Spur of the Moment Art

This colored pencil sketch was done in February, mostly to keep myself creatively active.  This morning, as I was perusing my sketch book, I found this sketch and decided, spur of the moment, to paint it.  Well, "spur of the moment" can have it's problems.

It was delightfully fun.

But did I drop my paint brush?  Yes.

Was it loaded with blue paint?  Yes.

Did it bounce against my shirt on it's way to the floor?  Yes.

Had I taken the time to change into painting clothes before painting?  NO!

Not long ago someone asked me how many pairs of painting PANTS I had.  The answer was FOUR.  All because of "spur of the moment" painting.  And dropping my brush.  And now I have another painting SHIRT...I'm not sure how many painting shirts I have now.  And it's a huge bummer, because I really LIKE this shirt!

From Big to Small

A week ago I was painting ginormous 8 foot square canvases, and today I painted itty-bitty 6 inch square canvases!  Variety is good!  It's been forever since I painted something small, and I discovered today that my small brushes STINK!  How on earth did I ever paint with these things?!  Clearly it's time to go to the art supply store (oh, the tragedy of that statement!!).

The top one I'm calling "Dazed" and the bottom one is "Naked In Winter".

Strength, Honor, Glory, Blessing

Done!  I really wanted to finish these before school ended....and the last day of school is tomorrow!  Yea!

Funny, I was struggling with colors for these.  I needed some variety...no repeats...but there are only 6 major colors in the rainbow, and I have 8 canvases...so there was a whole lot of tweaking going on.  I actually had the thought that God used an awful lot of brown, so why not include a brown canvas?  Well, when the rest of the canvases are all brilliant jewel-like colors, brown is NOT a good choice.  Clearly God carries it off beautifully, but I couldn't!  So the brown got painted over.

Next?  Two sets of bifold panels for Camp Elim, a kids' Bible camp up the road from Woodland Park.  I love that place!  I have no idea what images I'll be painting yet.  I guess we'll all be surprised!

Riches and Wisdom

Here are the next two canvases.  Funny how the text in the top image looks white, and the text in the bottom image looks yellow.  Clearly the lighting was wretched, so the images are less than accurate!  Oh well.  You can still see what they look like.

The blue one got tweaked half way through.  I had started with the lighter blue being just an off-center circular shape.  But after I added the swirls, I decided that the blue circle part looked like a bird had flown overhead and disrespected my canvas!  So I enlarged that lighter section.  Which means I had to re-paint part of the swirls.  Heavens, we can't have any birdy-do on the canvas!!

Swirly Doodles in Paint

This is why I was doodling swirls.  There will be eight of these canvses, all different colors, all from Revelation 5:12.  I've placed a slightly insane deadline for myself.  I want to finish all 8 canvases before school gets out.  That would be May 24th.  Less than two weeks.  I'll let you know if I start twitching....

Doodling with a Purpose

I'm thinking the next set for my church needs to have a simpler background than what I've done most recently.  No people.  No full range of colors.  So last night I drew up this swirly doodle, thinking I may have this sort of faded in the background.  I think I like it!  I'll probably do more doodles, that way I'll have some variety.  I don't want all 8 canvases to look exactly like each other!

DONE!! DONE!! DONE!!

Aahhhhh.  Done.

A couple of artist friends came over and gave me a critique, after which I made a few tiny changes.  No pouting this time!

And I'm done!  It feels FANTASTIC.  All three canvases will get a clear coat early next week, and then it's time to ship them!

I'd love to say that there's a delightful respite in front of me, but that's not true.  I have already started preliminary sketches for the next set of canvases at my church.  Should be a busy week!

Thanks for following along, all you in cyber-land!

And Then Forward...

So, I decided I really, really needed a different color scheme.  This one is better.  Much.

It's amazing how a better color choice can improve productivity!  This one just feels more welcoming to paint...if that can be said.  Makes no sense, but it's true.  I'm thoroughly enjoying painting this one!  I'll post again when the girl is finished.

Moving Backwards

There's no pic for this post.  Just imagine a big white square, because I just painted over what I had previously done!  Aaaccckkk!

There's a reason for doing preliminary sketches...and preliminary color swatches...and having a plan.  Of course, I had all that.  The problem is, I didn't stick to the plan!  I veered off, thinking I had a good grasp on these delightful red and purple colors...wasn't it just so perty??

But it dawned on me that the end result was going to look a lot, color wise, like the "relate" canvas, and that wasn't part of the plan!  Oh yeah!  I had a plan!  Oops!

So, I'm going back to the plan.  That is, once this gesso dries and I can sand it down a bit....

Mistakes cost time.

And We Begin Again

Number 3 here we come!  This one will HOPEFULLY go faster than the other two...dare I say that?  There's only one person in this one, so SURELY it won't take as long!  This whole background needs another coat...and that purple will have a diagonal line in it instead of just hanging out down there in the corner.  Should be fun!

Canvas #2 is Finished!

Done!  I loved doing this one.  The blues were great fun.  I just wanted a hint of a crowd, so that they wouldn't steal the focus from the two central figures.  You might not be able to see it in this picture, but I managed to get a reflection of light in the sunglasses...I'm not sure how!  It must be the grace of God all over again!  He always paints by my side.

Finally Progress!

Spring break is a wonderful thing!  Even if you don't have kids in school, I heartily recommend it!!  You take a week and you don't do ANYTHING that's in your normal scope of activity.  Instead you do all kinds of things that you never get a chance to!  It's delightful.

Of course, having enjoyed a week of play means that I made ZERO progress on my paintings.  That proved to be a good thing, though, because I ended up changing the main people in this image!  It's good to take time to ponder!

I'm thinking the crowd needs some serious work.  We'll see...!

Starting Number Two

Just started the background of the second canvas yesterday.  I already see places that will need more work, but other than that I like it.  It's kind of cool to have this 4' square painting dominating the sunroom in our house.  It's definitely not subdued!

Unfortunately it's spring break (did I really just say that?), so  we'll be "playing" this whole week.  Not much painting being done!  We'll see if I make any progress...

DONE! DONE! DONE! DONE!!

DONE!  DONE!  DONE!

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief over this.  I'll still stare at it for several days, just to see if anything needs to be changed.  There's a curve on the guitar that keeps screaming at me, so that'll probably be altered in the not too distant future.  But it's DONE!

The font for the word "Relate" was chosen by the client, which was a little freaky to paint.

It's curious that while I was painting this I was really moved by the thought that God gives each of us very unique talents and gifts.  Then, mixed with our very unique personalities, and very unique strengths and weaknesses, He uses those gifts to serve Him in very specific ways.  And He's DELIGHTED about it.  He's honored, and His name is made great when we each do the specific things He made us to do.  When you get to watch God's children serving God's children it's an awe inspiring thing.  TO GOD BE THE GLORY!