Art Notes
I haven’t been here in a while and have a few things to share with you so I thought a good title would be Art Notes. It’s bits and bobs of things that have been happening over the past month.
At the end of winter and beginning of spring I was very into farms. Painting the buildings, the land in an abstract loose way. I was also very into using a mix of new materials to do this. Things like gauche paint, oil drawing sticks, neo color crayons, Stabilo woody pencils, and paint sticks. It was (and still is) exciting! Something about a new material that lends itself to experimenting and just being willing to dig in there and let go. Realizing you don’t know how to use it and making mistakes. But also, just as exciting is when you start to make progress and figure out how YOU want to use that material.
I have also been interested in learning about using a limited color palette and how that makes a painting more cohesive. Let me just say that has been groundbreaking!! You might think that is a “duh” thing… well for me that was something I was very resistant to trying. I LOVE color and just assumed that would be like putting myself in a box with not enough options. WRONG! So, if you haven’t tried that yet, I would so do it! I will do another blog post more about that along with a video because I think that warrants its own moment with more details.
Back to the farm interest. That has led me to create a farm painting for our basement. I have a short video you can watch here to see the process from start to finish.
Here is a picture of it in process.
It was fun play around with some of my new materials for this piece.
If you want to see the piece from start to finish, watch the video!!
I also got 2 very cool art books from the library. Another artist Helen Wells shared them in one of her videos and I had to check them out. I made a video for you about my favorite one, here. The book is called JOAN MITCHELL by Sarah Roberts. The other book I enjoyed looking through was TREE: EXPLORING THE ARBOREAL WORLD by Phaidon Editors. These (or any art book) are a great place to look when you need some inspiration!
Also in this video I share with you a small sketchbook tour and some still life paintings I am doing through an online class with artist Sandi Hester. She is such a fun artist and I have really enjoyed the 2 other online classes I took from her. Her classes are challenging me to push myself and reach out into different areas with how I paint. I AM LOVING IT!
Here’s a peek of one of the still life pieces I made from the class.
Check out the video to see the other one and a small sketchbook tour.