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Friday 19 September 2014

Friday Round Up

29 Faces gals

Face 12

This is Annie; she is the vulnerable little girl within all of us.  Annie looks at life with a question – Am I good enough?  We might be sure of ourselves on the outside and perhaps fool ourselves that we are staunch.  However life curve balls show us that our armour is full of cracks.  Well, that is true of me!!

Face 13

This is Rachael; she hides behind her glasses.  She gives the impression that she is hard and doesn’t care.  However, her glasses hide the ready tears and sadness at the world’s tragedies. 


Last week several people asked about my techniques and whether I use the computer.  Rather than answer individually I decided to show a step by step of one of my faces.

Face 14


I always start any painting with pastel, whether it be acrylic, gouache or whatever.  They are usually gestural if they are to be whimsical as above or more realistic if representational.


Today, I was planning to use mainly acrylics, so I did a wash of gesso and drew into the wet gesso with pastels.  I do that to create a good surface and to create textures – use it fairly thick.


Then I start to use the acrylics, decide what colours I am going to use.  It is still gestural at this stage, I am trying to get the picture to speak to me.  When I start I never have a clear idea what I am going to do.  Then I start to add textures with crumpled tissue (I find that the tissue from old dressmaking patterns is wonderful as it doesn’t dissolve like new tissue paper.  I pick them up from op shops for 50cents).  I use whatever comes to hand, nothing is safe from my paint stained hand!  

Today, I used the kitchen scrubbing brush  to add splodges.  I would have had a photo, but my camera decided it need new batteries and being totally disorganised my spare ones need charging too.  


So this photo is what I did while they were recharging.  The picture on the left I did with pastels, sometimes the urge to carry on with pastel overtakes and then I just use some water colour to finish off.  

At this stage the girl finally started to talk to me.


This is as far as I got today.  I don’t think she is finished yet, her face needs some work.  


When I upload my pictures to the computer I use the computer to crop.  Sometimes I rotate the crop to give an interesting angle. And if I am going to add words I use the text tools as my writing is crap, see the header above!

Even though she needs more work she is talking to me and her name is Mel.  She likes to look at you with those blue as blue eyes and stares into your soul.  You always feel that you can’t hide from her.  She is a wise soul!

Face 15

This is Cindy; she looks at the world with wide eyed wonder.  She is very trusting and believes everything she is told.  In this picture she has just been told about the big bad wolf in the woods!! After doing the pastel I used splodges from the tissue ball with acrylic and stencilled with toile.  (I will show some of my handmade stencils next week).  She is not finished yet.

Mix it Monthly – Trees

Earlier in the week I decided to get out my Sennelier Inks, they are a shellac based ink and create wonderful transparencies and have a gunky feel!  I brought them about 3 years ago and only used them once!  Which is silly as they give a wonderful rich feel to your work.


This has an abstract feel because I got carried away with creating textures.  I started out as a painting of a bush area at a nearby nature reserve.


This is a painting of a Silver Fern the national symbol of NZ.  It is a tree Fern and in certain light the underneath of the leaves seems to be silver.  I just love them.  Sorry Connie I just cannot get my head around the colour scheme this month. But I am working on it!

Art Journal Journey – Living beings

I am cheating here a bit as this colour pencil work I did some years ago, I don’t think I have shown it before.


I once had a tin with a pussy lying on some William Morris material.  One day I decided to try my hand at doing a similar drawing. 

 There was a reason.  When Zana, one of my cats had kittens I kept two of them, Jasper and Lucy.  However, I found having 4 cats too much.  So I decided to find another home for him when he was about 4 months with another family a few streets away.   He settled in well. But at about 6 months he kept on coming back every week day at 10 am on the dot and going at 4 pm, obviously his new owners were out at work and he remembered where there was a nice bed. 

Eventually it stopped.  Except for a period of two weeks when he came for the day for 2 weeks. During these two weeks I did this picture that was 6 years ago.  Well imagine my surprise on Tuesday, there was a meow that was not from my three, I went to the back and there sat Jasper.  He walked in bold as brass, went up to Bro and rubbed his face against his, he went up to Zana, she hissed! Lucy just sat there with eyes wide as saucers.  Then he hopped up on the sofa and had a sleep for 2 hours and disappeared.  I phoned his owners and they were amazed as I!  Wonder when I will see him again?  In another six years?  I wonder if he has been around here at night as I have a cat flap.

Well that’s it for today  Have a great week, I will probably have some for gals for 29 faces on Sunday or Monday.

I am also linking up with
Paint Party Friday hosted by Eva and Kirstin.

Art Journal Journey hosted by Valerie and Susi

Mix It Monthly hosted by Connie

26 comments:

  1. Oh my, Sharon - I am speechless! What a lot of wonderful art this week - great faces, and your work for AJJ and Mix-it Monthly is FANTASTIC! I don't know those inks, looks like I need to learn more about them! Thanks for joining us again, you have made me soooo happy! Valerie

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  2. What an amazing post my heart swells with joy reading your stories and see all these amazing images. I am sooo in love with your art, those two girls are gorgeous and really 13 is me to a tee!! Even looks a bit like me!! Thanks for sharing your process I have been trying to figure it out on my own doing my own things and coming up with different results! Also my characters speak to me!! I have made one a woman but it's really a man and so I have to change his hair...Love the cat story! So funny how independent cats are! Your abstract...is amazing too!! Thank you so much for sharing your process and everything else!...I leave here so happy...

    Hugs Giggles

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  3. I am astonished at how you make your wonderful paintings, thanks very much for showing this. The finished paintings still look as if they were made from a magical soft special paint which flows, not pastel and acrylics and all else including a scrubbing brush!!!, really fascinating.
    I love Annie and Rachael and your stories about them.
    And your trees are absolutely wonderful, such textures and colours.

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  4. Wow, you HAVE been busy!! Wonderful to see and enjoy all your creations :)
    Happy PPF!
    PS Just love the sweet wee girl (face 12)!

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  5. Love this post! thanks so much for showing your process! I love how we can learn from each other ... I have a box with pastel here that I haven't even used yet ..... Might try a few things out now :-) Annie is so sweet and beautiful, I just want to cuddle her ... And that first painting with ink is absolutely gorgeous! Love reading about your cats too. That drawing is great, and he sounds like quite a character :-)

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  6. wonderful work this week Sharon, nice to meet your new faces today too.

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  7. It is a pleasure to watch you create your faces and landscapes. Sometimes art seems like a mystery, but you graciously share your process with the world, and I, for one, am grateful that you do. Beautiful work!

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  8. Absoltely stunning art this week Sharon! Wow!
    Thank you for sharing AJJ with this beautiful cat!
    xxx
    Susi

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  9. Hi Sharon. Your faces are all fabulous and the techniques used awesome. The use of pastels is inviting and I've got to get back to the feel of paints and pastels. Great job.

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  10. wow am so thrilled to see all of your wonderful work Sharon and your thoughts behind them. Thank you for sharing your process and loving the results. Enjoy the weekend, Annette x

    http://nettysartadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

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  11. Sharon what a fabulous post, you have shared so much with us! I love your techniques and how you start in that whimsical light style and build it up, that's so free and spontaneous. That tree piece is stunning, it really is so special, an absolute favourite!
    Thanks so much Sharon, your art is truly inspiring!

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  12. Your faces are amazingly beautiful!

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  13. I know I couldn't attempt the faces challenge Sharon, so I'm in awe of anyone that has.
    It's brilliant that you've also shown your creative process. Thank you for sharing.
    I also adored hearing about your cats ^..^
    Happy PPF to you

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  14. Love your Faces Sharon but the cat is my fav today ♥♥♥♥ So much detail and so pretty and I love the story. Those ink are pretty impressive...love the colors /

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  15. I couldn't take my eyes off your post. The transformation of the girl is just amazing. Those shellac based inks are awesome. I love all of your art, just stunning. How crazy is that cat.
    Have a great weekend.
    Von

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  16. your work is fabulous, sharon! i love Annie and Rachel so much. thanks for describing the process. the purple trees are gorgeous, too!

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  17. I adore your wonderful faces, the first one is so expressive. The cat looks fabulous and the trees page is amazing with lovely colours.

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  18. Sharon - your art is gorgeous - love those faces and all the colors. I think I am going to try starting out with pastels. I love the looseness of your pastel drawings. Thanks for sharing.

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  19. High Sharon your faces look very good and I like the colours you used. The picture with the cat looks great, so nice how you decorated the background of it. Your fantastic tree pictures I love most, they look so mystical to me, like a fairys world. A pleasure to look at your artworks. Thanks for stopping at my blog.
    Dear Greetings
    Sabine

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  20. What an incredibly creative artist you are--so many styles and mediums. I love your little girl faces--she reminds me of one of my darling nieces.

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  21. Holy cow that is way too many things to comment on! But that girl at the very top of the post is so full of personality and the color is so pretty! Your colored pencil cat is really great too. :D

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  22. OMG,this pictures are stunning sharon,love your style,its wonderful,the faces so cute and cool.

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  23. Thanks for sharing this marvelous technique, it's inspiring and I want to try it too some day, Those faces really do talk and it¨'s important to listen and take care of all those too fragile girls that try to cope in this quite harsh world!

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  24. My comment disappeared so I will try to reconstruct what I said, Sharon. I did say that I so much enjoyed seeing all the faces you have made. I said that yes, we often think there are no worries or concerns behind those sweet, innocent faces of the special needs children. Your faces are beautiful. Especially Michelle.

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  25. I love Annie - she is so sweet! Thank you for sharing your technique - it's always interesting to see the work process of artists. The story of Jasper is hilarious - I wonder what goes on in a cat's head?

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  26. I particularly love Annie and Rachel. The colors and textures combine to create FUN portraits. The techniques you demonstrate INSPIRE us all to give this a try. Thank you for sharing your beautiful works of art and your process of art making.

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