Ladies of the Forest

Day 30 of the 30 Day Painting Challenge and I have one more painting left to go. It's been a hard slog I think! Last night, I went back to my markers (it felt so good!) and made a set of pretty forest ladies for a trading partner who is sending me three pretty antlered ladies in return.

I painted a sitting nude for one of my challenge pieces, this one on canvas board with a book page over top. I find that gets rid of the super annoying grooves in canvas. I should just buy flat masonite or birch board from here on in. The other painting (#29!) is a watercolor of a pretty red head with flowers in her hair. These two are both in my new (well old but recently re-opened) Etsy store.

I am super thankful for the one day respite on January 31st before I start in on the 29 Faces challenge for February. Anyone else in on that one? Can't wait to start blog hopping for it!

Happy PPF!

30 Paintings....I'm fading, sort of.

Ok... I'm going to admit that I'm getting a little tired of painting. I've had to resort to ATCs to stay in the challenge. The big canvases were killing me since I have to work still and then feed my family every day. But I'm still in it! I don't even know which number I'm at now. I'll have to put the paintings all together and do a count to make sure I'm close to Day 26. But yeah, really getting tired of the paints. I would love to switch to my old standby of markers and pens. So much easier and quicker!

At right and left are two very bright and colorful ACEOs (painted!) for my Etsy store. I also included a set of Benedict Cumberbatch silly style ATCs for a swap I'm in, also painted so they count toward my total! Here are: Stimifart Humperdump, Sunniflap Crasterdash, Fundybart Penderthatch and Bennibong Tokinflash.

Goth girls and butterflies!

Here's a new painting I did this week for the 30 Day painting challenge (I'm still going!). A cute little goth girl with her pretty blue butterflies. I stuck this one in my (now open again) Etsy store. I figure I might as well try to sell a few of the paintings I've been doing for the challenge.

I have a bunch of others on the go but none dry or ready to post here yet. I think I might have to finish up the challenge with ATC paintings, lol. Working on larger sizes is really hard when you try to paint daily. There's not quite enough time to pull off a 9 x 12 or 8 x 10 on a daily basis - at least at the rate I'm working here. Maybe I'm just slow :)

Happy PPF! Happy weekend! YAY! It's my favorite time of the week.

Apples and pears!

More paintings from this weekend. The bottom ones are actually ATCs from an art-a-thon over at illustratedatcs.com but I ran out of time to make actual canvas paintings, so I'm going to include the ATCs. They're painted, so paintings!

The pretty girl at left is a mixed media with lots of stuff thrown into the mix - acrylic, pens, colored pencil, book pages, tissue paper. It's an art mash-up over a messed up canvas (a previous painting gone bad). 

More Paintings for the 30 Day Challenge

Here are the painted canvas efforts from the past week with a few more in the previous post. I think I'm actually ahead of the challenge now, by one or two paintings, Woo! It's been a good painting week. I've had fun with the acrylics so far and have been doing a lot of mixed media type of art, lots of fun and bright images too. I think next week I will turn things to the more serious side and see try my hand at still life and realism. Maybe. We'll see how it goes. I usually find that sort of thing such a drag to draw so I might only last a day. 

Happy PPF!

Mixed media rainbow ladies.... and a goth girl!

I've been carrying on with the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge and it's been good fun so far, with lots of experimenting going on. All of these pieces are mixed media with a lot of papers and book pages pasted on the canvas, then painted over with bright colors. Then I used a glazing method for the portrait part with burnt umber underneath and glazed colors over top. I like the colors and the papers to show through the painting. It's been good practice.

Paintings 2 - 7: Still going strong!

I'm still on the 30 Paintings in 30 Days kick and am doing well so far. I even made a couple more small paintings as back-up, in case I get too busy at some point during the month (or more likely too lazy as I have a slacker's heart). This first week has been a mix of acrylic, mixed media, watercolor and digital. I've also been quite partial to studies of marble statues... and faces of course. I'm just not big on still life and animals or landscapes, try as I might. For the next 7 days, I'm trying out a few style experiments to see where they take me. I love bright colors obviously and I enjoy mixed media with lots of weird papers tossed into the canvas mix so that will be my focus for the upcoming week. And antlers. Those are always good with everything. I might toss in some cigarettes too. I gave up smoking many years ago and I now smoke vicariously through my paintings.... or just breath deeply in the smoking area outside of a pub. I've been that person.

Here's a quickie movie still from Ugly Betty. I like these for practice painting sessions.

Art Resolutions 2015

Happy new year! 

I'm starting off the new year with an art goal. I'm taking part in the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge and I absolutely plan on finishing it this year. There. I've said it... and now I have to do it. Luckily, I owe a bunch of art cards to various art trading friends, plus a few swaps here and there and I can paint them all. I even have art card sized canvases so it's all good.  

I started off my challenge with a Basquiat style 6" x 6" piece. I have a wall downstairs and it had a small hole in the painting arrangement so this one fits in perfectly. Two birds, right?

Tomorrow I'll try a master study or maybe a portrait since those go quickest for me.

At right and left are a couple of sets of ATCs for a swap. Both are done in markers and inks. 

At right is an old cowboy based on a famous photo from Life Magazine way back when. I think it's from the 1930s though I'm not sure if that's the right decade or not. This one is done in colored pencil on a nice, beige drawing paper.

Art Resolutions 2015

• Finish 30 paintings in 30 days for January.
• Figure out how to mix oil paints properly and then use them to make realistic looking skin tones. Actually, I need to learn how to do this with acrylics too. It's a learning year, clearly.
• Find a proper direction for commercial projects.
• Finish 29 faces for the 29 Faces challenge in February.
• Fill one sketchbook from start to finish without starting 5 new ones in between. I have never done this before. I half fill all of my sketchbooks. It's ridiculous.

Happy goal filling to everyone! :)