Calla

I go through phases with my jewelry making... I want to do chainmaille for a while, then I want to play with wire, and sometimes I want to make things out of tiny seed beads.  I am certain that it'll be the same with painting, and I'm currently in a knife painting (impasto) phase.  In some ways it's great because it keeps me from getting too obsessed with details, which is pretty easy for me to do.

I wanted to do a flower with a knife, and decided that the smooth lines of a calla lilly would be fun to paint.  I was right.  You probably can't see the texture from these pictures but there are subtle leaf shapes in the background paint on this, which is why impasto is so much fun for me.  I did this in two phases; I did the background one day and finished it the next.  Have to love quick-drying paint (but not TOO quick...).

I had so much fun doing this... I want to try impasto on Gessoboard to see how this works without the texture of the canvas peeking through. 

Age of Aquarius

When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

Work in Progress:  11 x 14 oil on canvas

Something occurred to me today.  I'm fascinated with (among other things) water.  I went through my digital pictures and looked, and in almost every set, every vacation, every memorable event, there is a picture of some form of water.  In one batch of photos, a trip to visit my parents in Cleveland, there's a picture of a water in a Coke glass that I took while we were at a Steak 'N Shake.  Water.  Always.  A lot of times, abstract macro photos of water.  I think I need to paint more water (actually, there's a pretty high proportion of water in my paintings already... either horses or water or sky in almost every one).

I had a busy busy weekend, all my challenges are over (except the Draw 50 Hands & 50 Feet challenge, which I am dragging my feet, haha, on), and I didn't feel well at all, so I was not in the studio the entire weekend.  Which meant that it was calling me this morning.  But, I also have lots and lots of day job to do today and I need to get some jewelry made, so I only had about an hour in the studio.  I did some work on the left side and lower left corner of this one, but I'm not sure you'll see a lot of difference in it. 

Is it possible that my sudden attraction (or me noticing my long-term attraction, and acting on it) to water has to do with the Sun moving into Pisces, and conjoining with Neptune?  I take "horoscopes" with a grain of salt but I also find some value in paying attention to the phases of the moon and the movements of the Sun, stars and planets.

Whatever the reason for the attraction to the abstract shapes water makes, I intend to go with the flow.

See what I did there?  ;)

I'm full of puns today.

Not In The Mood

I woke up this morning with a splitting headache and still pretty grumpy, and I really did not feel like painting, drawing, anything.  So I wrote in my journal, then sat at my studio desk and thumbed through a Jerry's Art-a-Rama catalog and made a wish list of oil and watercolor paints, paper, painting knives... I didn't tally it up but I'm sure it's something like $200. 

And then (heave big sigh) I got a canvas on which I've sketched my dog and intend to paint in oil.  Nah.  The Squire's castle painting is still not 100% dry (whew).  Random henna design?  Nothing inspired me.  Invent new henna designs?   Blah.  Ultimately I just finished what I started yesterday.  The two underripe berries suck and if this wasn't just an exercise out of a book I'd try to fix them, but it is and I'm not.  It's that kind of day.

The good thing is, I didn't feel like it, but I painted.  And it wasn't THAT painful.  Well, the painting wasn't, the headache still is.

The Snozzberries

Not done with this. It's another exercise from Step by Step Guide to Painting Realistic Watercolors. Yesterday's oil was not dry so I couldn't mess with it anymore, and I was in a watercolor mood.

Russ was pretty unhappy with the idea of me leaving for a weekend to go to Carrie's workshop... :(   I am hoping I can make another one, but I'm pretty much on my own with watercolor for now. So, I'm working my way through this book. Do my Snozzberries look like Snozzberries?

This is just the first layer but I don't have time for more today. I kind of rushed the leaves, too, which is how I know it's time to quit for the day. That, and I'm grouchy.  Chocolate cake didn't even help much.

Squire's Castle

This is the first painting I laid out from a sketch, roughed in, and then painted entirely with a palette knife.  It isn't 100% finished; there are a few little touches I want to add when it's dry, and straighten up a few lines and add a few highlights here and there.  But all in all, I'm pretty happy with the way it came out :)

In case you missed yesterday's post, this is a structure called Squire's Castle that was built in the 1890s by an oil tycoon named Squire.  It was meant to be just the gatehouse for his estate (can you imagine what he had in mind for the main house?).  He abandoned the project, though, and Cleveland Metroparks acquired the property in the 1920s.  Today it's there for anyone to use.  It's just a shell of a building but there are picnic tables and fireplaces inside that you can use, and of course the imagination of a child runs wild in such a place.  It's also surrounded by wonderful hiking trails.

I moved to Tennessee in 2005 and I have to say that the thing I miss the most about Cleveland (besides family) is the "emerald necklace" of parks that surrounds it.  For me, this is the jewel of the lot, and worth a visit if you're in the area.

On Being a Princess

This is my castle.  Well it's not MY castle.  It belongs to me and the imagination of every other child who has grown up in Cleveland's eastern suburbs. 

I thought that I would do some knife painting today, and I thought perhaps buildings would be nice to paint with a knife (I may be proved wrong on that).  First I thought, streetscape.  Then, I thought castle.  Then it hit me.. my castle.

Squire's Castle is in Cleveland Metroparks' North Chagrin Reservation.  It was built in the 1890s by a guy named Squire and (mind bogglingly... it's huge) was meant to be the gatehouse for his estate.  If I remember the story correctly, his wife died and he gave up on the project, and sold it.  Metroparks later acquired it.  Legend has it that she still haunts the place.

So the rooms are unfinished, rough brick and local sandstone, with huge brick fireplaces that you can build fires in and roast marshmallows.  The front of the building is a huge field that's great for playing frisbee or softball or running with your faithful dog, and behind it are miles and miles of hiking trails for long adventures. 

It's the perfect place to imagine yourself on a grand quest, whether you're 10 or 30.  It's pretty high up there on the list of my favorite places in the world.

So, I sketched it and roughed in a canvas (11x14).  Once the rough dries, I'll try knife painting the shapes here.  Don't be surprised to see a little girl in the foreground, either :)

Getting Stuff Done

Candlemas, 4 x 4 original oil on canvas, $24

Stop and Smell the Daisies, 3 x 3 original oil on canvas, $22

Crucible, 9 x 12 original oil on canvas, $40

Today was so weird a day that I realized about 1 pm that I'd forgotten to have my coffee this morning.  That just doesn't happen.  I got up, did my journaling at the kitchen table (I usually journal in the studio), started thinking about gardening while I was writing, planned my garden, made sausage gravy and biscuits with scrambled eggs for the guys, and then sat around chatting with my hubby about painting workshops and life for something like an hour. 

Yesterday, I didn't draw or paint at all... I had the urge to get back to my wire wrapping, which I did big time, weaving tiny little wires till my fingers hurt.  It was good.  But it also meant that it was important to get back into the studio today.

When I finally got around to getting into the studio around noon, I decided I'd spend the day wrapping up some almost-finished projects, so I put the finishing touches on these three, and signed a bunch of others that were dry.

Yesterday I was SO HAPPY to discover that my big landscape I started on Friday was dry to the touch, which means, I could have painted on it if I wanted to.  Three cheers for Liquin!  Oil paints that dry overnight is going to change my life!  It means I can work on just a couple of things at a time instead of juggling seven canvases simultaneously :)