Sometimes a painting just comes together. I have taken so many walks through forests with my little dog Muffin (who is sadly no longer around to enjoy the snow).
I belong to an artists club near my home and they have two theme exhibitions a year. The theme for this February is the colour ' RED '.
I thought of various possibilities and suddenly I thought 'red umbrella' and the painting just grew from there.
I used a limited palette namely, indigo, burnt umber, white, a touch of raw sienna on the dog and of course several reds in the boots and umbrella. It is a large painting 80cms x 60 cms which I feel gives the trees their height and depth. I use Liquitex acrylics which I love for their covering ability and wonderful colours. I experimented with a painting knife to add texture to the snow and the trees.
I hope you like this one. I am happy with the outcome. Here it is.
MY TIP FOR THE DAY
I receive a lot of brochures etc. in the mail and I normally send them off to be
recycled. I also wash away a lot of residue paint on my palette. I decided to use up the paint and cover the pages of a nice quality thick-papered brochure with this paint. I now have a really useful 'sketchbook' with different coloured pages to try out thumbnails before painting. It is also interesting to see how different colours react on different backgrounds.
You can also experiment with various techniques and mixed media.
Best of all it cost me nothing!!
Here we go again making all those lovely positive resolutions which I, for one, never seem to maintain.
Here are my creative resolutions for 2015. I hope some of my artist friends will join me. If you have any that you would like to share , please share them with me on my blog. You could be inspiring me or other readers too.
1. I will clean up my studio and with great courage attempt to get rid of some of the reference materials, photos and umpteen dried out paint tubes.
2. I will go through my discarded and disastrous paintings and attempt to do something with them. Perhaps I will try a new medium or brighten up all the colours - perhaps cut a section out of a painting that actually looks rather nice and develop it further. How about cutting some them up for collage and mixed media works. The possibilities are endless.
3. I will do a drawing or a painting a day. Miniatures count too. No, I am not copping out. Miniature paintings are a huge challenge in themselves.
4. I intend doing at least one or two paintings using a time restriction. Half an hour or one hour. This will help me to only paint what is necessary rather than getting bogged down with the details. This is going to be a hard one for me because I love painting all those little whiskers and hairs. Nothing wrong with that of course but I feel I need to relax more and get some nice juicy brush work going on my canvases.
5. I will try out a new medium. Who knows , it may be the beginning of a wonderful love relationship with for instance , oils or pastels. Worth a try!
It will be like an exciting , rather scary blind date.
6. I will get out in the fresh air (at the moment we have sleet - ughhh!) and paint more plein aire works.
7. I will not allow curious spectators to disturb me so that I shut my sketch book and rush off to the nearest café for a relaxing cup of coffee. I hate people watching me sketch or paint and this is a huge hurdle for me to overcome.
8. I will be more organised and lay out the paints I need for a particular work rather than rushing off to my drawers hunting for the necessary colour I need during the painting processs. Bad, bad, bad!!!
9. I will work on a series of paintings for exhibition with an interesting theme. I want to do a number of paintings of the Algäu which is the area of Bavaria, Germany in which I live. It is very beautiful here and certainly lends itself to wonderful landscapes and buildings.
10. If I manage all of these, I will be extremely delighted with myself and can only improve as an artist.
I WISH ALL THOSE WHO READ MY BLOG A WONDERFUL, HEALTHY, CREATIVE AND DISCIPLINED 2015. I WISH THIS FOR MYSELF TOO.
This is what is known as being the most positive of thinkers. He really believed he could get that stick through the front door.
I did this work with Polychromo Coloured Pencils on Bristol Board. These are my favourite coloured pencils with a great range of colours and really good coverage.
