Work in Progress and Stuff

I have had to drop out of 30 Paintings in Thirty Days, as I am way behind and I decided I would rather do the 29 Faces in February as I have a soft spot for it. I haven’t done much in the way of art over the last 10 days as I have been dealing with the death of two people close to me  It was expected as they both had long term illnesses, one cancer and the other a rare lung disease.  It still was a shock and to have happened in the same week a bit heavy for me.  (They didn’t know each other)  At their funerals I thought about their lives and they couldn’t have been more different.  Liz had a well lived life, even if it was before her time, she was in her fifties.  Her only regret was that she would never see her grandchildren grow up.  However, Peter on the other hand, had many regrets and had a lot of bitterness in him, I think he thought he had a lot of time to put things right (he was in his early sixties) but his illness was swift and he didn’t have the time to fix relationships and so on.  It has made me think, Life is so short!  

I remember one of painting tutors at Polytech saying that all he wanted in life was to be able to say to God at the Pearly Gates, that he had done his best with the talents he was given.  That statement has always stayed in my head all these years.  I am so guilty of not using my talents for most of my life.  In recent years I have been addressing this, but I still sabotage myself!  Blogging has done wonders for my self-confidence as an artist, but it still a bit of a secret to people in my daily life.  If they are invited inside my bolthole they are gobsmacked to realise that the paintings on my wall are mine!

So I decided I have to come out of the closet so to speak.  A friend from Polytech days wants me to have a joint exhibition with her at the end of the year.  I am going to commit to that.  If I can do one painting a month, I should make it.  The other thing I have to do is do something about my illustration, I sabotage that too!  So I have started a new blog Rainbow Splashes, I wanted it to have the same name as my illustration website and I will be opening an etsy shop hopefully by the end of February and that will also be called Rainbow Splashes.  Go and have a look if you are interested in illustration, there I will blog about the books I am illustrating, sketches, watercolours of flowers and whimsy stuff that I am doing for the etsy shop.

Work In Progress

Over the last couple of days I have done some painting on my big canvas. 

The above is where I got to a couple of weeks ago.  Below is where I got to today.  I am pleased with how it taking shape.  I think it is almost finished just a few refining touches.

Over the last couple of days I was using leftover paint to start my next picture; this is much smaller 12 x 12 inches.  I can’t see anything in it yet, needs a couple more layers.

That’s enough from me a rather long post!  Hope to see what you have created on my rounds.

Happy Paint Party Friday!