O*P*I Doodle

I just started a new job, and some days are super quiet, so during those slow times, i'm trying to doodle. This little polish was sitting on the register, so I sketched it and colored it at home.

Washbucket

This was an example in the book "Painting Weathered Buildings in Pen, Ink & Watercolor" by Claudia Nice. The book is really great...especially since I love all things rusty and crusty! ; ) I would liked to have a little bit more value range, but I didn't want to keep putting more layers and make it muddy.

Shhhh....detail

here's a little bit closer shot so you can see the cool textures....

Shhhh....

TA-DA!!!!! Here she is, all finished! I think i really like how she turned out. and getting there, while scary, was also fun! and i used supplies i totally didn't plan on, so the end result was a very unexpected surprise. I still have a few angles on the face i'd like to perfect for the next painting, but it'll get there, and today was definitley another hard lesson in patience....and in letting go. all in all i really enjoyed the process, and would like to do a few more pieces this way, but with maybe a little less charcoal muck....perhaps i'll perfect the drawing on paper and then transfer it to canvas. but maybe not...that oil pastel is brilliant against charcoal mucky-muck.... ; )

Shhhh.... Stage 5

Holy Dead Corpse Bride, Batman! what have I done! Yes, i fixed the angles of her nose and eyes, but now she's just creeptastic Now it occurs to me to take a break, it couldn't have been BEFORE i recreated an autopsy scene with her face......I really didn't know if it was fixable. I had to remind myself that it didn't matter, that i WAS JUST PLAYING....

and then....cha-ching! I remembered my oil pastels!!!! and thought how much fun they would be to play with...that i might get some interesting textures.....

and i did! ; )

Shhhh.... Stage 4

Here I added that same lavendar i had originally painted the background with to the sash, neckline, and wings. I like how these colors go together, a lot. I also added some raw sienna and burnt umber glazes to her to make it more dimensional. Here's where i should have stopped to review the pictures and taken a step back for a minute. the face was not totally horrific here. the neckline is at a much more graceful angle, and it's still relatively unmucked with charcoal dirt. but, alas. I am very impatient. .....

Shhhh.... Stage 3

Hmmm, the face is not so bad...Here I added a bright tangerine glaze to the upper right and lower left corners, topped that with a glaze of my Irr. Antique Copper, and another layer of the tangerine glaze. I also added some white glaze highlights to her arms dress and hair, and right along the profile of her face. Added a very thin bit of the copper glaze to the wings to try and bring back some depth.

Shhhh....Stage 2

I have such a hard time with this face angle. I am really going to have to keep practicing it, and not in willow charcoal. This stage I added a glaze of my Irr. Antique Copper mixed with a raspberry color to the background, and a white glaze to the wings.I did try to redo the face....a few more times! LOL fix. fix. fix. repair. repair. repair. LOL i do like the wings so far though...

Shhhh.... Stage 1

So, today I decided to just let go and play. I started with a canvas i had painted a lavendery violet, covered with sewing pattern tissue, and then added a wash of liquitex's Irridescent Antique Copper, which apparently they've stopped making. I'm quite pissed about that actually, because it's my favorite color to mix with purples and violety pinks. I have been trying to find a similar replacement color, but no such luck yet. They're all way too orange...this was neutraly brown, almost rosy. It's hard to explain, but it was perfect, so of course now it's gone. Anywho. so I took my willow charcoal and just sketched a quick angel. ugh...she's crappy. she does get better. and then worse. and then, i think, better again. anyway, it's all about playing today! and, fyi. if you've never photographed your progress, it's quite eye opening. I wish i had looked at my photos at each stage before i continued....there are some things that i thought i had done wrong, but looked ok in the photograph, but of course i had already tried to cover over my boo-boo's. NEVER A GOOD IDEA WHEN USING CHARCOAL>>>IT JUST GETS SUPER MUCKY!

Strawberries and Crawfish

Spring in NOLA....the absolute best time for local food....crawfish, shrimp, oysters, strawberries. yummmmm! I couldn't resist trying to paint part of my dinner tonight....the colors were absolutely amazing and vibrant! I definitely feel like I could use a lot more practice capturing the colors in watercolor, but hey, who could complain? Extra practice means more seafood and strawberries to use for reference...LOL! I could eat this stuff every day! and definitely, the hotter, the better! I can't wait to draw some more tomorrow! ; ) perhaps some hot sauce?.....

The Aldige Angels

I used a photograph of one of my favorite statuary pieces for this journal page. It memorializes a mother and daughter that drowned in a steamboat accident back in 1848. The base of the sculpture is a boat. I especially love the emotion on the faces in the sculpture. Eventually I'll do a large painting using this sculpture.

Pin-Up Study #9

Another study from Taschen's 1000 Pin-Up Girls...proving to be worth every cent I spent on it! ; ) So her head is too big...that, or her shoulders are too small, but I kind of don't care, because her face came out so well on this one...and her hair. I am particularly loving this hair. This one was really fun to do.... I think I need to try drawing the outline with either brown charcoal pencil(although i don't know if I'll get the point sharp enough) or a brown colored pencil....maybe that will help the outline blend a little better...but either way, i don't mind the pencil lines showing through either...i have got to be more patient, though and wait for things to dry before going back into it....ugh! i almost royally messed her up!!! ; )

Product of Lebanon

I found a wine shop that sells this Lebanese wine, so I bought a few bottles, because my Grandmother's dad is Lebanese, so I'm always interested in family heritage, culture, etc. I was hoping the label would come off easily(and, yay, it did!) so i could use it in this spread.

I have all these fabulous photos of my grandma and her friends cheesing for the camera, just being girls. This is one of my favorites, so I painted it here. She loves to tell me that her bikini was red, so I knew it would be perfect with the colors of the label...

Pin-Up #7

Just a little quickie partial gal. I've been working on some other pieces, so these got put to the side for a minute, however, i can't improve if i don't practice, so even if it's little, it's going to get done.

I've been liking how some of the old pin-up pictures have just quick brush strokes of color here and there, rather than coloring the whole thing, so I thought i'd give it a try.

Chick #6

This is a study from Taschen's The Great American Pin-Up. The original artist is Al Buell. Other than making her a little too skinny(maybe she needs some of my Hershey's Miniatures...I mean I'm just sayin...), I'm really pleased with this one.

Thanks to Owen at Everyday Matters, for the tip to put a little soap in my water to help break down the wax coating on the pages....so now any painting boo-boo's are strictly due to the operator of the brush, rather than the supplies being faulty. ; )

Hershey's Miniatures

So, if you start one moley, why not start 2? ; ) I had a small watercolor one, and i had some hershey's miniatures, so i painted them. I am not an experienced watercolorist, but i had ordered a ridiculously large amount of Daniel Smith watercolors, and there's no time like the present to try them out. I actually like how this turned out. My Special Dark bar is a little rough, but, that's ok. I played, i learned, and that's what counts. I need to focus some attention on learning more about mixing colors, because generally I just paint straight out of the tube...I know! The Horror!! but, hey, sometimes i just like the color that's in the tube. what can i say. the other thing i might need to pay a little more attention to is light sources and shadows...but i have an excuse for this piece...i ate them before i actually painted the sketch...LOL

Portrait of Christ

I don't know if i'm calling this one done yet or not. I love the colors, and the grid pattern of the photo transfer, but I am debating on doing a big sacred heart line drawing on top of the whole thing in wither white or silver. I am trying to think on it. This is one of the photos i took in the cemetery...I love using them in my work!

22"x30" mixed media on Arches watercolor paper

The Final Red Abstract

This is the final panel for a commission I was working on... The 1st shot is a detail shot of the right side, and the 2nd larger shot is the whole painting. I think this one might be my favorite of the 3, but I might need to see them all together to say for sure!

40"x40" acrylic on canvas

Private collection of Mr. A. Allen

New Work In Progress #2

I just have to add one small detail to this one and it'll be done...so basically it's done...and it's already claimed! Awesome! It's a small narrow panel, and I painted on top of a coffee filter...I am using them in a few pieces on this series. I don't know what to call this one.Hmmmm...

30"x8" acrylic/mixed media on canvas

New Work In Progress

Still have a few things to add to this one, but it's almost done, and I wanted to go ahead and post it...Those are coffee filters on the bottom...

2'x2' acrylic and mixed media on canvas

This will be for sale during the salon show...dates tba