Nicknames

 

These are the nicknames of my niece and nephews. The goal was to do them in the same style as the monkey. The cricket resembles the monkey the closest but the other subject matter was already to simple, so I improvised and came up with this.

California Sand

My sister is a photographer and took this pic of her kids at the beach. I knew right away that I wanted to paint it. I loved the composition and the bright colors and the fact that it had figures in it but I didn't have to worry too much about the faces. So I painted it. I had no idea how hard it would be. Painting sand is not an easy task. I had never painted sand before so I tried to find out how others had done it but none of them painted the kind of sand I was painting. After practicing on several smaller pieces I finally decided I would just do my best and even if it didn't look like the sand in her pic I would be happy if it just looked reminiscent of sand. I think it does. I was way stressed about painting this .... which usually improves the results and I am happy with the finished product. I see a billion mistakes in this but I feel like I improved during the process and I am just way happy that I am doing some serious art again. Here's to watercolor!

a happy sight

Here is what my kitchen table looks like right now! Squeal!!! Yes!

So Wednesdays are my art nights from now on. Don't bother me, I am very happily busy. Ha. I have been wanting to paint a monkey for the little monkey's nursery but the one I painted last week apparently looked like it was possessed. So, I decided to simplify things and got some inspiration from Picasso's animals. I am pretty happy with it. (BTW the watercolor is black and the paper is white. Not that green color it looks like in the pic.)

I drew up who knows how many sketches of this before I came to this one that I thought was just as good as any Picasso could come up with :). Reminder to self: the more sketches/ thumbnails you create before you solidify an idea, the better it will be.

Still pluggin away.

I know I haven't posted anything on here, but I actually have been working on my art. I attend a model session once a week and I actually have really liked some of the drawings I've made, and I really considered putting them on here but I don't think I will.

For those of you not into art, drawing the figure helps observational art skills develop faster than anything else I know of. The reason is because our eye is so much more critical of people than it is of say a still life of some fruit. If the angle on the banana is off no one is going to notice, but if the angle of a foreshortened arm is off viewers are definitely going to be able to tell. Hopefully you can see why attending these sessions is so valuable to me.

I've kind of had a struggle inside of me as to if it's okay to do- seeing as the models are nude. I know BYU has their models in swimsuits or something, but I don't know of anything like that locally. So I am not really sure and anyways I have decided to not post my work because there are guaranteed to be people who will take it the wrong way. Anyways, I don' t know if this even makes sense but that's what's been going on with the art lately. :)

BTW for those of you interested in the online critiques check out the other blog on the side bar... it's brand new and nothings really there so if you want to add something give me your email and I will invite you to be an author.

It's time to post again

As a beginning artist I feel intimidated by the impressive work of others. I feel frightened to put myself out on the line. I feel scared that I may fail.I feel pressured to be incredible when I don't feel that I am yet. And so with the months passing since my graduation I have spent one 3 hour period half-heatedly creating art.

I didn't post anything from this last year of school... mainly because I began drawing and painting nude models which I thought may be offensive to some viewers. They aren't offensive to me, in fact the figure has become my favorite subject. Who'd a thought? :)

The point of this post is basically to have a written statement of what will be coming in an effort to motivate me and help me gain confidence. I just purchased a $4 book that came recommended from a co art student entitled Art & Fear.... I look forward to reading that. I also want to start a club of sorts. If you are an artist or would like to be I want to come up with a project once or twice a month, create it and then share what we have made- maybe even have a critique or something.

So get excited. I am going to start posting these new projects... the good, the bad the surprising. Good luck to me!

Sorry for the miserable photo quality of all the posts from today... you should just be glad I finally updated this blog!

This project goes along with the thread drawing. We took something tiny and drew it HUGE and something Large and drew it on a small scale. This is only like 4 inches tall. Pencil. (Draw 2)

This is the extent of USUs watercolor program. What the lame! All they teach is how to "Sketch" in watercolor. "Real" painting is in oil apparently. I'm not a fan of oil painting. Too messy, too smelly, toxic, doesn't flow. (Draw 2)

Overall favorite project. We picked a composition of a classical artist and then copied it in to other artists styles. The top is Van Gogh , the bottom is Cezanne. So fun. Fell in love with Pastels in this project. ( Draw 2)