Tag: #workinProgress

Saturday In The Studio

Leave a comment
WATERFALL

Water Fall 14″ X 11″ on Paint Board

Today is a rare opportunity to play in the studio, without time constraints or deadlines.  It will be the last time in the Studio for a week since our Road Trip to the Central Coast starts Monday bright and early.  My studio will be plein air on the coast.  Looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, today I decide to go abstract, play with colors and see what happens.  First off the easel is this piece.  So full of energy, very alive.  I can always tell my mood from my paintings.  Today’s start is expectations of fun, excitement and freedom.  I guess I need this upcoming road trip badly.

Using three main colors and their variations created the cohesiveness of the chaotic strokes.  Black gave it drama.  I love mark making and this is pure mark making.  No thought as to what it should become, it definitely is telling a story. Going back to my roots as a child growing up on the water. My happiest places are near the water, and on Monday I will be heading for the Pacific and that’s one large body of water.

Follow me on this fun adventure, for I will be doing some plein air painting on the coast.

If you love this blog please share and visit my website

CREATING POSITIVE -ENERGY ART

Leave a comment

 

FOREST BASIN

Forest Basin

I have discovered over the years that I love to teach and confab with other artists.  It brings me as much energy as it does the student.  Many times I learn from them how to be a better teacher, nurturer and friend.  This year I embarked on a new journey of discovery with my first workshop on Creating-Positive Energy Art.  I realized I needed to kick  it up a notch, and stretch my possibilities along with my students.

 

What I paint is not all that unique, but how I go about creating a painting may be.  First off I have evolved into a mark maker.  Tiny strokes off nothingness, becoming something.  It feels very magical when an image in my mind’s eye evolves into an image on canvas solely by creating small stokes of energy.

I start off remembering an event, a life circumstance or a picture; than I create a story from memories or feelings.  This becomes my story, unique to me seen through my own mind’s eye.  I hold it in my heart and then I put down my first mark.  I choose my colors by the mood that the memory brings. Slowly I add other colors usually starting from the top of my canvas and moving downward. Magically I start working, sometimes that memory will evoke another feeling, and than I am off in another direction.. It is a journey of self-discovery.  Each painting unique, created in the moment. It maybe realistic or abstracted solely based on the emotions brought to the surface.

In my workshops I try to teach this technique to help open the artist to greater possibilities.  It is not always easy and I see them struggle, it is hard for an artist to lose control and not dictate the direction of the painting. But than the magic happens, I will get an e-mail a few weeks later from a student telling me I showed them a new way of seeing. That it was freeing to let their intuitive side dominate the canvas.  They like the outcome,  they don’t mirror my technique but they create their own story, a story unique to them and a painting that is all their own.

I call it Creating Positive-Energy Art.

If you love this blog please share and visit my website

 

I

 

“Sky Mesas”, Creating a work in progress

Leave a comment
fullsizerender-108

Beginning of a painting

I started this painting one afternoon a work in progress.  My thinking process was a sunset and mesas.

I had a group of ladies coming by the studio a few days later and I decided to entertain them with a demonstration. I felt it was a good time to continue working on the above painting.

So this is what came next, Phase 2.

fullsizerender-107

Phase 2 but still not complete

I added more definition to the mesas and began to add vegetation to the foreground.  It was beginning to take shape.

The following day I put it back on the easel.  Not quite what I wanted yet. So started to rework it.

Phase three, developed more detail.

fullsizerender-109

Phase 3  with more definition

I started to lay in the sunset and define the mesas more.  Now I have the under-painting done but there is a lot more before I feel that it is completed.

I put it aside for a few days.

fullsizerender-110

Phase 4 now it is starting to take shape

I now started softening the colors adding in more foreground and cacti.  I added pops of orange to the bottom of the painting to balance it.  I thought it is almost done but I needed to sleep on it another day.

The next morning I felt that the mesas where to dark they needed a more dusky feel so I added sage and hints of orange.  The sky was not dramatic enough so i worked it some more by adding softer color.

Now it feels soft and warm yet full of my Postitive-Energy.  Just like my vision.

sun-set-mesa

“Sky Mesas”  16″T X  20″W  Acrylic on Gallery Wrap Canvas