Painting 7: Group Event Canvas Painting

 A Day in the Field

11 in. x 14 in.

Craft Acrylics on Canvas Board

February 2017

1.5 hrs

So this will probably be my shortest post yet since this painting literally took me under two hours and had zero planning/preparation. I created this during a women in engineering canvas painting event. All of the materials were supplied so I used cheap craft paint and cheap, soft brushes. 

There are a couple big projects I've been thinking about and tossing around in my head so I was considering doing a prototype of one of those to sort of lay things would while I had a limited supply of paint and 1.5 hrs to be as creative as I possible could.

Instead I decided to paint something - anything - whatever vision appeared in my head - and just go for it. I wanted to paint non-stop as hard as I could for an hour and a half (since I'm normally a really slow painter) without worrying about the details, without using any references, just purely going off of what was in my head an experimenting with which techniques would work best for the equipment at my disposal.

I had this vision. This is something that I've wanted to paint but not exactly in this form. I wanted to paint something for my dad, or at least something that feels like him. I have this vision of a grand majestic watercolor of fields and trees and pheasants flying overhead and my dog (a beautiful majestic [crazy] German Shorthaired Pointer) poised angled slightly toward the camera, coat gleaming in the sun, foot pointed, muscles rippling - a hunting dog's paradise more or less. This is not that picture. This was a slightly warped picture that popped into my head with a much more simplistic layout, almost whimsical dog meets bird subject. I wanted everything to be strokey and simple but still give off the impression of what the picture was.

Overall I'm really happy with it. I have a couple (one main) issues with it and I was hesitant to event titles this 'Painting 7' since I wouldn't truly consider this a complete actual painting, but I was proud that I displayed what I wanted to displayed, I had a bunch of fun making it, and it mostly matches the vision in my mind.

This was the first time I painted completely without reference (besides for one quick glance at a pheasant to check their coloring and another quick glance at my dog to make sure I had his spots in relatively the right place) [the previous fanart landscape was another picture I did mostly without reference except for the horses]. My goal was to just paint and to see if I could actually put my mind on canvas. I have this notion that I am not a talented enough artist to do that, but at the same time I've never really trusted myself to try, so I wanted to just go for it.

Obviously this is not a very detailed piece. Between the time constraint and the brushes constraint and the materials constraint my main goal was to give it the feeling of a field even though I have big chunky blocks of grass but I still think you can really feel the texture, etc.

[apparently I lied about this being a short post; I can make a novel out of anything]

I was really proud of these birds. Just a couple quick strokes and Voila! I was so unbelievably proud of the bird on the far right (though I wish his shadows and highlights were reversed so they made more sense.) But this was literally 2 seconds work and honestly it's probably one of the best parts of the picture.

Here's my little pheasant. Wish he had a little more shadow variation but I was mainly focusing on color. He is a bit flat though...

This is both my favorite and least favorite part of this piece. Of course it's my puppy and I love him, and overall I think the impression of the dog is decent (though it begs for detail and muscle definition and nice deep shadows) but the rough halo around the dog from later darker additions of grass is what bothers me the most. I wish he had a nice clean outline so event if he wasn't super detailed, he'd still stand out as I wanted him to. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I like his ear though (and event his face shape in general - though the pointing leg could do with much improvement and definition).

Overall this was really great and I definitely want to be a big more free with my painting. The last two paintings were some of my fastest and probably most fun to paint because I did them so much more free form than usual. I'm finally learning not to rely of references so much and to explore life and expression a little more. 

Hopefully this was a good warm-up and I can finish a real new acrylic painting soon ;)

[or maybe I'll just go back and hide in my watercolors; acrylic is scary]

Other Art 1: Bean Bags

Size: Bean Bag Regulation Size

Materials: Wood, Acrylic Craft Paint (not my good paints!)

Artists: Me, My Brothers, My Dad, My Grandma, [and my Mom and my Dog for moral support]

Time: Finished in early June, took a couple weeks

So, I'm at college now, and I haven't completed any art projects yet [three on the way :D] so I went back to a project I meant to post a couple months ago.

I decided to include these on my blog, as they are indeed works of art of a sort, and a family production at that. For my high school graduation party, my family decided to make two sets of bean bag boards. Two boards are painted in the University of Iowa colors for my bro, and the other two boards are Purdue for me. My brothers and my dad constructed the wooden frames and painted the base coat [beige or yellow]. My dad painted the black boarders and the lettering. I only painted the emblem [which makes my family's awesome workmanship look even more awesome]. And my grandma sewed the super cool, professional Iowa and Purdue bean bags. My mom and my puppy provided moral and emotional support (as well as refreshments ~ thanks mom!). I used cheap craft paint which my dad sprayed a clear varnish over to protect the logo. For the Iowa symbol, I created a paper stencil to transfer the logo on. For Purdue, I used a graphite transfer (not using actual graphite sheets but spending a good 10-15 min. scribbling in pencil on the back of the logo paper I printed). These bean bag boards turned out super awesome, and everyone at the party loved them. I'd like to thank everyone who helped make these. You all did awesome work, and it really helped make my party special! :)

The picture above shows the men of the family working hard to construct the wooden frames for the bean bag sets. Might I add that they look super mysterious working in silhouette~

Here are the bean bags that my grandma made for our sets. She did a really great job!

Here's the first of the two Purdue logos I did. Finishing the first one felt awesome, and it looked sweet! Also by spending all that time painting the logo of my new school, I really got to know it well. Now every time I see the boilermaker logo I feel a bit of a deep connection, not to mention the fact that I pretty much have everything in its layout memorized (which doesn't sound too impressive, but it is a pretty complicated logo, especially compared to Iowa's). [Side note: you can see my cheap craft paints]

And here's both of the Iowa boards. They look awesome.

[Side note: Both the beige and yellow paints were old house/room paints that my dad wanted to use up. We found the perfect project to do just that :) ]

Painting 6: 25th Anniversary

25th Anniversary

19 in. x 15 in.

Acrylic

June 2013

I painted this picture for my parents for their 25th anniversary. In it I meant to clearly display both of their rings, and their hands are holding a blue glass ball that they found on a beach in Hawaii on their honeymoon. This piece was a lot of fun. I approached it the same way I approached the Ugli Fruit painting only the subject matter of this piece (the two hands) was much more complex (than the ugli fruit). I really learned to love acrylics while doing this piece. The background was originally supposed to be the sand on a beach but due to acrylic inspiration and lack of time I went for a more simple and dramatic background. First I painted the background gray darkening to black around the edges and colored with either green or red for extra dramatic effect. Before I had begun painting I had primed the illustration board with matte medium, but instead of neat little strokes I had put the matte medium on in heavy swirls to give the piece a unique texture. Later I dry-brushed some of my darker paints over the texture which gave the background a really cool effect (that can't really be seen in the digital picture...). This was also my fastest painting ever; I whipped this little piece out in about a week!

Piece in Progress: 

(Not a very organized beginning approach, but was a lot of fun; - the idea for the green and red tinted background began when I was priming the board with matte medium and a little bit matte medium spilled into my phthalocyanine green in my palette. I happened to run out of matte medium and had to resort to salvaging the matte medium that spilled into the phthalocyanine green hence the rough green strokes in the background.)

(and I love mixing phthalocyanine green together with red to create a deep purplish color, thus the idea for the dark slightly red and green tinted background)

HAPPY SILVER ANNIVERSARY MOMMY AND DADDY!!!

Art Show 2: Lincoln-Way West Show

05/15/13 Today I went to the Art Show at Lincoln-Way West! It was awesome! All of the work was fantastic!

 My "Waiting For a Tow Truck" piece won an award of excellence for painting.

My Hand painting also won an award of excellence for painting.

 This is a picture of my painting (At Dinner in Galena) with my lovely mother who is the subject of the painting standing next to it.

And my Caramanico-Terme painting was honored with Best of Show!!!

This was a great night. Thanks a ton to the Lincoln-Way West Art Department especially Mr. Faris. And Congratulations to all of the people who had work in the show!

Painting 5: Ugli Fruit

Ugli Fruit - 05/09/13

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: around 16x20in

Reference: The Ugli Fruit at Mariano's (the grocery store)

Time: Way too long :)

The assignment for this piece was to make something ugly artistically beautiful. I took this literally and painted a couple Ugli Fruit that I found at our Mariano's grocery store. I did this piece in acrylic and it was very difficult, but I've come to really enjoy the medium. This was also my first time ever working with canvas which I found to be a very challenging material that needs a lot of paint. I've been working on this piece for months and it is finally finished. Though at first I was not too enthusiastic about this project, I really came to enjoy painting it. I especially loved adding in all of the background detail. I had the most fun painting the transparent plastic sign holders. The hardest part of this piece was doing the lettering on the sign. This piece is currently displayed at my school's end of year art show.

Piece in Progress:

Art Show 1: 4x5 show at Fremd High School

Today I went to the 4x5 show at Fremd High School. It was pretty awesome; I loved all of the little art. It amazed me how good art could be even when it's confined to a 4x5 in. space. As I mentioned in a previous post, my 4x5 in. hand painting was honored with first place in the painting section! This is really exciting, because I've never received any sort of "place" medal (1st place, 2nd place, etc.) for art. Anyways I have some pictures from the show which include a distorted glimpse of the colored version of my hand drawing.

The above picture is my hand painting displayed on a television screen.

The above picture is my hand painting! It is tilted and it has a glare, but that was the best picture I could get. I'll take a better picture when I get it back. See the blue star on the name label? That indicates my first place! :D

And this is my plaque! I also received a Blick giftcard!!! ~And I bought a t-shirt for the exhibition.

The art exhibition was awesome. I feel very honored to have participated. Thank you very much to the Fremd high school art department and all other people who helped sponsor and/or run this event.

Newsflash! 2 - 4x5 painting

I am happy to announce that my 4x5 hand painting won first place at the 4x5 competition in the painting category. I will post a picture of the completed painting once I get it back from the competition (an uncompleted [grisaille] version of it is under Painting 4).

Painting 4: Hand

Hand, 4x5 in.

02/14/13 - Acrylic, Grisaille

This is my finished grisaille of my brother holding a glass ball that my parents found in the ocean on their honeymoon. This is a little painting, just a 4 by 5. Next I need to glaze over it in color.

Piece in progress:

Painting 3: At Dinner in Galena (First Acrylic Painting!)

At Dinner in Galena

~Acrylic, 15x20

January 2013

This painting was based off of pictures I took of my mom while we were eating dinner in Galena, Illinois. Unfortunately while working on this picture I was recovering from ACL reconstructive and meniscal repair surgery, so this picture is not quite as it was meant to be. The assignment was to paint a grisaille of a portrait in sepia tones. Unfortunately, because of my surgery, by the time I started painting my burnt umber dried out (thank goodness the rest of my palette was well enough preserved, especially my titanium white). (Please forgive my ignorance of the exact colors I refer to in the following sentences, but I am still unfamiliar with my acrylic palette) At first I used burnt sienna and blue to create a darker brown, but soon I exhausted my remaining burnt sienna. Therefore most of this picture was painted by mixing green and red with a little bit of yellow. I had planned to paint a slightly blurred brick and wood panel background, but I ran out of time. Despite my many difficulties with acrylic paints and other circumstances, I am very proud of this piece, but someday I would like to go back and tighten up some of the details. I am even considering glazing over this in color.

What I learned from this piece: Acrylics are hard; I still have a lot left to learn...

Final Piece in Progress: