Some much needed painting progress

1. Started this in the art journal. Then took it directly to canvas. Blocked in all of the colors and features, had some sort of idea for direction. I knew I wanted a tattooed girl with a doll face, a little bit Dollfie, a little bit retro Barbie. The background of the painting was inspired by old Sailor Jerry tattoo flash backgrounds.

2. I refined the image a bit more. Added a lot more detail to the facial features of the girl, white washed the background, and darkened the tattoo.

3. This is where we are now. I continued to paint layers of color and detail into her face and hair. I fixed a couple of things with the bandanna that were bothering me, and I distressed the rose tattoo to make it look a bit more faded and more like it was on her skin as opposed to just sitting on top over her. Originally I wanted to banner to read "Doll Face" but now I'm not so sure.
So far I really like the direction the painting is going; the colors, the level of detail, the style... her slightly skeptical expression. I have to do something about that tendril of hair by her ear, though. The more I look at it, the more it bothers me. And maybe I'll add some polka-dots to the bandanna.
What I really like most about this is the process. I don't just wake up and know what to paint, or how to paint it.
I stumble a lot through paintings, trying to make them look like something. Also, I don't, won't, and can't know how to paint every detail exactly all the time, mostly I just paint and repaint and paint again until I get it to look somewhere near what I wanted. I don't know how many other people are like that, but for me a lot of painting is about problem solving. I jump into painting all the time, with no idea how to paint... say.. a bumble bee tattoo. I finally decided I didn't want an incredibly realistic bee there, so I painted two cute little ones. Or, I'm not really sure how far to push something.. like her eyes. I wanted them to be realistic... but not too realistic.. which is basically how vague the idea was in my head. I started with a very flat, cartoonish eye and started adding details to it as if I were painting a real eye... at one point it was very creepy-alien, so I had to pull back a bit and paint out some of the more hyper-realistic eye details.


Then I played with my journal page some more in photoshop; more brushes, more textures, more layers. Plus an art nouveau frame from Dover, which is a great resource for royalty/copyright free imagery and clip art.

I own quite a few Dover books too, they are some of my favorite reference sources. (Or coloring books, I have a weakness for those too.)

Journal Page 18

jp 18 -Pink
sketch on a tea & kool-aid dyed page.
The pink is the koolaid.
I couldn't decide if that was enough pink.
But I didn't want to ruin the feel of the original, so photoshop it was, and the endless variations it brings. It helps if I am planning a painting to mess around with it a little while to see if anything really moves me.
The pink blot in the middle looks like a butterfly to me.

Journal Pages 16 & 17 (red and yellow)

Journal page 16
Red
How to Be Authentic: Do what makes you happy. NO MATTER WHAT
joy+love+art.
This should be my mantra for the rest of the year.
With art making, doing what makes me happy, no matter what, is the key to being authentic. To being myself. I worry worry worry about what other people are doing and making, and I worry about staying current, about keeping about. Worry worry worry. Will someone like it, will anybody care?
Worry.

This is not the road I wanted to take, It is not healthy, its not ME. So I am going to write it down as many times as I need to. Do what makes me happy, no matter what.
Even if I'm scribbling with chalk on the sidewalk. ESPECIALLY if I am scribbling with chalk on the sidewalk.
Mermaids and faeries and little girls with big eyes and big lips and crazy hair and colorscolorscolors.
No matter what.

Journal Page 17
Yellow
It started out a lot more yellow than this. But yellow is a bit of challenge for me.
I really wanted to play around more with all the textures and brushes and dover images I have.
I was trying for soft, feminine, and grunge-y all at the same time.
I like it, I don't like it. I don't know.
Maybe if I incorporate more of my own imagery.
It was a learning experience so I'm not going to judge it.

Journal Page 15

Journal Page 15 white
I have a lot of trouble leaving things be. Especially if those things are entirely white spaces. I had decided ahead of time to use a lot of texture and layers to achieve the white on white look I wanted... then I cheated and used pink and blue, but added a couple of white layers over the top. I thought I would be done with it a lot sooner than I was but it needed a lot of drying time.
I started making a list of things I wanted to experiment with on my journal pages, and then I realized its already the 16th.
I can't believe how far into January we are already.
I'm moving into a new house at the end of the month. I'm having a baby sometime in May (Or maybe April if he wants to come early.)
They say the older you get the faster time moves for you.
I think I understand that now.

Orange and Green Jp 13&14

Journal page 13
Orange
Which to me is all about fears.


Journal Page 14
Green
Mermaids. I used to love drawing mermaids.

Journal Page 11 &12

Here is Journal Page 11 from Sunday.
The top half of the image was done by hand, and then the bottom half I tried to duplicate the idea of it digitally.


Sunday was a visiting-the-family-day. We packed up the car with gifts, and drove two hours south to see everyone. I have four sisters, so there was a lot of talking and eating and excitement... and gift-giving. Monday was a visiting-the-family-hang over day. I did manage to get to the art store and buy some much needed new paint brushes and two very large canvases which I can't wait to paint on.


Journal Page 12:

I almost missed the memo that this was a color-a-day themed week. But it turns out I was doing a blue page for Monday anyway. Which I ended up finishing digitally because I didn't want to ruin my ultrasound photos.

I have about a million and a two fonts on my computer. I find them, I love them, I never use them. The same goes with photoshop brushes and textures and all of that. It was nice to use materials that I didn't have to pay for ^_^ Now if only I could get the hang of all this digital stuff. I see all the goodies on my computer then I forget about things like composition.

I'm late! I'm Late! (Journal Page 10)

I was trying to scan these and add them early. Isn't that funny. Because now I am scanning and uploading and writing late.
I'm always late.
However, I am in the middle of painting bunches of things... so I'm not feeling too sorry about it.
I'd rather be busy and late than just late. I'm almost into my third trimester and I am feeling rather forgetful. Can I blame it on the baby? I'm not sure if that is it at all, but that is what we are going with.

There he is, Keian Aleksander Zane, despite the rather peaceful looking baby in the picture, I can assure you he is trying to kick the stuffing out of me on a daily basis. I'm due in May, so I only have more kicking to look forward too. Not to mention the labor.

Whee!

Oh, and my journal page. Which has nothing to do with babies.
Dollface
to be a fully realized painting in the near future.
I want to do a couple of doll-faced tattooed girls. Soon.
I'm still finishing Christmas presents.
I'm late. I told you.

Journal Page 9

Journal Page 9: Nest, revisited
I was messing with proportion, atmosphere, and color on this page. Also, I used the acrylics a bit like watercolors. I really like the over all wintery feeling and color scheme, but I don't feel like I really nailed the forced proportion. (But that tiny nest is cute)

Journal Page 8

Journal Page 8 ; Nest
This girl has followed me around for almost a year now. A lot of times images get stuck in my head, like this one, the girl with her nest in the forest. She has been created in varying styles and medium from canvas painting to a simple doodle in my sketchbook.. After creating and recreating this image so much, I'm starting to think she is a bit of a self-portrait. The more I look at her, the more I think she is pregnant, and the entire image is about pregnancy. (She's been with me since before I was pregnant, which makes the realization a bit more profound, and mystifying... ) Is that crazy? Does your body know more about you than you do? I don't know, it all sounds a little crazy to me. But sometimes that is what this whole art-making thing is for me... I'm just telling myself stories, I'm just working out things I didn't quite realize before I made the piece. Maybe I haven't gotten her right yet and so she sticks around.
On a different note - I really enjoyed gluing all those strips of book pages down. I've always wanted to incorporate a bit of collage into my work (but it seems like its a bit of what everyone is doing right now.) I'm still working everyday, trying to find my voice.

Journal Page 7

Journal Page 7 : I was thinking about points of view, and how most people only see parts of who you are and what you are all about. Sometimes it has to do with how you present yourself, and sometimes it is how someone wants to view you. Its a lot harder to change the perception of the latter.

I think maybe if I were to chose a theme for 2009 I would choose, "Letting Go." There are a lot of other things that go through my mind lately but I think they run along the same theme, acceptance, giving, letting go.

More on this later. Definitely.

Journal Page 6

Journal Page 6
Acrylics and colored pencil.

I was thinking a lot about where I have come as an artist. I paid quite a bit of money (am still paying quite a bit of money) to go to art school. I left after a year quite disillusioned with the entire thing. All of my classes were drawing classes so I've been teaching myself to paint since then. It has taken me literally years to get to the point where I am now with watercolors and acrylics, I'm not even going to think about oils.
Sometimes I think I should have tried to stay in college, but I know that I would have been unhappy. I really want to go back to school again, but for different reasons now.

Portraits of my sisters

Caitlin - acrylic on watercolor paper




Kerri - acrylic on watercolor paper




Krista (and Nikki) - acrylic on watercolor paper

I did these from photos I found of my little sisters.
I like painting portraits, I'm pretty sure I paint faces better than anything else. Maybe these came out so nice because I'm so close to the subject matter. ^_^

I like the way Caitlin came out the best. I think its because the photo of her was the nicest.

Journal Page 5

Journal Page 5:
I was doodling with some colored pencils and this is what happened. I should doodle more. I left a bit at the bottom to write out my thoughts.. hurray for painters markers.

Journal Page 4

Journal Page Four. I started out doodling all over the paper and journalled random thoughts and song lyrics over the last few days. I painted over a lot of my writing, because I like the look of it hiding just below the surface. I had a couple butterfly images printed out from Dover, so I glued those on in places... Then I found my Elmer's Painters markers, which are opaque and write over a lot of surfaces without a problem. I started doodling some more and the butterfly mandadla just sort of emerged. I really like the idea of it, so I might end up painting a nicer, cleaner version.

I started to paint and draw a couple of pages ahead, so that when I feel like it I can journal, instead of trying to plan out a time to sit and make something. It is a lot less perfect, but I like the spontaneity of it all, and sometimes the images just come together.

Journal page 3

I started out painting swirls in black, just to loosen up. Then in an hour and a half I had painted this.
I used a bit of photographic reference for the face.
Sometimes I amaze (and worry) myself; I had not meant for the painting to turn out this realistic, or this nice. It is on bond paper in my art journal/sketchbook. Maybe I should try to paint everything in my sketchbook, then it will all come out awesome ^_^

Journal Pages! January 1st and 2nd

January 1st: Yes! Layers and Layers and layers and layers. I painted, then painted, then painted some more... I glued a bunch of magazine photos down, painted again, then I wrote a bit, then I painted again.
It was fun, a bit of jump-starting my brain on this one. I think the next couple I do will incorporate the magazine collage and painting. I don't over-think so much, I just sort of automatically glue things down. It was fun, and liberating, and everything that I wanted this journaling experience to be.




January 2nd: Fly Away. More layers of collage and paint. I took the idea further and attempted to create a little girl with cut outs. It feels a little Alice in Wonderland-y. Her hair was the most fun.


These pieces came out a bit darker than I thought they would, but I'm okay with that. It is all about the process for me, right now, the experimentation and the mess.

Where have I been?

I have been painting, the blogging hiatus was all due to baby stuff. Its hard to blog while you are chock full o' baby and the morning sickness that comes along with it. I'm still chock full of baby, he's not due until May... but thankfully I am well into my second trimester and I don't have to worry about nausea as much anymore. Whee!
So I have been painting, but because its me, I have been revisiting a lot of pieces. (I know.) I did manage to finish a couple as gifts, but I didn't scan or photograph those yet.
Mostly I've been spending my time working on techniques for painting backgrounds. I'm only using very cheap hobby and student grade acrylics right now, for budget and toxicity purposes, but man I would love to get some more gel medium. All I want to do is glaze layer upon layer for my backgrounds, but I'm making do.
I'm also starting an art journal so that I can have a place where I can get messy and not be afraid of screwing up the process of something. Hopefully I can just use those pages to experiment and play and then I won't feel the need to constantly revisit something. I can only hope... So for this month I have decided to create one page a day. I'll try to get around to posting them, along with any paintings in progress, to keep myself motivated.

Just to prove that I have been painting:

Angel
Painting progress

1:

Very mixed media background. I started with canvas and glued down a bunch of random pieces of paper then used a lot of texture medium and gesso like icing and spread it across the top. There are bits of tissue paper and other bits of paper in there. I glazed over the top with light pastel colors and painted in the figure. At this point I had no idea what I was going to do with the piece.



2:
At this point I had referenced a sketch I colored/played with in photoshop and tried to recreate the piece with acrylic.
I used the rest of my beloved soft gel medium to get the blue-purple swirls in there. At some point I decided to give the girl wings... and I changed her face quite a bit trying to add a bit more realism and detail. Now it looks like she is crying... oh well.
I painted little feathers everywhere too, if it was going to be cliche with the angel, I might as well go all the way.

3:
Lastly I really tried to detail out her wing to make it look feathery, and less flat. The floating feathers got a great deal of detail added to them as well, because I wanted them to look fluffy... and uhm... feathery.
I glazed a bit more into the background and decided to call it done.

Sometimes you just have to know when to quit.