Latest painting

I have not fallen off the face of the earth I’ve just been buried in my life. I have been painting quite a bit though.
Here’s how this painting evolved.
From a female to a sunflower.

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Poppies: living and painting boldly

I love my oriental poppies. They bloom in the spring and they are such a bold, bright, unapologetic red flower that they make me very happy. To me they are what I want to be: bold, bright, unapologetic about who I am, no worried about what anyone thinks of me. Or what anyone thinks about what I look like, what my house looks like, or what art I’m making. I don’t know what it is about these red flowers, but they just seem to be showing off their bold selves with out a care in a world. I’ve taken many pictures of these flowers in various stages of bloom and I’ve always wanted to do a painting of these flowers that would do them justice. Not a soft, watercolor like I normally do. But a big, paint splattered, colorful piece of art.

I started this painting a couple of weeks ago. It sits on my piano, not framed or posed. Just big and paint splattered. And I think done.

I like to get close and find little details like this.

I know it’s not to everyone’s taste and maybe some wouldn’t even look at it as art.
But I know what I feel when I look at these and I am not embarrassed to say, “Yes, I painted that.”
And now, I think I need to do another one: a single bloom, bigger, brighter.

stay tuned

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More Small bits of Art

Back in June I shared these first few small pieces of art I had been creating on canvas. And here are a few more I’ve recently finished I’d like to share with you.
First up is a vintage cowboy image from a ripped dust jacket of Destry Rides Again

Being a farm girl and lover of all things vintage and bright, I love these types of campy western images. I layered paint, text (from the dust jacket excerpt), and medium to make the colors pop and look more vintage then they were. I’m on the lookout for more of these types of images for a series of B-western art.

Next up is a bird canvas.

I collect/hoard all sorts of old papers, sheet music, nature illustrations, fibers, and lots of other bits of stuff. For this piece I layered, old papers, stamps, paint, puzzle pieces, and twigs to create a pretty backdrop for a very sweet bird. I have more of these birds so there will be more of these for sure!

And finally is Joy.

This was an experiment in color and texture to define how I feel joy. To me joy is sweet, happy, and has many layers.

Now you might ask what I’m doing with all of these? Currently they are all hanging above my work table as one large collage, waiting for a new home somewhere.

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Creating Small Bits of Art

In between paper crafting, chasing kids I’ve been trying to get back to painting and work my way through a pile of 4×5 canvases that I bought for a deal. I admit I may not be the best or even medium artiste but these have made me happy and I’m being brave sharing this online. Yay for me!

First up: Daily Bread

Starting point was vintage hymnal sheet music. I was hoping to find “How Great Thou Art”, my favorite hymn of all time but didn’t have it in my stash of stuff.
This piece is a story of the crashing waves of the ocean and how it seems you can really feel God’s power and wonder at work. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen near enough.
Specs:
Modeling Paste applied with a palette knife over the sheet music, then acrylic paint applied after drying in layers, wiped and applied a few times. One cool trick I tried was spraying my stampin mist on the semi dry paint layers and wiping off. Gave a cool effect to the colors. Honestly there was a lot of brushing and wiping and layering for such a small piece! To finish it off I applied matte medium on the entire piece, used a pointy stick to add a bit of detail on the wet medium and let dry.

Second: Be Happy

Starting point was a dictionary page, applied layers of watered paint (yellow ochre, sage green, sap green, burnt umber) wiping some off here and there. The flowers are inspired by zinnias with their big, round, pouffy, happy, blooms. Found in my scrap box the vellum piece with the quote from Tolstoy. Then because the piece seemed old-fashion looking I added a strip of white card stock punched with the SU eyelet punch.

Third: A Tree

Starting point was also from sketches I’d done of large Elm trees at the park downtown. I love big old trees that remind me of the cottonwood trees my great-grandfather planted on the family farm where I grew up. As a girl my grandma showed me pictures of how the home place looked with the little trees planted. And I would marvel at these big massive trees where a swing was hung from. I’ve been playing with a few ideas of a family tree canvas but different from a traditional family tree. The background paper is from my scrap box, an paper from 7 Gypsies (at least 4 years old), tree painted, layered with words cut from another scrap of paper.

I have a couple of more to share but I feel that they need a bit more something.

Have a great day!

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Canvas Wall Art: Inspired by Kelly Rae Roberts

I recently purchased Kelly Rae Roberts’ book Taking Flight. I’ve had my eye on it for quite a while, and it is so worth getting! I am reading it in stages. The first stage was sitting in a quiet corner just thumbing thru the beautiful images. Next, I started to randomly flipping it open to the different tutorials and reading them. And now, I’m starting at the beginning of the book reading the words, soaking them up. So, if you read this just for the images, the tutorials, or the inspiring words– you will definitely find this a book worth getting!
And here’s my first piece inspired by the book. I’ve played on scraps with the techniques but this piece is just a fun little bit of whimsy to get some paints out.

From canvas

This is a small canvas, 4×5 inches. The starting point was the “wish” tickets. I bought a roll of these at a antique/thrift shop thinking they’d be fun to play with, eventually. The wings were left from a Autumn Leaves paper kit, the dress is cut from a scrap and the sweet little girl is all mine. It’s not really how I wanted it to be but when my girl saw that I’d made an angel picture of her, she was so happy! So, I hung it on the wall where she can see it.

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