Tag: Abstract

New paintings? 

I managed to get out in the garden this morning and do some painting. It’s been a fair while since I did anything creative like this, so it was good fun again.

It involves a lot of water and making a mess, so the husband will probably be mortified when I tell him what I have been up too! 

What I enjoy about this process is the fact that it can be so quick and still produce some good results. It can be a bit hit and miss because it involves spraying water over paint and then waiting to see what happens! Sometimes a canvas turns out brilliantly and looks really good and well blended. Other times it turns into a horrible mess and you just end up either having to white wash the canvas or throwing it away.

A couple of these are looking rather promising already – but I’ll have to see what happens when nature takes its course during the drying phase! It’s a big part of why I paint outside; other than to avoid the mess of paint on the carpets, but seeing what that days weather does to the drying paint. It only takes the smallest breeze to push the paint in a way that wasn’t expected. Which is why the wet WIP pictures can look so different to the finished pieces.


I think the darker of the pictures will need some reworking and probably another layer or two to cover the canvas texture, but the other two are looking rather promising so far.

What do you all think? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

Check Fish

Fish

I initially spoke about this image in a rather popular post called Teasing Composition, and that feels like a while ago now. So it really was high time that this painting got itself finished – and seeing as paintings don’t get finished on their own I needed to give it a helping hand.

And you know what!?

I am actually pretty pleased with how it has turned out. I’m rather happy with how the fish stands out on the background and how the background looks watery enough.

It’s rare that an as an artist I am pleased with how one of my own works turns out. Which is something that I touched up on in another post called Why do I/You paint? A post that really didn’t do as well as I thought it would. Which is a shame, I’d have liked some answers to that particular question.

I don’t know what I am going to do with this painting yet. I am undecided if I should try and sell it or not. It’s that sentimental feeling again, that I’ve brought something into the world from my own brain and it feels strange to sell it on. Yet, if I don’t it’ll more than likely just sit on the top floor of the house and gather dust – which seems just as unfair as selling it, if not worse.

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In other news, I’ve finally joined the world of the modern and brought myself a little tabletty laptopy thing. I am still getting used to how it all works. Especially with it having Windows 10 on it after using a mac for several years. The touch screen is also taking a bit of getting used to, but the reason I brought it is being I wanted something a bit more portable that I can use for word processing. That means more writing of fictions (Fan and non) and more blog updates!
None of this can be a bad thing. I’ve been thinking about roleplaying again lately as well, I’ve had my moans about RP but I am finding that I am missing creative writing with other people. I will keep you all updated about that and what I decide. Right now I am only indulging in one storyline and that’s with my sister, so it feels more acceptable.

Why do I/You paint?

Why do I paint?

I’ve often asked myself this. Why do I create paintings, drawings and write?

It’s mostly addiction.

Not to the process of creating itself, because I personally have taken breaks from the creative process before. But addicted to that strange and often horrible feeling afterwards.

That feeling of euphoria that you’ve created something from your imagination and put it down on canvas sucessfully. Nothing can replace that feeling. You’ve made something from scratch and it’s all you. Your brain child. A part of your soul that you get out of yourself and share with the world – regardless of if you actually show anyone or not, it’s still there.

Yet there is also that horrible emotion that you actually feel utterly rubbish at everything you do and you’ll never get something looking right or how you’d like it. You’ve failed your brain child by making them something that doesn’t look perfect.

Then there is turning that emotion into a positive force that makes you try all over again.

It’s an addictive process really. I don’t know if every creative person feels this way about creating whatever it is they create or if it’s just my underlaying lack of self confidence and / or esteem, but I feel this way about a lot of the things that I put my creative mentality towards. Be it painting abstract art, drawing characters for others and myself, or hobby modelling. I look at what I have done afterward it is finished and rarely feel happy with what I have done.

I know for professionals it’s a part of their working life, illustrators have to create because it’s how they get paid. Fine artists create to impress galleries in order to showcase their art and sell paintings or to get private commissions. (This is a grand generalisation I know) I never really got along too well with the pressure I feel in either of these stances, so I can’t say that I paint for the money.

Yet a day or so after the feeling of dejection fades and I want to pick it all up and start over again. Maybe I am just a sucker for punishment! I don’t know if this is the real reason that I paint, but it is a part of it certainly. That drive to want to better myself in the craft I’m working on. Maybe I just paint for myself.

I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this question.
Why do you paint?

Works in Progress

I wasn’t intending to blog today, but seeing as the internet has gone off yet again, I shall see what I can come up with to write.

The day has only really just started – I am expecting a visit from the Health Visitor so they can check up on how Marcus is doing; which in my humble opinion is pretty well. He’s putting weight on rather well and we’ve both now had the ‘all clear’ from the Dr. He gets his vaccinations next week so we can go out and do some fun things after that like going swimming. I’m not too confident about going before he has had his shots, so that’s something to discuss with the health visitor today. Also I’m not really sure how swimming with a newborn works, I’m pretty certain they can’t go swimming in their nappies, but no body wants baby poop in the pool.

I’m also expecting the Mother in Law over today, which will be a laugh I’m sure.

But with all these visits and things going on, it’s left very little time to actually get anything done… or has it?

I was woken up at about 7am this morning, and if anyone knows me they know that’s actually early for me. What can I say, I like my sleep! Some people like food, I like sleep, it’s a pretty wicked vice when it comes to wanting to get things done. But rather than roll over and go back to sleep, I figured I could do something with this additional hour or so. So after doing all those Mummy things that I needed to finish; clean bottles, change and dress Marcus and so on, I took all my artsy materials back down stairs and started some new canvases.

They are a bit wet still, but you get the idea.

One of them I absolutely hate, but it was a bit of an experiment that failed. I had something already painted on the canvas (That I already hated) and tried painting over it using a similar technique to all the others. To be honest, I don’t think the colour palette I used helped matters all that much, but there we are.

The other three are currently looking pretty good. Although they are all still rather wet, so I’ll have to wait until they are all dry to really pass judgement on them.

Updates and more questions

Well, one painting down. One more to go!

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Although I know the painting itself isn’t anything overly revolutionary in content or technique or anything, I am rather pleased to have been able to get something done. I’m having a bit of a proud moment. I mean, if I can finish one painting, why not another? Then another? And would it be boring to just stick with the same sort of style and theme for a few paintings? These are the dilemmas that I come across when I create something. I’m scared of being a boring ‘one trick pony’ but at the same time doing lots of different things just doesn’t seem to have any real focus to it. Honestly, I love experimenting and trying out new things with artwork and feel more like a dabbler then anything else. I don’t know if that’s the right sort of direction to take with this journey. Maybe having a lot of different experiences with art isn’t such a bad thing?

Now that it is done though, I am not sure what to do with it. I might hang it up somewhere in the house, seeing as I am rather fond of it. I am just not sure where it can go!

Right now though, I am putting up with a rather grumpy and grumbly Barley. I have a man from BT in the house fixing the internet (This post was pre written) seeing as it has been intermittent throughout the last week, which is why there has been a lack of posts on the blog.

So Barley has been shut in his bed while the man does his work. But it’s a bit of an odd situation really, I don’t think Barley would be so growly and grumbly if he’d been able to introduce himself to the man and give him a ‘right of passage’ but not everyone wants to be sniffed by a dog. Especially not when working. What do you do in these situations? I can’t take him out for a walk and leave the man to work in the house on his own. If anyone has any doggy advice here I would love to hear it! I feel guilty for leaving him shut in his bed making sulking noises.

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And, a little work in progress on the fishy painting front.

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Teasing composition

I’ve been doing a little bit of playing about with some painting planning again today. It did Scan10001involve drawing out some more fish. As I wasn’t entirely happy with what I had come up with before, only just hitting the mark with the last one. Besides, it’s always a pleasure to play about with designs and colour pencils!

I felt that I needed to keep the fish a bit more abstract, while still keeping them as readable as fish – so I really hope that comes across.

Then comes the really tricky part…
Putting the fish onto the canvas in a way that doesn’t look or feel wrong. So, I thought I would scan the pictures of the fish in and play with them in photoshop as well, seeing how the position of the fish would work on the background I’ve planned to put it on.

Composition is something that I have always struggled with so I am honestly still at a bit of a loss on where I am actually going to paint the fish onto the canvas. I have this problem of over thinking things and second guessing my instincts.
Maybe I should take the background and just… go for it and see what happens?

Which actually feels really daunting whenever I look at the canvas – it’s not a very big thing and I feel if I do something horribly wrong it’ll all be a tragic waste!

I am still also not certain about the colours of the fish – not sure if I want to go for something that really contrasts with the blue (Such as the orange here) or something that blends a bit more subtlety with the blues, like purple. So there is still a lot more to think about when it comes to this particular painting! Whoever said making these decisions was easy certainly lied through their teeth!

Further Progress

I started some of these images last week, but only really got round to posting them today – mostly due to the feeling of a stressful and upsetting weekend thanks to my jaw playing up.

We’ve more or less come to the conclusion that the jaw is due to stress, worry and anxiety anyway over the up-coming change in our lives. That doesn’t overly help much in the ways of what to actually do about the jaw and the problem it’s presenting other than taking stronger pain killers (Which have helped) and trying to be as relaxed as possible (Which the husband has been an absolute God-send over! Especially seeing as the dog managed to chew up my mouth guard today!)

Anyhow, back onto the pictures! I’ve had the idea of painting something flower-esque 20160209_123139onto the yellow, pinky coloured painted canvas. But, keeping in the theme of abstract I was wondering how I could paint flowers without dipping into the realm of realism. So it has been a case of practising with my Coloursoft crayons – which I adore no end – and seeing what sort of shapes and colour combinations that I could come up with; and I think I’ve got something that I can put onto the canvas and be happy with now. So, I am looking forward to getting the paints out again and giving it a go.

However the other two canvas’ hadn’t been quite so accommodating when it comes to giving me ideas for what to put on them. I was convinced that flowers (Or there about) was the answer for the three of them.

Then it dawned on me that the effect I was looking for for the blue and white one was20160209_123119 something water-based when actually trying to paint it. So, I got to thinking what else could be done on it. What else do I like? Then I saw the fish tank in the corner of the living room and had that eureka moment! So today the fish were what I practised with; which was actually rather nice to do.

I just need to figure out the composition of them both and I’m good to go.

And have a bit more of a think what to do with the darker of the three canvas. If anyone has any ideas then please, let me know what you think?

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