On a Roll...

At last!  A week that has gone fantastically well, despite storms and earthquakes!

On Monday, I was gardening and wearing my new gardening gloves that are necessary because of psoriasis.  Looking at them I thought I wonder?  They were made of thin cotton and had a plastic coating on the palms and fingertips.  So in I went and got out my oil painting stuff and hey presto it was lunch time and my hands didn’t get sweaty and they protected my rashy bits!  Yay, I can use my oils again!  The above small painting (12 x12 Inches) is the result, still a work in progress.

I have got used to my acrylics, but for big paintings I just haven’t got comfortable using them.  I still love using acrylics in my journal and on canvas boards.  But I so missed using them on big paintings.

detail of wip

So this week I have been playing with my oils again and I am very happy.  The earthquake on Monday at 4 0’clock threw my equilibrium out a bit, it went on for a long time and several things came crashing down, no wonder it was 6.2 and the epicenter was 30 km away!  I was a gibbering fool for the rest of the day and next morning when I saw the damage it had done around town.  But heyho we get over these things.

Tuesday afternoon I got out one of my old abandoned oils (there are lots of them!)

This painting I started in June last year, and has been littering a corner in my bedroom ever since as I got stuck. So, I painted over it, within no time I had this.  It is a large canvas about 30 x 36 inches.

I had to let it dry for a day so yesterday (Thursday) and this morning I did more work and have got this far.

While writing this I realized why I felt uncomfortable with acrylics for big paintings.  With oils you have to wait for the paint to dry if you work like I do in layers or glazes. It gives you time to consider the possibilities, I often don’t do what I think I am going to do, but something comes clear within me and my hand just paints..   As acrylics dry very quickly I can keep on painting and I often try and put too much in! It is hard to explain, but I hope that it makes sense?

Anyways that is what I have been up to this week, I am linking to Paint Party Friday hosted by the wonderful ladies Eva and Kirstin.

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!