2011 Week 4

Winter is too long already! I've had an up and down time of it lately, what with all the shoveling snow, and dealing with dark days. Same with my creative endeavours. Last week, we had our Art Group session. Watercolour landscape. Marion's instructions were great, as was her execution. Mine I found to be more than a bit boring. Sky turned out well, aweful trees. But here it is.

So I decided to try another similar scene my self. Bit better, but still boring.

To get myself looser, I decided to do a pastel of a scene from Sable island.

I've been thinking of taking the same source but producing it in different medium for effect. So here is the same scene in watercolour with the ghost like impression of the horses that were in the photo.

 I like the pastel best!

2011 Week 3

Its already the start of the third week of this new year. Too much winter for me. I am pining for spring. Bought some seeds yesterday to get my garden started.

New year, new week, new paintings.

I tried another pastel painting using my new Pan Pastels. Its of an orchid spray.

I also completed an acrylic study that I started last week. I've thinking about doing colour studies. This one is in reds with some analogous highlights.

New Media!

I got some Pan Pastels for Christmas. A gift to myself!!! Why not, eh! I ordered them from Cheap Joe's, but now I noticed that Curry's has somewhat of a display finally. I've always loved the effects that some artists can create using pastels, but so far I've not felt that I was able to really master the techniques with the types of pastels I had been using. So I was interested in trying these. I must say I looked at them for a couple of weeks before I was ready to try them. Had a lot to do with my malaise as far as feeling creative. I hope that I'm over that, now that I've given myself permission to just do without the need for whatever pressure I seem to have been putting on myself.

At any rate, these are very creamy and easy to apply with the sponge applicators. I'm still trying to master control of details but I like the potential, especially in mixed media. Here is my first attempt at Irises.

 I may work on it some more.

And here is another stamped piece on my own hand made paper that I also completed this week.

New Year, new focus!

Its now January 5 2011. Hard to believe that this century is now more than a decade old. Made me antsy initially since I was very conscious of not doing much to further this mission of spending a Year Creatively! Very low interest. That gets coupled with self imposed pressure to perform, which leads to disappointment. Then I had an ahah moment today! This year is about being true to myself and fostering my inner artist, NOT about meeting artificially imposed deadlines or expectations. Not an earth shattering idea overall, but useful when it dawned on me that I have no one to please than myself.

So, who knows what I will or will not achieve this year. All I know it that's its a journey, but its MY JOURNEY, to do with what feels right.

So  right now I'm sitting here typing this first Blog of 2011, with Max curled up on my lap. Makes typing a bit of a stretch, but its very pleasant to realize that he now feels this secure that any time I sit at the computer its lap time. He's actually asleep! A first.