Friday, February 17, 2012

Interviewed!

Just a quick thank you to Violet of Kelly Mae Kreations for the wonderful interview. It was my first! What a wonderful place to talk about my art. Thank you so much! You can read the interview here. Or visit http://kellymaekreations.blogspot.com/ to see her blog. Or visit Violet's Etsy shop. She makes beautiful jewelry!

Lynda


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Embracing the Ugly and Having Loads of Fun!

I am currently taking Flora Bowley's e-course Bloom True. She generally conducts this course in person and has adapted it to an online version. I had never heard of Flora Bowley until some Facebook friends of mine mentioned her. I googled her name and fell in love with all the colors and energy in her paintings. Flora calls her style of painting "Intuitive". She has no specific plan ahead of time. She just starts painting. I, personally am attracted to this "no plan" approach. I usually get stuck not knowing what to paint. With this method my goal has been to fill the canvas with marks and not make mud.



I will say though, these canvases are kinda ugly. These are just the first layers and in the end they will turn into something. To be honest though, I don't mind the ugly. I had fun making them. I just experimented and played with all kinds of mark making. I even started one with my kids!


I'm only two weeks into the course and I have three weeks left to go. We shall see how these transform! If these paintings have got you wondering "what?". Google Flora Bowley and look at her paintings. You will be amazed. She will also be offering this e-course again this summer.


This is the canvas I worked on with my kids. They chose to work with greens and blues. I put drops of paint on the canvas and they moved it around with foam brushes. We also used foam daubers, bubble wrap and cardboard for stamping and faux finish tools for etching into the wet paint. For the drips we used Liquitex Inks. Yes, we used Mommy's good paints for this; my inks and Liquitex Basics. They immediately got a bath after and so did their clothes. As fun as this was, I wish it was summer. We would've painted outside and I could've hosed my kids off.


Saturday, February 11, 2012

My First Ever ATC's!

I am a member of an Artist Trading Card club and I just completed my very first set! They are miniature works of art whose sole purpose is to be exchanged with other artists, much like trading baseball cards. In fact, that is the size an ATC is supposed to be. You can learn more about ATCs here. And if you google "artist trading cards" you will find even more info and even groups you can join!

Our theme for February was "Love".




Happy Valentine's Day!


Saturday, February 4, 2012

Acceptance



A few posts back I wrote about my "word" for the year; Create. This "word" is meant to be my focus for what I want for myself in 2012 instead of a typical New Year's Resolution. Well, I think I need to add another word; Acceptance. If I ever hope to Create on a regular basis I need to Accept the situation I am in.


I am a stay-at-home-mom with two young children. They are my primary responsibility. They have to come first. I admit that I get frustrated when I can't get to creating some days because of the kids or the housework or whatever. I am also envious of my artist friends who seem to have loads of time to create and open Etsy shops. Then the other day I realized this was crazy thinking. Every person has their own thing going on and maybe their life has loads of free time and maybe it doesn't. The only thing I know for sure is my life and I just have to accept where I am and figure out what I can do about it.



So, I'm going to choose to "Accept". I will have to figure out how to squeeze in the art. Perhaps create a schedule (which I am terrible at doing for myself) and line up some babysitters. I also have to figure out what work I can do around the kids. Usually they are all over me and my art supplies if I let them into my studio. I can't blame them. My art supplies are cool. This shall be a work in progress. I'm hoping the new e-course I will be taking, Bloom True: The E-Course, will enable me to create with my kids. I'll let you know how that works out. Until then, I'll cart around my sketchbook and doodle away. I just have to let my kids have a turn too.

Lynda