Patterns... not my forte

When I got my pans of iridescent watercolor I did the background for this in my watercolor sketchbook, just playing with the colors and splotching them around (I'm not sure you can see them very clearly in the pictures).  Then I used a compass and pencil and made a circle, and it basically sat that way for a couple of months.  

The plan was to make a mandala over it.  What's a mandala?  The word is Sanskrit for "circle."  It's a meditative ritual in Hinduism and that's basically my use for it here.... they're very relaxing to create once you get into a pattern, somewhat like Zentangles but better because of the meaning and symbolism involved in creating them.  I plan on making more.  Here's my Mandalas Board on Pinterest.

The other day I had an idea to use the compass some more, so I traced these circles in pencil, then retraced them without the compass in ink (fountain pen).

Then I filled it in with dip pen and India ink.  Except I messed up that one line... darnit.  Good thing this is in my sketchbook.  

And then... as I picked up my dip pen to clean it I flicked a blob of ink on it.  Grrr... note to self.  Put the artwork safely away before you clean up.

 But, it was a fun exercise that I may revisit either in watercolor again (larger this time), or maybe, if I'm brave, henna impasto.  Wouldn't that be wild looking, with a tie-dye background... or maybe tie-dye impasto paint, a concept I've wanted to try out for some time.

I have a bunch of typing to do today and I really have to get the jump on jewelry for my huge show coming up in October, but I'm hoping to sneak back into the studio later today if I can manage it.

Don't Wanna...

Busy day... Work to do, horses to play with, allergy shots to get stuck with. Finally had some quiet time this evening and then I didn't wanna paint!

So I worked on this.

It's not done yet, but it's time consuming. The black is all watercolor except those tiny spirals, which had to be inked.

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.

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 :)

Candlemas

I'm out of sorts today.  I had a heck of a time getting out of bed, and then I procrastinated getting into the studio, couldn't decide what I wanted to paint, or even what media I wanted to play with.  I'd decided that I wanted to get rid of the computer-generated Om graphic on my home page so I thought I'd paint a little Om symbol.

I also decided that I wanted to experiment with Liquin paint medium, which is supposed to make the paint dry faster.  That would be a big deal for me, it'd mean I could work on the same painting several days in a row rather than waiting for five days to let the paint dry and losing my momentum.  It increases transparency, which is good in a way and not in a way.  So this was just partly to play with the medium and see what it does.  Pretty much all of these colors are transparent so it thinned them out quite a bit.

The second mini I worked on today was for Imbolc/Candlemas.  It's one of the pagan festivals and since yesterday (the actual day) was jam-packed and I had a lot of work to cram in, I didn't get to do much in observance. 

Candlemas is the festival of Brighid, the Celtic goddess of fire, spring, poetry, smithing, and childbirth.  As a result the festival is usually celebrated with fire.  I'm not really a rolling flaming wheels down a hill kind of person so I usually just observe with a few candles. 

Brighid was later canonized as a Christian saint and her festival day was turned into a Catholic feast day, and the tradition of divining the weather became our Groundhog Day.

Because the Liquin thinned the paint so much and I was working on a black canvas with transparent paints, I didn't get the effect I wanted here, so hopefully this will dry overnight and I can paint on it some more tomorrow. 

Water

For some reason photographs of water droplets fascinate me, and I've wanted to paint one for a while. This one is not done, this is the rough layer, but I think for a rough it looks pretty good.  There will be a lot more detail on it when I'm done.

This is 9 x 12 oil on canvas, layer one... who knows when I'll be able to finish it, blue is notoriously slow to dry.

I decided to not worry about completing anything today; I really was in the mood to do some oil painting and I wondered if I could finish this in one sitting, but I really want to get all the detail in on it... I may head back to the studio and do something later, if I have time after I finish my regular work.

Minis

The point of today's exercise is to create an abstract backdrop onto which I plan to create some traditional henna designs.

I think this one will stay as is, though. These are 3x3 canvases, oil.

Mornings In Space

I love mornings. The house is quiet with a stillness that doesnt feel the same at any other time of day. It's my time... I work best, and it seems like once noon happens I lose control of my time.

My intent is to journal, meditate, paint. I sometimes neglect the meditation. I could take a lesson from my cat-guru Magoo, who can't wait until I open the studio door so that he can commune with the space heater.

Today I put on some Vivaldi and returned to my nebula. I'm overworking it, I think. It's nearly done but I'll probably tinker with it one more time and add the big stars once this layer is dry. I'd really like feedback on this one.

What do you think? Would you hang it on your wall?

The theme for Creative Every Day for January is "Dark."  I have two paintings in mind for this theme and this is the first.

Abstract

More fun with impasto gel and palette knives, this time a little bigger (and I really think, this is probably the smallest that is going to work for this technique, for me).  The lighting in these photos isn't the best.

I love the texture . The first one is SUPER thick.  The other, not so much.  I learned a few things about how I want to go about applying paint to the canvas, though, which is cool.  The second one left a lot of the strokes of the thinned underpainting showing, which is what I wanted, and also the texture of the canvas showing in the impasto.

The coolest thing about all of this is, I am now 2 paintings ahead for daily paintings, which means I can work on in-progress stuff in my "normal" technique and not worry about having to finish something. 

Next month, my goal will probably be more like, paint every day, but not necessarily to finish something every day.  But having something to show for my labor every day is kind of nice too.

It's been a week and I've done at least SOME painting every day!  :D   And, about a whole month that I've been back at this.  Go me!

Coalescence

Today's painting is about releasing attachment to the end result and allowing the process of painting to happen. And also, bringing forth something out of my own mind rather than reproducing something from a reference. It's about allowing and getting my left brain out of the way of creating. Letting go of fear of a "failed" painting. It doesn't need to BE anything. It just is.

I suspect that if I did more of this sort of thing as a warm-up before I paint, my painting would be a lot better. I am very right-brained right now. There's plenty of time this month to test this hypothesis, but not today.

There is Beauty Out There

I thoroughly enjoyed this painting session, although. I was mean to my brushes.  Is it taking shape yet? It's abstract but it's not.  Got a guess?

I was happy to discover that NASA's photographs were public domain.  I have wanted to try something like this for a while.

Mysterious

The valley spirit not dying
Is called the mysterious female.
The opening of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Continue on the brink of existence
To put it into practice. Don't try to force it.
-- Tao Te Ching

This is a Zentangle. I'm playing with it so I can work on my abstracts.

Basis

I want to try painting something abstract, so I thought I'd lay down a base coat for a couple of abstracts. So I basically just played with colors and brush strokes.

I feel like I cheated and didn't "really" paint today.

Also, abstract painting is messy.  My easel looks like an artist uses it, finally.