Merry Christmas!

And a Happy Creative New Year!

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

Remember this monstrosity? Another old painting coverup. This time of a young woman with an unfortunately long face...

With a little time and regrets of the bygone summer (Where did it go so fast ? I swear we were just in August), the green blob evolved into this painting of digitalis or foxgloves...

I added a little more detail with a Prismacolor pencil at the end, but all in all, I think it turned out OK!

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

This project got a bit of an update the other day and was finally completed. When I last blogged about it, it was at this stage and I didn't know what to make of it:

I used the extra gessoed boards I had from my Glass Ceiling project, some light modeling paste (I LOVE playing with that stuff!), acrylics, and Radiant Rain's Shimmering mist spray for kicks. I was kind of stuck on where to go next when a friend suggested it needed little white flowers. At first I thought I would try an eye dropper and some fluid acrylics, but that was a fail. I ended up adding dots and flowers with a small brush.

At this stage I'm always afraid of ruining something and wondering whether or not to stop so of course I didn't. I added some more detail with a black micron pen and these were the finished paintings:

Daughter #4 has claimed them for her apartment next year. I guess that's a seal of approval...

Off The Grid Opening...

I attended my first opening that included my work on Friday night. Very exciting. I went with the Husband and Daughter #3 who is also an artist and met up with friends Joyce and Annemarie who are my artistic support team.

Daughter #3 and the Husband

We arrived at Artstream at about 5:45 and the place already had quite a few people there. I spoke with Susan, studio owner and friend, and then schmoozed with Annemarie and Joyce while admiring the other artists' work.

With Annemarie and Joyce

I also spoke with Jill another ARC graduate who also was showing some work there. Afterwards we hightailed it over to the local pizza place for some celebratory pizza and beer. Food of the gods, food of the gods....

Ta da!

The only bad part is now I have to set another goal for myself. Oh well I can safely shelve that until New Year's...

What I'm Working On Wednesday...

So I thought that since I'm struggling so much to sit down and actually blog a couple times a week, I would give myself a theme like "Throwback Thursday" in order to entice myself to blog on. I came up with "What I'm working on Wednesday". Not the cleverest of themes, but it works for me-I hope.
So here's another project that I've recently completed. I haven't even named it yet, so if you have any suggestions-let me know.
This project started off like several of mine lately. It was a redo of an old painting that I no longer liked. I had read an article in Cloth Paper Scissors about adding different textures to your canvas. This involved covering the canvas with masking tape and the gessoing it. When I last blogged about it, it looked like this:

Guess I was channeling the holidays and thinking of a snow scene. Well that didn't last long and the snow turned into woods...

And then the woods got a little crazy and turned into a moonlit scene...

Paint was dripped and a tad of glitter was added and then she was done.

Preparation for "Off the Grid"...

I'm not really going off the grid, although I used to harbor fantasies of that in my younger days. Too much reading of "My Side Of the Mountain" I guess. No, these are the pieces I have been working on for Artstream Gallery's "Off the Grid" show which opens this Friday Dec. 6th. I am so excited to be included. As a friend pointed out, this is the second time I have shown my work this year. How's that for throwing yourself out to the universe?
I have been working on these pieces for the past couple of months-ever since my friend Susan gave me the invitation.  Here is my process:

early concept-rejected because it was too literal

So one of the requirements was that we were allowed to submit up to 4 pieces. They also had to be a maximum of 6"x6". A challenge for me because I usually don't work so small.

I cut and then prepared the boards with a couple coats of gesso...

The concept that eventually came to me was that I wanted to paint a young woman pressing up against the proverbial glass ceiling, trying to break free of rules, confinement, strictures-the grid. I enlisted daughter #3 as model and took some photos of her from above. I selected 4 photos and based the drawings on them.

Photo, prepared board, and drawing

More photos and boards...

Starting to actually paint the figures was scary. I was afraid I was going to screw it up or make some irreparable mistake which I guess was silly because then I could just paint over it...

So I painted on fortified with the occasional glass of wine...

I decided to add the detail with prismacolor pencils so I could have more control. It also added an interesting layer of texture to the painting. I protected the pencil layer with a layer of acrylic medium and then added the glass ceiling after I had a glue trial with my glass and brass bits. I now own more glue than I will ever need...at least until the next project.

The finished pieces...Glass Ceiling #1, #2, #3, #4

Glass Ceiling #1

Glass Ceiling #2

Glass Ceiling #3

Glass Ceiling #4