Fun-a-Day paintings from the last week

My Fun-a-Day paintings for the Providence exhibit are still coming along - only three more days to go! Here's my progress over the last week.

Day 22 - bright shining like the sun!

Day 22 - Twenty-two is another important number for me, and so it was the larger format painting in this series. Twenty-two is the date of my husband's birthday. As I looked at the grid so far and the other large pieces, I thought that this one could use a warm, bright color. So this one I made a yellow, thinking of my husband's influence in my life. My husband is one of those people who are always looking for something to be engaged in - he gets excited about ideas and learning, and he throws himself into hobbies and experiments with a passion. He reminds me to have a sense of humor, and to enjoy our lives. He truly does burn brightly like the sun.

Day 23 - winter birch trees

Day 23 - Here is another large format number, the last one in the series, and was chosen for that format because of the positioning in the grid. Twenty-three isn't a significant number for me, so I was able to add whatever imagery came to mind. We've been having lots of snow out here in Massachusetts, and whenever I look out my bathroom window I see a group of white birch trees by the house and the landscape of our yard beyond them. It's a really nice view, with lots of privacy, and I want to make some larger paintings based on that view of the birch. But for now, I put down on paper my impression of the birches in the cold twilight.

back to the little paintings

more little paintings

Days 24 through 28 were back to the smaller format, with simple two inch square paintings. Several of them are painted using metallic inks. I'm thinking I should get my MDF board measured and cut soon so that I can start mounting the numbers to it. It's going to be interesting to see all the other artists' work in February. :-)

Enjoy!

Transformation (in Grey) - commissioned painting

Transformation in Grey  11"x14" acrylic 

Just finished this baby last night. I had showed the original version of Transformation to a friend, who requested a similar painting in black and white with the yellow butterfly. The original painting was an exercise for my art group in which we created a concept for the phrase "what if?". At the time I thought, "what if I were a tree?", hence the painting. But I also was still exploring the butterfly/chrysalis analogy and transforming myself and my life into one that I wanted. Note that while the figures in each painting are stylized (and idealized), they have hips and belly - because I appreciate that, being a curvy girl myself. Anywhoo...

Original painting, Transformation  11"x14" acrylic

For this new version, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to paint up a digital version first. Once everything was designed and approved, I projected the sketch onto a canvas and outlined the main elements in pencil.

Tree branches being painted

Since the background colors were already painted in, I added the tree nymph next. Maybe the right term for her would be dryad. Either way, she's the spirit of growth and transformation in this piece. I drybrushed some shading into the trunk to add form, but didn't want to get too bogged down in that until more of the overall painting was complete. Back to that later.

Adding leaves

Next, I added all the leaves and corrected some of the branch shapes. You can see some of the penciled-in sketch in the image above, where the butterfly would go after the grey paint is complete.

Cleaning up around the roots, and adding the chrysalis

The roots area is next - I cleaned up the edges there and then added the chrysalis in grey with a bit of color on top. While this is meant to have color, to connect the chrysalis (contemplation) to butterfly (transformation), I kept this softer and more subtle.

Our dryad in the trunk of the tree

Now that most of the painting is done, I went back to polish up the central figure. Most of the details in her form are drybrushed light over dark. I also added a glow about her as in the original piece.

The butterfly really pops with the golden yellow

The last element I painted was the butterfly. As you can see, with the soft shades of grey in the rest of the painting, it really stands out.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the process behind this painting. It's a bit different than my landscapes for sure! But most of my narrative work is loaded with symbolism and tends to be illustrative. I've got more paintings in the works, with another one for a customer and also for the Heart Art project coming soon.

Enjoy!

Fun-a-Day paintings from this week

In the midst of some other projects this past week, I've managed to get my Fun-a-Day paintings done, but not gotten them up on the blog. So here's a catch-up on what I've made for the last week.

Just a few smaller sized numbers for these three days - nothing too crazy.

For day eighteen I had another large painting to do. In this case, the number does not have a special meaning for me, but had to be a larger format to fit within the grid design. So I just freehanded the number and let it guide me. Drawing the infinity shape for the eight made me think about recurrence, and life. So I added in the eighteen leaves.

Days nineteen through today, back to the small format numbers. Simple designs with some fun markings.

Here are the numbers so far, arranged as they will be for the grid. The overall pattern in coming together. As I've been working through the project, I've been trying to alternate the colors and styles so that there's no exact repetition in adjacent blocks. Overall, the colors are staying bright and punchy. When I cover them with encaustic medium in the final piece, the colors should darken a bit but be a little more saturated.

Enjoy!

Joyful series

Joyful Trio  mixed-media  4"x5"

I've been experimenting with a new technique so that I won't have to frame some of these pastels - It's not that I can't do the framing, but I wouldn't say that I enjoy it particularly. Also the whole tactile quality of pastel that I love gets lost to be when the work is behind glass. Maybe I'll eventually reconcile my feelings about framing, but for now, I thought I would try working around that.

Joyful  mixed-media  4"x3 1/2"

So after more than a few experiments, I have this new series of mixed-media pieces. I created a large version of the poppies for an art group project, and now that I have gotten a system down, here are four finished paintings. I love the color combination, and the intense yellow background, and the palette seems very upbeat to me - joyful to execute. So that's what the series will be named - Joyful.

Joyful Friends  mixed-media  4"x5"

These four paintings are on the small side, each are just a hair under our inches in height. I'll be continuing the series with larger works 9"x12".

Joyful Twins  mixed-media  4"x3 1/2"

Enjoy!

Fun-a-Day paintings day 13 and 14

So - back to the Fun-Day paintings! I'm just about halfway through the project. Here are the mini-paintings from yesterday and today. More small numbers for the next few days.

Enjoy!

Fun-a-Day painting day 12

FAD number twelve - watercolor and pastel

I'm still working through the Fun-a-Day painting series, and so here is yesterday's artwork. I thought the twelve needed some extra love, so I added the happy rays of light.

Enjoy!

Fun-a-Day painting day 11

Well I got this little number (get it? HA!) done last night, but most of today was eaten up by ridiculous amounts of snow removal. Living in New England brings you the joy of the 'Noreaster and some crazy snowfall - we woke up this morning to fourteen inches (all in about seven hours) and by now we have up around twenty. Plus it's still snowing. Our driveway is crazy crooked and somewhat lengthy, so the truck (with personal plow) got stuck twice and had to be dug out. Ah, the joys of snow! So I'm just now getting back to the blog.

Eleven is another special number in my life. My birthday is on the eleventh, as well as my Father's and Grandmother's birthdays. Actually, both my Father and Grandmother were born in November, so they were both 11-11 birthdays. To top it all off, it's 2011, so that a LOT of elevenage in my life.

For this artwork I originally just had the number with a triangle shape in the background - three points for the three birthdays shared on the eleventh. But this piece needed some pizazz, so I came up with the lotus flower motif to represent birth/rebirth. Much better!

For all you New Englanders (and other snow bunnies) out there, good luck with the snow, and stay warm!