Very Nearly Finished Girl!

Hi There

After months of waiting patiently for me to get my act together, I bet you were starting to think I'd ~never~ finish my latest painting, didn't you? For a while there, I must admit that I was starting to wonder myself.

I confess that I was living in a near blissful state of procrastination with my half finished painting on my easel until Mother Nature managed to make me so feel incredibly guilty, that I just had to get my act together. I bet you are wondering, 'Kate - How on earth can the big M.N. be responsible for this?' Well, it's like this...

All the beautiful jacaranda trees around Brisneyland have been in spectacular bloom these past few weeks.  Because of this, from the moment I look out my bedroom window first thing in the morning, until I close my bedroom curtains at night, all I can see is this beautiful haze of purple. A haze of purple which continually reminded me that I hadn't finished my latest jacaranda painting.* Way to go, Mother Nature for making me feel guilty inspiring me to take action!   Following a couple of hours work this morning, I present to you my nearly finished painting.  The current working title for this artwork is "Don't You Forget About Me"  (Love my 80's Simple Minds music!):

Don't You Forget About Me (I'll Be Alone, Dancing, You Know It Baby...)

Looking at it now, I think I like this painting.  It's hard, because I'm so used to it that I currently can't see it with fresh eyes.   To try and rectify this, I'll put it away for a couple of days and then bring it out, to see if I can see any little spots here and there that require attention.  In the meanwhile, what do you think?  Like it?  Stuffed it up?  Any areas that require particular attention or parts of the painting that are "rooly special"?
I'd love to know!  Don't be shy now...

Anyway, thanks ever so much for stopping by, I'll be sure to see you around again soon!

Kate
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* I swear, the feeling was worse than when I hear the following exciting exchange between my children in a car trip to the shops: "Mum - Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? When will we get there? When will we get there?  OUCH - You hit me!  No, it *wasn't* an accident! I'm gonna dob!  No, *you're* not dobbing, I'm dobbing!  MUM!  MUM! WAAAAAAAH!!!"

Half Finished Girl!

Why Hello There!

I am pleased to announce that further to my "Quarter Finished Girl" post last week, I have moved on to complete some more work on my latest painting of a jacaranda.  Here...... Have a look:

I am looking at this painting and am feeling like I'm making some good progress.  The thing is, I'm still not happy.  I can't help but feel it needs more light, more movement, more energy.  Still, I'll keep working at it and hopefully I can come up with something that I'll be happy with in the end.

Now, I know you are probably wondering what happened to the pencil drawing of the beautiful girl I was also completing in my earlier post about quarter-finished-artistic-pursuits.  I have to say she was coming along swimmingly well, until dinner one evening a few nights ago when I accidentally spilt some spaghetti bolognaise sauce right in the middle of her face.  Oooopsies!  Don't you just love it when motherhood and art collide?

I tell you, it's one of the perils of art and working at the kitchen table when hungry.  C'est la vie!

Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope to see you 'round here soon in the near future.

Kate
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Quarter Finish Girl...

Hello!

Long time no see.  In case you were worried about me, I haven't stopped creating and painting.  No sir.

More than anything, birthday party planning and execution (I use that last word in the good way context, not in the bad way going to gaol context), school carnival helping, working, working some more, holiday mayhem handling, contending with bouts of gastro and sorting out tantrums (mostly mine) has seriously impeded my ability to be calm and have enough time to pursue artistic output these past few weeks.

I know, I know.... Poor me!  (Well, not really.  There are many other things in the world to feel sorry about, me not getting my act together to paint or draw really doesn't qualify.  I know that.)

Still, I've tried to snatch a couple of moments here and there to calm myself down and set about creating.  The biggest problem I've discovered I'm suffering from at the moment, however is "quarter-finished-itis".  This sudden malady seems to have come out of nowhere and is now so bad that everything I start, I get a quarter of the way through and then suddenly think "Nyeh - think I'll leave it for now" with the pure of heart intention to go back and finish it - without actually doing so.  To prove it, here are just two of the works that I have managed to start these past few weeks and have only a quarter finished:

Yep, you are right, the first is another painting of a jacaranda tree.  I so love these trees and after I sold my first painting that featured jacaranda trees earlier this year, I have missed it so much that I thought I would paint another.  This one is going OK, but there are some problem areas I need to address and of course, there are many areas which are only under-painted.  Sigh!

The second is a pencil drawing (using only a pacer, because I couldn't be bothered trying to find all my other pencils) of a Namibian girl from the Wet Canvas Reference Library.  Yes, she does look mighty grumpy here, probably because I haven't finished her I'd imagine.  I'd be pretty annoyed too if someone bothered to draw my eyes, lips and nose and then didn't bother to draw some hair on my head.

I chose to draw her just to see how my skills are coming along.  So far, I'm not really thinking they are that much up to chop.  Oh well.  The worst thing about quarter finished itis is that whilst she's looking strangely bald, she's starting to look to me like she's meant to be that way - I think my eyes are waaaayyyy over adjusting!

So....

Wish me luck getting past this little malady!  And bits of advice you can give to assist me with getting over the hurdle toward finishing these artworks would be greatly received.  (So far my strategy has been with other works to go "Rip - Scrunch - Toss" not a particularly satisfying result.)

I'll see you around in the near future!

Kate
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[Edit:  To see an update of what happened with these artworks, click here.]

Not Throwing Paint: Finished!

"Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can." 

~ Danny Kaye

Hello!

I hope this finds you well and happy.  I'm happy!  The sun is shining.  The birds are singing.  The kids are at school...  At this precise moment, life is good.

I've had a lot of fun working on this painting the past few days.  Honestly, every time I pulled out my paints I smiled.  You've gotta love that about art.

I must admit that I got a little stuck for inspiration initially after I posted my half finished picture here last week.  I just couldn't for the life of me work out how to make it look interesting and full of vitality or how to pull it all together.  I think the reason is because I got a little frightened.  Just to be clear, I mean 'frightened' in an artistic sense, not in a scary two-eyed-six-legged-monster-with-big-claws-and-fangs sense.

You see, I think I've reached that point of artistic development where I now realise that I can be off to a tremendous start with a painting and then suddenly have everything go terribly wrong quicker than I can say "Supercalifragilisticexpealidoscious". Or "Darn it!" even.  So, I took a big breath, steadied my breathing and calmed my shaking hand and set about throwing paint on the canvas.   Throwing figuratively I mean, not literally.  Don't get me started on *that* issue again...

This little artwork is very different from how I usually paint, so I'm pleasantly surprised to say that I really like it.  It makes me smile.  Hopefully it makes you smile.  If it does, that's enough for me.

Anyway, thanks very much for stopping by and seeing what I've been up to.

May the sun be shining and the birds be singing where you live too!

Kate
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Not Throwing Paint - Part 1

"Life is a blank canvas, and you need to throw all the paint on it you can." ~ Danny Kaye

Hey There!

I liked this quote so much I thought I'd give it a try.  So I did.  And it was REALLY fun!  I have to be honest here and disclose that I did not actually throw any paint.  I decided Danny was a little misguided if he thought my 'throwing' paint around would be a fabulous idea.  Actually, it may surprise you, however I'm seriously against the idea of any 'throwing around paint' practices.

Really.

Seriously. 

In fact, I'm so much seriously so against it, I've decided to take a stand against the suggestion of this practice and instead offer you the two following case studies to consider why I am right and Danny is wrong:

Case Study #1:  I'd challenge Danny to spend two hours of his life, like I did a couple of years ago, scraping tiny speckles of paint off my brand new timber flooring using my thumb nail following a "fantastic five minute throwing paint experience" that my then four year old decided to try in a moment of "free expression".  Remember Danny, that's two hours of my life I can't get back.  Gone.  Forever. Two hours gone when I could have been watching Neighbours, or Home and Away instead.*  It took ages for my thumb nail to grow back and worse, it totally wrecked my manicure.  This alone should be enough for my argument to be an open and shut case against any throwing business.  However, I know I need to ensure that I really get you all onside.  As such, I offer you in addition;

Case Study #2:  You may marvel at Jackson Pollock's "Blue Poles" and I agree it is incredibly thought provoking painting.  However have you ever considered his poor wife?  Have you ever thought that maybe Jackson made an awful mess and poor Lee (his wife) was then forced to use her thumb-nail to scrape tiny paint splats off her brand new austrian blinds and newly installed wood-panelled feature wall?  You can bet the words "Jackson, I'll tell you what you can do with your poles!" left her lips more than once as she also wrecked her manicure, that's for sure.   

See?  Danny, I think I've made my point.  If you're going to suggest people throw paint around, you could at least add something about using lots of newspaper or doing it outside on grass. OK?

Still, despite its areas of deficiency, I really liked this quote.  So I decided instead to focus on the part of the quote that states we should all use heaps and heaps of paint.  

Today's offering is the result. 

It's not finished yet.  I know it needs more, but I'm just not sure what it needs more of.  Any suggestions?  Do let me know!  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Sorry...?

Pardon...? 

Oh...!  You think Danny was being philosophical about this 'throwing' business?  Not literal?


Ohhhhhhhh.... ;-)

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone, I'll see you soon!

Kate

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 *Only kidding!  I'm not going to to tell you what I watch.

Jacaranda - Part 3

Following on from Part 1 and Part 2, today's effort was a combination of being delightful and incredibly frustrating!  Mr. Perspective decided to come into play down the bottom of the painting and proceeded to make a dog's breakfast of all my ideas.  (It's Mr Perspective, because I'm sure a Ms would never cause me such angst!)

Still I battled on.  I'm not sure who prevailed.  Maybe you can decide for me.  Here you go, have a look:

Soooooo, what do you think?  Does it still look like an impressionistic version of a  Jacaranda in bloom?  Do me a favour and look at the painting whilst sitting down and then stand back a meter or two and look again at the painting.  It is designed so that the further back you are, the more realistic it looks.  Tricky, I know.

Anyway, I love it.  I am going to take it to art class tomorrow night to get Ms Kathy's expert opinion and advice.  I'm thinking that I would like to sell this artwork.  What do you think?  Is it good enough?

Kate
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Jacaranda - Part 2

Hello There!

Following on from yesterday's post, I've been a busy little bee and have spent a couple more hours on my Jacaranda painting.

Possibly as a surprise, I decided to go for a slightly impressionistic effect with my painting.  The concept was  I wanted the Jacaranda to be instantly recognisable and look quite life-like from a distance (see Fig 1):  

Fig 1 - Jacaranda painting from a distance

  

But that when you get up close, you realise that the entire painting consists of vertical dashes (Fig 2):

Fig 2 - a slightly blurry picture of dashes.

I'm actually pretty proud of this piece so far.  I hope you like the direction I've taken it in.

I still feel I have a little work to go to call the painting complete (particularly around the bottom section), but overall, I think it is going well.

Stay tuned, for the final update in a day or two's time!

Kate
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Jacaranda - Part 1

Today features yet a first under-painting of a landscape featuring the majestic Jacaranda tree.

I decided to paint a Jacaranda because I adore how the purple haze of petals covers the ground every spring-time in Brisbane.

This was painted using acrylics on a really large canvas (26" X 40") - my largest work ever commenced to date.  (I say "commenced", because it currently feels like it will never be finished!)  There is still so much to do, so please don't pass complete judgement on this work just yet - I realise it needs a lot of work!  I've barely blocked in the shapes and have only had a tiny start at the blooms, which will cover much of the top two thirds of the canvas.

 
Still, at least it is a start, right?  I keep thinking that this is going to be like a jig-saw puzzle - fitting tiny pieces together to hopefully create a beautiful picture in the end.  Stay tuned to see how this painting develops over the next few days!

Kate
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