Art Show!

Sorry to have been neglecting the blog again, this has been the most hectic month! First of all, my boyfriend and I got engaged! Yay! So I should say, my fiance... And then my fiance graduated from medical school 3 days later, YAY again! And family came, then we went on a crazy vacation. We were supposed to spend two weeks in Croatia. One week with his mom and sister and some friends, then a week just the two of us. Relaxing, unwinding, etc. Well the weather forecast for Croatia was nothing but rain for the whole time, so we decided to drive down to Greece where it would be sunny and hot. What an adventure driving through the Balkans. Then we came back to Krakow where all our friends were packing and leaving, then we went to Edinburgh to look for an apartment for ourselves, since that is where Fiance will be starting residency. Just got back last night. Whew! I have been working on some art and I honestly can't wait to have all of it done, as I'm pretty excited about all of it. I'm still working on that flower watercolor but I had to put it aside to work on the two other commissions. 

Anyway, I just realized I titled this post "Art Show" and haven't mentioned anything about an art show yet. So a co-worker of mine from NJ contacted me and said her theater company puts up kind of a gallery in June/July and said my artwork, florals in particular, were really fitting with what they were looking for and asked if I would like to be part of it. Sure! But since I am in Krakow, I had to call my mom and ask her to 1) Locate my artwork I wanted to enter (I knew exactly where it was, but still had to talk her through it) 2) Find out where I could do inexpensive framing, 3) Have my  mom take it to the framer and then pick it up when done and 4) Arrange my friend to pick up the work for me. So through a team effort, my work got framed and hung! It is for sale, so if I got a sale that would be so exciting! This is the artwork I entered:

So that's all for now, hopefully soon I can post a new painting! 

The Slacker's Guide to Making Art

Hi Everyone,

I'm so sorry I have been slow with the daisy painting demo. I promise I haven't forgotten about it! I painted a little more since my last post, but only about half of one flower lol. I will get it done, but maybe not for a little while. 

Life has been crazy this year, this is my boyfriend's final semester of medical school here in Krakow, he's graduating in less than two weeks!! We are moving to Scotland this summer, where he will be starting residency. Yay to finally making some money lol!! So we've been busy trying to figure out all these details, plus his family is coming to town for graduation, and then we're going on vacation with them. I've been slowly working on the daisies, even though I probably should have been working on the other two commissions I got before I came back to Poland.  I have to admit though, I was a little burned out from all the commissions at home and needed to paint something for myself. But a combination of lazy and other things needing to be done has put my art on the back burner. 

The other commissions I'm starting are for my best friend's sister for her wedding present and my neighbor who I did the dog and horse painting for.  My neighbor wants me to paint his barn, he has a photo he or his wife took just before sunrise with the moon still out.  I got the basic sketch done, and now I need to grid it, enlarge it and get it on the watercolor paper. (I'm doing a watercolor instead of acrylic painting this time).  

The second one for my friend is more complicated. (I won't reveal too much now, in case she's reading this. ;-) She knows it's coming, she just doesn't know exactly what it will look like yet). I don't have a photo to work from, just a theme and setting that she would like. So I have to hunt through all sorts of photos online to get ideas to totally make up a setting and place the figures in it. Then, with a combination of random photo sources, I need to make up the setting, make sure the lighting, perspective and all the figures are consistent and work together in my final piece without looking choppy. No sweat, right? lol. I'm excited though, I have a general scene now and it's going to be fun to paint. Of course I will post when I finish and have given it to her. 

That is about all for now, I will of course post updates on my work as I go. Happy Spring!

Part 3

Still working on this painting, although a bit slowly. Not going for photorealism here, just picking colors and having fun. I finally got the stems painted, and now will be starting on the petals! 

Daisy Painting Part 2

I've finished the background for the painting.  I definitely went a little crazy, and far out of my comfort zone with this one.  The end result though, was worth it and I really like it.  I'm still a little nervous, because obviously it isn't finished yet so it is still kind of in the "ugly stage".  Once I start painting the flowers, I will feel a bit better! 

First, I wet the whole paper with a large mop brush.  Then I picked some blues and purples and just started putting them all over the paper, and since it was so wet, I picked up the painting and moved it around, causing the watercolor to move around. I've never tried that before and it was really cool! The colors run, mix and blend in a way you can't get with pushing paint around with a brush.  So I let it dry, and repeated that process a few times, giving it several layers of paint. 

When I was turning the paper all around trying to spread the paint, it started dripping over my masking and into the flowers.  I decided to keep the spontaneity and let the paint drip through the flowers. Why not?! This is an experiment in loosening up, after all.  The drips and splatters will show through even after I paint the flowers, but it will give it some interest, I think. (Hope!) 

I then decided to add some texture, so using the back of my paint brush I just started scribbling into the paint like cursive writing.  I didn't write anything legible or of any significance, just scribbling because I like like look of cursive writing, but I didn't actually have anything to say lol.

I figured at this point, the masking is pretty irreverent, so I removed it.

After the scribbling, I did more layers of paint and let it dry. Then I started just using a wet brush to move some dry paint around, hoping to cause some blooms in the paint. I thought it still needed something, so I mixed up some very dark versions of the colors already used and started flinging paint at the paper randomly.  Some got in the flowers, but again, so what?! :) Flinging the paint was the most fun!

So now I have this crazy background and I hope it doesn't turn out ugly, but we will find out! The background is done, and onto the flowers! Stay tuned ;-)

A step by step daisy painting...

I want to start another painting of gerber daisies, and I've had this particular one sketched on watercolor paper for about 8 months.  I had been busy with commissions and now I have some time to work on my own projects. So I'm going to post step by step as I work on it. I forgot to photograph the drawing before I started masking, but you'll get the idea. I'm using my own photos of gerber daisies, three different photos and made them into one painting. So first step, I had to go buy some masking fluid because I left mine at home in the US.  Then I got out my ruling pen so I would have nice, even lines and not worry about using a brush. 

Also, you might notice the ripped tape around the borders...I want it to have an uneven, kind of ripped paper looking border, hence the strange tape job ;)

I'm going to mask only around the outer edges of the flowers, since I'm going to work on the background and I want to keep the edges of the flowers crisp and visible and not worry when I'm busy splashing paint around.  I'm using the ruling pen carefully, to avoid gouging the paper.  You don't need to press hard. 

I really love the ruling pen, it gives you such clean lines! I highly recommend it!
So now the flowers are all masked...

And I wait for it to dry, then have fun with the background!
With this painting, I really want to try loosening up and not do my usual tightly rendered style. I want to splash paint around and not worry about a lot of detail.  I want to mask the flowers to keep the shapes while I go nuts with the background, but after that all bets are off. We'll see how it goes! More tomorrow...

More Wedding Gowns!

A few more wedding gown drawings I've been commissioned to do. 

Technically a front view, but I did it from an angle here to show the train a little bit. 

This dress I did a front and back view.  This is the detail of the front, of course.

 Back view...

And one more front and back view...

If you're interested in a gown drawing for yourself or a friend/family member, please visit my Etsy shop! I'd be happy to make one for you as well. 

Here's the most recent painting I did, another commission for my neighbor.  He had asked me to do a painting for him to give his wife for Christmas, and after I completed it (sorry, I forgot to take a picture), he asked me to paint their Christmas card, which had pictures of all of their animals on it, seven dogs and three horses. 

His wife does dog shows with some of these guys, and the grey dog on the far right is like a national champion pure breed or something.  I don't know much about these things, but it's pretty cool that they have one of the top show dogs in the country. They get on tv! So this is the painting I produced from the card:

Acrylic on canvas, 16"x20"

The black and white dog, 2nd from the right, was in a different position on the card, but he had sent me a couple of photos of her for the other painting I did, and I liked her better in a different photo. The way she was cocking her head and the adorable expression in her big brown eyes was just calling me to paint.  I'm not really a dog person, I prefer cats..but this little black and white girl, Eva, is the cutest dog ever. 

This painting was probably the easiest painting I've done in a while. Most of the commissions I've been working on in the last several months have had me  in a fit of nerves and some tears because I just couldn't get something right and they took me a long time to complete. This painting almost painted itself. It took about eight days total, which for me is lightening speed for a painting. 

I have to say, it's pretty funny that I've been getting all these commissions in the past 6-8 months. I never had that many before, maybe one or two in the last several years.  Then, this summer, I opened my Etsy shop for custom wedding gown sketches and bouquet watercolor paintings, and suddenly everyone wants me to paint.....animals (mostly dogs) and landscapes! Two subjects I don't actually paint, which is why I had a little trouble with some of these projects haha.  :) I'm grateful for them though, for the extra income and the experience in painting things I hadn't before. And everyone was very happy with their paintings, which makes me happy too, of course!