully everyone is staying cool.

The Journey Moves On...

I had a vision in my head to paint some hydrangeas in blues and lavenders but what a squishy mess I made of that one so I scraped off the lavender blue and added orange.  Again, just learning how oils lay on top of each other is something I need to learn.  This is probably even below oil painting basics. I do know that it's fat over lean but that sounds great in theory...   Watercolor is so different and sometimes I have to stop and just paint some watercolor flowers and pears to revive myself!
You can still see a little bit of the lavender. This is a 6x6 on a panel.

I am reading a book right now called  Fill Your Oil Paintings With Light and Color  by Kevin Macpherson and I am  devouring each page and learning things that I need to know about painting in oils. He is answering questions that I didn't know I even had.  I am going to study his teachings and see where it takes me. That being said, I am going to take a blog break for the summer while I paint. I will be out of town quite a bit so this is a good time to take a break. I really haven't ever taken much of a blog break because I so love to blog my progresses and love all your comments. I think that while I am painting my 120 bad paintings (of course some will be good) I will not blog them because I find myself whining about the bad ones. No one likes a whiner and what I see as bad may not really look bad to others. So maybe it's just better for me to make some progress without the little voice in my head repeating over and over, "is it bloggable?" If I get a really good one that takes me on that much sought after oil painting art high I will blog it. Of course I could be the fumes.

Why do I feel I need to torture myself to learn all about values and color mixing and shadows and cool colors and warm colors...  and how it all works together in a painting? I have only scratched the surface with what I know already. I think it's just time to move forward in my art journey and strengthen my foundation.  I have never been one to stay in one place for too long and I do love an art challenge. I love to paint my mixed media pieces which is something I will always do and my watercolors too but the oils are an empty space in my art journey so I must at least put my best foot ...(or brush) forward and try to improve in this area.

So, I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial da and summer and if I can stay away that long I will be back in August to show you what I have done over the summer. I will still be checking in on all of you to see what you are doing. I couldn't stand not seeing what you all are up to.

Happy creating and painting to everyone!!
oxox

Twilight Flowers

After the miserable failure of the attempted painting of Rainbow Row in Charleston yesterday I just had to try one more time go get in my daily painting that I was satisfied with. I couldn't sleep so this one was a midnight one. I just looked at some flowers that were in a watercolor book and painted away.

It's looking a little more like I had in mind for my oil paintings. I did figure out that I really didn't know how to handle oil paint and I am having to learn those basics trial and error.  Oh watercolor, watercolor, how wonderful you are! I will return to you soon. Same for you acrylics...

Oh and if you are ever interested in buying any of these paintings and some others I have put them up on Daily Painters. You can see the button widget on the right. You can click to look but you don't have to buy.

Thanks, y'all!

"Primary Truth"

Well, I am trying not to get mad at myself for the painting I tried to do that was a wipe off. It was of a photo I took several years ago of Rainbow Row in Charleston. What was I thinking? There are angles and porches and wrought iron work--- and well, just too much for me at this point with oils. I have painted the same photo with watercolor with much better results but this not watercolor so---it was a wipe off. So I just couldn't let those primary colors go to waste on my palette so this is what emerged with my left over paint. I wrote into it with a calligraphy tool.

 Here is a close up of the writing. That part was fun.

Ok, tomorrow is another day. I might have to get out my watercolors and paint a pear or some poppies to make myself feel better.

Montage practice

Ok, after the wipe off of the rose I decided to go back into a more comfortable zone and paint some pears and apples although sometimes apples are not that comfortable but they are getting better. I also painted the out back picture again. These are must on gessoed watercolor paper except for the out back picture which is a canvas panel.

I am trying to keep count of my paintings and I am not sure if this counts for 8 or just one montage painting practice.

Oils are still harder than acrylic for me but I might be feeling a little more comfortable with them. 

Also today is my daughter, Macaulay's, 32nd birthday. Here she is looking all pretty at Myrtle Beach --sweet thing--

The first Wipe-Out

I don't know why roses are such a struggle for me. I think I am trying to paint too many details. I was not happy with this one so I wiped it off after fiddling with it for way too long. And if you know anything about knife painting with oils--you can't fiddle. There is not really enough contrast in the leaves and the pedals are wrong and well...it's a goner.

It's really not that I don't know how to paint something because I do. What I am trying to learn to do is to determine the colors in the photo or still life (getting it on the canvas is another story...) then using a limited palette of lemon yellow, cad yellow lit, cad red med, perm rose, aliz crimson, ultra blue, phthalo blue, burnt umber and white...and usually yellow ochre too, and paint it.

Maybe I was doing fine just painting intuitively without any rules of color, cool and warm, values and shades. I think maybe this is using too much of my left brain so maybe that's why I am struggling so much. I don't know the answer to that one yet.  I am hoping that after my left brain learns it it will click over to the intuitive right brain. But I have to learn it first.

The picture is nice though.

If I want to paint roses I need to just sit down and draw them first.

Out back--Painting # 2

This is an 8x8 oil and I am actually ok with this one because I went outside and took some pictures and tried to figure out the best layout to crop the picture so I could paint it. This is with a palette knife and I am still very new to the palette knife so it's probably too schmooshie but I am working on not schmooshing so much. It's like icing a cake so I don't think we would want our cakes all schmooshie like this. With every painting I get a little better with handling the knife.  I won't always use a knife but I will sometimes use a brush. Anyway I am pretty happy with this one since it was from a photo I had taken and turned it into a painting! Ok 2 down, 198 to go. I won't post them all because you will surely get extremely bored---and remember, if you read the blog post from yesterdays blog it said 120 bad paintings.
I don't let bad paintings stick around so I will probably wipe them off but at least I will have clocked in my brush/knife time. And for this one, if you stand back from it, it looks a whole lot better.

Painting #1

Here is my set up. I am finding that the windows are good light but I have to do some lighting from the front to combat the light from the back. But it's the only way the room will set up.

This is a 5x7 on gessoed watercolor paper. I just can't pull myself to do these paintings on a canvas yet or a panel. Too expensive. But I do have some panels coming and I am planning to cut some myself out of masonite. 

It's still wet so the glare is catching it. So this is my "unofficial plan";  If you have time to read this blog post from one of my favorite painters it's a good one and it's explains why "120 paintings".
So my "unofficial plan" (you know about those best laid plans) is to paint 120 paintings by setting up a still life or from a photo (preferably one I have taken if possible) and paint it is oils. I know I have painted many paintings but not so many from a photo or still life. I feel like I am starting over. So this is painting #1.  I say unofficial because I am not holding myself to this plan because I don't want to feel guilty if I head in another direction, which, knowing me, is highly likely! I  am good about heaping art guilt upon myself so I just don't want to quit in frustration. I will try to post everyday but surely that might not happen and in between I am sure there will be journal pages and other things to show. I will also try to show a progression if possible.  So here I go...hope you don't get bored and I will try not to whine so much like a spoiled little brat.

A "21 Secrets Progression"

I have enjoyed going through the "21 Secrets" Workshop this session and I especially enjoyed Tracie Hanson's class called "Journal Quest."

Here is what I did from doing her class.

So, this is how it started. This is a 12 x 12 panel that I did 2 years ago that was up on my shelf. Remember my graffiti phase? I just got a little tired of looking at it so I decided to try Tracie's technique of finding shapes within an abstract painting. I don't think I should give away too much information about her process or supplies since the class is ongoing so I will just let you see my progression of pictures.

Smoosh ...smoosh...

It was really fun and it's a technique that I will use again because after struggling with my Saturday workshop this was such a joy to create And it only took about 30 minutes.

 Maybe trying to paint still life with oils just isn't my thing but I am not giving up yet. Thank you all for your sweet comments. You all are so encouraging to me and if my struggles help you at all then it is worth it to post then---but as you see I have many joyful times also. It's all about brush time---miles and miles of brush time.

 The button for "21 Secrets" is on my blog roll on the right if you would like to join "21 Secrets." I used a palette knife for this painting but I could have totally used a cut up credit card to paint the flowers. I teach how I use a credit card to paint flowers in my class at 21 Secrets called "Credit Card Flowers."

Also, I could couldn't let the silver pot be so I worked on it some more. I am not sure if I saved it since I am not looking at the still life any more and the picture I got reads like I had painted it. Anyway, here it is:

I think I just need to leave it alone now and chalk it up to experience.

More painting journey

I am still trying to paint everyday. That is the only way to learn to paint (in my opinion). If you just paint occasionally then the longer the time span in between the paintings the more you lose traction. I am trying to paint with the palette knife. This was just a quickie one with some Palm trees. It's an 8x8 on a panel. I am trying to use all of my panels I have bought in the past.

 And by the way, I had a difficult experience in the palette knife painting class on Saturday. The still life I chose was extremely difficult with a tarnished silver pitcher, white flowers and some pears (and reflections of the pears in the tarnished silver pot.) I actually didn't realize it was going to be that hard when I chose it and I don't produce very easily in a workshop setting. The teacher is a very good painter and I like her style but her process is very different from mine so I struggled with doing it her way. I think I am a little bit of a rebel and certainly need to try harder to adhere to instruction that is different from my way of doing it so as to learn.

So since this is a blog diary of my art journey I thought I would go ahead and post it. This one is a 16 x 20. It's not a bad painting it's just that it represents 4 hours of extreme frustration, stress and anxiety. This one was definitely the "agony" part of the "Agony and the Ecstasy" of painting. (Again, no comparison of my painting with Michangelo's!) But I do know that all artists' struggles are similar. Sometimes I wonder why I do it. There is just something in me that keeps pushing me forward. I think it all started in 4th grade math class but I won't go there..(it ain't a pretty story.)