21 Secrets Fall Give Away

Its hard to believe it, but 21 Secrets will start next week.  It seems so long ago that I was asked to teach for this wonderful workshop.  I almost forgot that I have another free spot that I can give away to one of my lucky readers.  Yes that could be you.

What do you need to do to enter:

Just leave a comment on this post and tell me what is your favorite art supply and how you like to use it.

I'll pick a winner on Saturday.

 

I stopped at Ikea when I was in Utah over the weekend and picked myself up one of these carts for my studio. Got it filled already. Somewhere on Facebook I saw people showing their carts so I had to get myself one. I could easily use another one of these. They are really nice. I saw some people attaching baskets and bicket on the ends to offer more storage.  Its going to be nice to have access to a lot of my supplies in on place. I think I'll probably be changing my mind what goes in the cart after I start using it.

My Weekend Getaway.

This is the only sketch I managed to make this past weekend.  Sitting on the back porch of my friends house, just a view of the trees.

I spent a lot of time spinning and knitting and visiting we friends old and new.  A very relaxing place to be. Sometimes a weekend away is just what you need to get a new perspective on life. I felt very proud of myself because I still managed to write the three days I was there, and even took two walks. Sometimes its the little things that are big accomplishments.

I fell in love with this tree, it was in the front yard of the house I stayed at. It had incredible energy about it. I took tons of pictures. I think I need to paint it at some point.

We replaced some sidewalk and I had to leave my mark. It is not that easy to write in concrete. My spiral symbol came out a little wonky.

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Kate

Lots Of Work In Progress

I am headed out of town tomorrow so there will be a little blogging break happening here. I started working on some new paintings or I should say continued with them. They are both works in progress as I have nothing else to show you today.

I started to work on the painting of red trees. I had a few minutes before I needed to go to the dentist this morning so I laid in the trees. At least it is a beginning.

This canvas has been the one where I put excess paint from my pallette.  I have been adding to it for months. Today I decided to work on it some more. I made several big mistakes and it ended up quite muddy.  So now I'll let it all dry before I tackle it again.  I should have know better to mix warm and cool colors without letting one of them dry. The next time you see this I am sure it will be totally different.

Here is that lily pad painting I was working on. It needed some more work so I tackled that today.

I think it looks a little better but to make it more like the photo I would have to change so much. Really didn't feel like spending that much more time on it. I hate when you think its just a little change you need to make, when it turns into a major redo. To do it properly I would be better off to start over.

See you back here on Monday,

Kate

Connecting Writing And Art

I have these odd silhouettes that were given to me years ago.  I often pull them out to use and then decide I don't want to use them.  So this one was lying around my desk. I liked it over this background. Doesn't that blob on the left look like Africa? I see now I could have made a map out of this page.  Sometimes it seems like I don't see things in my pieces until a photo is taken.  I wonder why that is?

This is the second half of the ugly spray ink exploration I talked about in yesterday post. On this side I muted the page with gesso before I drew and painted the trees.  The stencils in the background look like a ghost image. I think I like it.  Happy accidents are fun to discover in your work. I am really loving these trees.

Wouldn't it be awesome to walk into a forest that had trees this color. It reminds me of something I am adding to my novel.  I have no title yet but I thought I might start sharing some little tidbits here on the blog. It's the idea of a feminine forest. One where men have a hard time traveling through and women gain something special from being there. I haven't decided how this forest will look yet, but this is a pretty good start. I like the idea of exploring some things I am writing about in my art journal.  It gives my ideas a little more life, to see them on the page.

Do you have more than one hobby?  Have you found a way to work on them at the same time like a collaboration?  I'd love to hear about it? Leave me a comment about it.

When Your Art Looks UGLY

I was playing with some spray ink and really overdid all the colors and use of stencils and I really didn't like it. All I could think is what am I going to do with this background. Nothing came to me besides cover it up with collage. But what a waste that seemed of the ink. So I went online for inspiration but no one posts their ugly pages.  I wish I had taken a picture of it so you could see what I mean.

So what did I do get to this portrait.  First I put some gesso on the page.  The ink always comes through gesso but I thought it could tone down the intense bright colors. So then I decided to paint a face and see what came next. I started with pencil and then marker. Then I painted the background pink several times but if you look close you can see the stencils underneath the color. Then I did the dress, and of course now I like this piece so much more.  So what do you do when you feel what you have created is ugly.  Just push on through, jump out of the box, try something new. Once I was ready to let go of my initial ideas, and be open to what it could be, then things began to flow again.

So what do you do when you don't like what you created?  Do you have a process you go through?Tell me in the comments.

Using Pinterest For Inspiration

I went to  one of my Pinterest boards this morning for inspiration. I knew I wanted to draw something in church today.

I loved this image, it is actually a quilt and not a painting. It's called the Ravens of Angel Crest by Thom Atkins. Isn't it gorgeous.

For my version I separated the birds, made the trees a little less developed, added birds to the second tree and added a mountain.  I like my little drawing, it was fun to make. I find Pinterest is fun for collecting images but its also great to use all that collecting for something. I think I may use this image again in the future. Maybe elaborate on the image, or tackle the idea in acrylic, or even on canvas. Or even make the one tree recede further into the background, or make the bird bigger and more of a focal point. There are lots of different things you can do with an initial idea to make it your own.

Linking to Sunday Sketches today.

How do you use images for inspiration? Tell me in the comments.

Kate

Release for Paint Party Friday

This is my journal page for Release, a subject in the Spectrum course.  I have painting in strictly cool colors lately, so I thought I would mix it up with some warm colors this time.  I used liquid watercolors that got away from me a bit.  Then I drew some mandalas on the page.  It seemed more personal to do my own drawing from my intuition.  The blob on the top looked like an octopus to me, so I chose to write words of release on the tentacles.  That was a fun module.

You can check out what others are doing for Paint Party Friday here.

What kind of colors do you like to paint with?  Do you mix it up once in a while?

Kate

Mandalas and Moons

Today I have some miscellaneous art to share. The first one was for the bloom true bootcamp with Flora Bowley. Every day this month there has been a prompt to share, and this day's prompt involved doing some art. It was all about mandalas today.  Have you ever wondered how everyone makes these wonderful images and they look fabulous all the time.  Well I have never been that confident about my mandalas and this one was surely a trial.

 

With this mandala I started with a stencil in the center. Then I drew the outer circle and added some triangles, painted them and hated it.  So I covered it with paint and then gesso. I could still see them and so can you if you look close.  So then I drew the leaf shapes, painted them and started to like it again.  So you see any art disaster can be fixed.

Last night the full moon looked pretty awesome.  I was happy to get this shot before the clouds covered her up.

I also painted under the full moon last night.  The moon always has such good energy about it.  I have not decided what this really is.  What are your impressions? Tell me in the comments.

Kate