Painting a day - Day 4 - another angel

Painting a day: Day 4 - another angel
I default to angels and mermaids and fairies.. and girly stuff ^_^ when I am warming up, practicing a technique, or doodling.  This one was a quickie on canvas paper, I used prismacolors, watercolor pencils, and acrylics.

Painting a day - Day 3 - Lost & Found Carousel Girl

Found

mixed media on canvas paper

Painting - a -day : Day 3 - Lost and Found Carousel Girl.  

This is the painted study for the companion piece to Waiting  but I think I would like her better if she were flipped and facing left.  (And there is something about her hair I'm just not feeling)  I also like the idea of doing a whole bunch of these girls in different colors, with different carousel animals.  I'm just digging the carousel theme too much- my sketchbook is full of them.

Painting a day - Day 2 - digital offerings

Day 2 - digital offerings

These are the results of messing around with photoshop.  I like the image, and I like that I created all the elements- the paintings are all mine, the textures are 100% mine, even the book page snippets are mine.  I scanned/painted/digitally collaged everything.  Its a lot of work (!) not using prefab brushes/filters/textures/shapes.  I'm not sure where to take these, besides using the one as personal notepaper, but I made them.

Painting a day - Day 1- Portrait of Keian

Shame on me, I've never painted a portrait of my baby, my 2-year-old son Keian.

So to start off this whole painting experiment - I painting this quick acrylic piece of him.  Lots of thin washes built up wet into wet.  Something like working with watercolor of goache.
 I'm starting a painting a day because I herniated 2 disks in my lower back and I'm stuck at home.

  I'm committing to making a piece of art a day to keep myself busy, or else my brain will turn to mush and I will start painting redrum on the walls. Just kidding...maybe.

Waiting - Carousel Girl Painting

 Waiting

Carousel Girls

Acrylic on Canvas

11"x14"

 
Finished!  Scanned and edited and color corrected and DONE!  Now to start the fun that is making prints.  I want this one to be close to full size, but I can't do that with my set up.  For now I will have to settle with 8x10 and 5x7.

Newest Painting

Waiting

Acrylic on 11x14 canvas

 I'm finishing up this piece (Waiting) and I have about a million other ideas because of it.  I love it when inspiration works like that.

  I want my very own carousel, and her sweater.

This is the sketch for her face, I usually end up preferring the sketch to the painting.  Everything I'm painting lately is pretty nostalgic; me thinking about when I was young. I really liked the old quarter-a-ride carousels that were outside of stores.  What the heck happened to them? They were always so brightly colored and the horses were either horribly ugly or little mini works of art. I loved horses and carousels when I was young.  I had the prettiest porcelain carousel horse, hand-painted.   I really want to get another and paint it, or make my own out of paper mache and paper clay, hrm, never enough hours in the day. 

Finished! Alice in Wonderland Painting, Alice's Favorite Necklace

 Alice's Favorite Necklace
9" x 9" Canvas, 2 2/3" deep sides

Growing up, in the 80s,  I really liked The Black Cauldron and The Last Unicorn, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal.  Fraggle ROCK!  Inspector Gadget, JEM! I'm completely nostalgic for the movies and stories of my childhood.  Except, I didn't really like the Disney version of Alice, a lot of the wit and charm seemed to be missing.   I'm a big fan of the sweeter side of Alice in Wonderland.  I remember the stories as a child holding so much magic and weirdness.  I always wanted to be Alice.  I used to imagine her going back and forth between Wonderland having adventures.

Based on that idea, I started a series of Alice paintings.  This one is Alice's Favorite Necklace; I imagine Alice carrying mementos of her friends and adventures with her topside.

 I drew and painted that swirly, ornate background, I really want wall paper like that.

 Can you see the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit?  I have so many more ideas for this series, I'm painting like a madwoman everyday.

Alice is available on Etsy, so are prints!