Get Your Paint On- Week 4

Here is my latest piece from the online class I'm taking.  We were supposed to concentrate on composition with this piece.

I usually feel like balance and composition come pretty naturally to me, but on this piece, I specifically paid attention to it- making sure the weight and colors worked well.  

It was another fun one to do! Although I'm having a little too much fun doing these pieces for the class, and not working on my kids' journals, unfortunately!!  I'll be playing catch-up in those once this is all done with!

Get Your Paint On- Week Three

This week, our assignment was to pick four (I cheated, and only picked three) objects from our life, and match their colors in our painting. 

I chose my three kids' "lovies":  Riley's puppy, Noah's giraffe, and Avery's blankie.  The chairs in the painting are the paints I mixed.  In reality, they match a little better than the photo shows, but they also dried a bit darker than the mixed paints. 

 One light bulb moment for me this week was Mati and Lisa's recommendation to never use paint straight from the bottle.  They recommend always mixing your paints to get more complex colors.  While I can't say that I followed that 100% this week, it did really affect the way I used my colors, and I did a lot more mixing than I usually do.  They did an interview with Matte Stephens this week, which further cemented those ideas.  His pallette is SO AMAZING- I look at his work, and think my colors look so amateur-ish comparatively!

Anyway, this piece took a while to come together.  I'm really wondering about my use of the arches.  I can't tell if I use the shape as a fall-back or not.  But they just feel so "right" to me, that it's hard NOT to use them.  And I sort of feel like I haven't completely explored them to their fullest yet. 

What I'm enjoying is using some of the more geometric shapes in combination with the organic shapes of the arches.  This is new for me, so I'll play with that for a while...

Okay, that's all. Avery's banging on the porch door with a golf club, so guess I'd better go attend to my kids!!

Get Your Paint On- Week Two

Here is my piece of work for the second week of Mati and Lisa's class.  We were asked to use a favorite painting or artist as a starting point, and go from there.  I am a great admirer of Jennifer Mercede's work, and especially this tryptich.  I love how she paints lots of details, then covers over large portions of her painting, leaving only glimpses of the underpainting. 

Jennifer doesn't tend to use many collage elements or photos in her work, but I wanted to try to merge her style with my own, so I decided to put photos of my kids in, so I felt an emotional connection to it.

This piece was so much fun to do!  I didn't really think about what I was doing for the majority of the time I worked (don't you just love it when you can get into that sort of zone while you work?), and I just let the shapes emerge.  The movement and forms of the painting just felt very "right" and comfortable to me, and I kept getting a sense of some sort of protective creature carrying the kids within it as it lurched along.  The whole thing also sort of has an outer space feeling to it, and I have no idea where that's coming from, but I guess I just need to go with it...!

I always do well with "assignments" when I work- it gives me a starting point, and a different way of thinking, which can really help if I'm feeling in a rut.  So I'm loving that aspect of this class.  Additionally, I've learned about so many new artists already, which is always great inspiration!  Will keep you all posted of my upcoming assignments!

Miss Avery's Painting

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember a few years ago (wow, has it been that long?) when I did painted portraits of my boys.  Poor Avery hasn't been well represented on the walls until recently, so I finally have gotten around to remedying that!

Here is our newest piece on the wall, done from the photo below:

 Just look at that face- what a sweetie!!

 It's been a while since I did a realistic painting, but I'm very pleased with the results!

It came out a little different in tone than the boys', but I don't mind.

As you can see, she is equally enamored with herself, but I guess that's what to expect from a little girl!!

Now, my next task is to do a little silhouette of her to complete the arrangement!

Get Your Paint On

I'm taking an online painting class taught by Mati McDonough and Lisa Congdon, both artists whom I've admired for a while.  Our first assignment was to do a piece inspired by the Gee's Bend quilts. Oh my, are there some gorgeous pieces there!!

This particular one especially caught my eye.  I LOVE the mixture of the dainty feminine patterns with the bolder geometric patterns- SWOON!  The above painting was my piece inspired by the quilt.  Looking at the two side by side, I definitely prefer the quilt, but I'm fairly happy with the painting as well...!

I'm looking forward to the remainder of the class- I love both teachers' work so much, I'm hoping to glean some of their carefree, whimsical style to incorporate into my own work!