Just Close Your Eyes...

I haven't blogged in a while. But I have been painting. Lately I have been trying to paint something from my head. Something that isn't from a picture. This isn't an easy thing to do. Trust me it takes great skill to think up something and just create it and be completely in love with it. Sure it's easy and safe to take a picture or a piece of artwork and copy it and make it your own with a few changes, but you are still altering other people work. But sometimes as an artist you need to take a risk. Jump in and just paint your heart out. Who knows you might surprise yourself.

What you need to do is just close your eyes and just let the picture and what you want to draw or paint come to your mind. Sometimes it can take a while. It might come to you in a dream. Once you have an idea of what you want to paint or draw. Take a sketch pad and spend a little time doing a rough sketch of what you want to do. Yes this seems kind of high school like, but the skills they taught you in high school really do work and you can use them in the real world! (I can't believe I just said that lol). Anywho... Once you have a sketch made up..sit down with your canvas or drawing paper and have at it. If you find along the way you don't like what is infront of you...scrape it...erase it...start over...or just alter what you have infront of you.

I recently just had this same thing happen to me. I was painting this woods river scene and I wanted it to be fall. With all the leaves and colors on the trees and have the water reflect all the colors. Well lets just say it was a bad choice. Luckily I caught this while the paint was still fresh and was able to use some water and paper towels and some of this magic little idk brushes? to wipe up all the bad paint. Once I did that I reapplied some of the background color to fix it up a bit. Then I walked away from it for a while. I was stuck. The idea I originally had was an EPIC FAIL! Then a few days later I decided to make it a winter scene. And I just kept trucking along. And low and behold it worked out. I still had the same scene on my canvas...just in a different season.

Sure it took a lot more work than I would have thought and it wasn't my original plan. But it all worked out in the end. I imagined up my own picture, my own idea, my own painting and I created a decent work of art :) I think we all should try this more often with your artwork. To branch out and become our own painter...be YOU so go on....close your eyes...and dream...dream big or small it doesn't matter just as long as you dream!

Happy Painting!

Whole New Medium

Ok well I needed to take a break from painting. We all have those moments where you have hit a painters block or you are just sick of it...so I had decided to play with some charcoal and do a drawing. I haven't played with this medium since high school so I wasn't sure how it would turn out....but it went well. I had a picture of my cat that I used and went from there. Charcoal drawing can be quite difficult and frustrating...take your time...walk away and come back...I had to do this a few times. But anywho...here it is...enjoy...

Trying Something New

Ok so my blog to you is me teaching you about painting. Well I as a painter am a student too. I recently got a new artist painting magazine and came across and idea how to do still lifes and portraits. I myself typicaly paint from a picture and rarely ever do a still life. Infact I think the last time I did a still life was back in high school. So this is a learning experience for both you and me.

I have decided to show you my first attempt at doing this so that you can see the step by step process. Now the I have not mastered this technique in anyway and I am still learning. I may eventually paint over this and redo it lol.

Ok so first we must pic a subject :

I have picked a old Gingerale bottle that I have in my room that I have put a single daisy and some other things I had boughten at hobby lobby. This is a great decor piece that I had made a while ago. And today I am going to paint it. When picking your subject and you are new at doing still lifes...pick something simple and to the point. If you give yourself too many objects with too many colors/shades and shadows then you have more to do and you can get frustrated along the way so keep it simple.

Next you will need a very simple brush, some water, and a very baisc small brush. I used an angle brush ( a brush that tapers to one end ). Now you will need a basic brown, burnt umber, seinna. Something of that sort. Put a bit of paint on your palette and use a spray bottle to put a good amount of water on the palette. Basicaly we are wanting to make your acrylic paints into a sort of water color.

So now you got you've got your subject, your paint ready, and I assume your canvas. Ok so now you are ready to Paint! Basically what you are going to do is sketch a very basic outline of your subject on the canvas with your water down brown acrylic paint. Kinda like using a pencil but instead you are using a paint brush. Keep it simple and just do the outline of your subject. Keep a paper towel handy so that you can dab extra water off your brush as you go along so that the water doesn't run down your canvas. Why do we use a dark color and paint to do this...why not just use a pencil you say? Well using paint will blend in with your paint as you go along and it will also create some depth to your subject. If you use a pencil you might still see your lines in the painting after you are done. That is if you are doing a more opaic watered down painting.

Next you are going to aply the color to the painting. Very basic don't worry about the details. You are going to use water just like before. You can also go back in and darken later. A dark green, light green, yellow, and white will be used.

So then you will just build from the base. Adding more color and definition as you go along. But beware. Don't over work your painting too much. If you get frustrated with something walk away do something else and come back when you are relaxed again. Trust me I have this problem all the time. And before I realize it I have over worked a painting and made it worse and have wished that that I didn't touch it to begin with. So keep building, stay relaxed and calm. Grow with every stroke of the brush. Not every painting you do is going to be amazing and a masterpiece.

The reason for me showing you this new technique and for me trying such a new thing is because it's nice to try new things. If you get so caught up in doing the same old thing every time you paint you will never grow. So break out of your comfort zone and try something new...who knows you might be quite good at it! :) Happy painting!

Sometimes Less IS Better

Typically when you are painting lets say a wall of a house you don't want to spread the paint too thin. You want a nice thick and even coat. And for such a project I would stick with it because it will look nicer in the long run. BUT if you are painting on a canvas and creating a fine piece to art you can play with how think you spread the paint. You might find that in some cases less paint just might be better.

To really make the effect of thinning out your acrylic paint work the best you should use water. With oil paints you have a paint thinner that you can use..but here I am going to discuss acrylic paints.

If you don't use water to thin out the paint on the canvas you will find yourself using more paint than you really want to. When you thin out the paint you get an almost Tuscan feel to it. Its a cool thing to have on a canvas...thicker paint in one area and really think paint to where you can almost see the white of the canvas in the other area. Now keep in mind though...you are adding water to the paint...so therefore it will take longer to dry. So if you plan on putting a different color on the top of the color you thinned out you might want to let it dry some. The water on the canvas might try to thin out paint you don't want to thin out, plus a wet paint mixes more with other paint. So if you want to put yellow on top of blue, let it dry. If you don't...you will get the lovely color green and you will be kicking yourself for not being patient.

A good way to use water with your paints is keep a spray bottle handy. This is good to have around to keep your paints nice and wet because acrylics tend to dry out faster than you plan on them drying and then before you know it you wasted all that paint...and trust me...wasting paint is money down the drain! Spray water on the palette and on the paint its self....play with it some to see how much water you want and don't want. I wouldn't spray your canvas...keep the water on the brush because then you are in control on how much water you put on the canvas and where it goes. If you spray the canvas you are gonna have splattered and runny paint. So keep it on the brush.

So try this out and see how it works for you, because sometimes you will find Less Is Better!

Happy Painting!