Oh, the Mystery!

People love this painting. I've never been fond of it myself. I think it looks slapdash and not particularly interesting. This is a prime example of art being subjective.

This was the second project in my painting class. We were to take architectural elements from various magazines and then put them together in a sort of abstract way. We were also supposed to divide the painting into three areas. One area would be predominantly warm colors, one predominately cool and the third a fairly even mixture.

The architectural elements you can probably see right away are the drapery and the stairs curving down into a foyer. There's also a counter-top, rosette decorations and a circular window. Keep in mind, this isn't supposed to be an exact representation of a room. It's a lot of elements put together to make an interesting montage.


The other thing about this painting was that several classmates suggested that this assignment really solidified the 'styles' of a lot of the students. I was singled out as one such due to my brush strokes and use of color. I made my colors more dusty and muted with this one to mix things up from the last time around and got some really beautiful hues.


My instructor loved this part of the painting. The vertical lines of all the different colors. She complimented the way I made the colors work. I admit I didn't put a hell of a lot of thought into it I just kind of went with what I thought would work. Since it turned out well, I guess I did all right.

As sneaky as I was with the first painting by mixing three of the same colors together to get the brightness I was going for, I really did take this opportunity to stretch myself as far as mixing went. The dusty rose color, the mustard yellow and the mossy greens turned out gorgeous.


It's not an awful painting in my mind, I've just never understood why so many people in the art department saw something extraordinary in it. I had missed two classes due to illness so a lot of this was me playing catch-up which is why I look at it as so sloppy and half made. There are interesting elements to it and things I like but, at the same time, I think I've done work far better than this.

The Very First

This was the first painting I did. The first two paintings for the class that introduced me to all of this were done on paper rather than canvas because my teacher didn't want us to get too overwhelmed. This project was meant to get us to experiment with every tube of paint and every brush we had in our arsenal. Nothing on the page was to come straight from the tube.

This is what I created.



The idea was to make about eight jigsaw puzzle shaped sections on the page and then use your paints and media and brushes to get the feel of the whole thing. When it came time to critique I was a wee bit late to class and only had the furthest end on either side of the wall to post mine. I put my piece up and realized all of a sudden how completely different mine was from everyone else's.

They had their eight shapes. Each shape a different color with a different media. I had only used the shapes as a guideline. There is the hint of shape... but not so much the shapes that I began with. My teacher started with me. "Tell us about your piece."

I said: Mine doesn't look like anyone else's.

She said: There's nothing wrong with that.

Exactly the thing you should hear in any creative course.



The rule was that we had to use at least three different colors when we mixed. And I came up with some vibrant stuff. During our classwork my teacher came up to remind me of the three color mixing rule. I told her I was following it. "This blue here? I mixed all the blues together and then added a dash of white to brighten it. This red is all the reds mixed together." I suppose it was cheating in a way but I got what I wanted. And besides, I did mix other colors together.

I just needed some of those colors to pop! And pop they did.


I got the scratching effect with palette knives. Palette knives are great fun to use and this was my first chance at doing so. You can see, though, that there is more color that just the bending the rules method I used. Dark violet blues near the bright blue. Deep blue green next to a bright yellow green and a dusty orange. I was quite proud of what I did because it made everything more interesting to look at.


My teacher had a great fondness for my 'juicy brushstrokes' like the above. And below. She said my style was akin to Fauvism. I painted 'like a wild beast.' Who was I to argue? For all my years of drawing, putting paint to paper and then to canvas changed my life completely. Suddenly it was more than making something look exactly like whatever it was you were drawing. There was movement! And color! And contrast!

This was a whole new world. And I was never the same.

The Wedding Painting

So my brother was getting married and my sis-in-law to be asked if I'd do a painting of a calla lily for them. She loves calla lilies, they were the focus flower of the wedding and I agreed to do it. It was a wedding gift and it was probably the best way possible for me to get back into it. I hadn't painted or even attempted to since Dad got sick and passed away.


Yes, it's somewhat phallic. It's a flower. Come on. The thing about this was that I needed it to be somewhat representational of what I was actually painting. Meaning, people needed to look at it and know it was a calla lily. This wasn't really the time to get abstract.


The trick was getting the color right. Not all whites are created equal. Color is an elusive thing. I don't have anything pure white on this painting but I had to go with some really light mixtures. While some of the detail work required brushes I put most of the color on with palette knives. It's a technique I've grown to like quite a bit and have used on other works. I think the way the color goes on is really interesting... and when you start mixing slabs of color the patterns that emerge do a lot to bring it to life.


It was exactly the right situation to get me back in the game. It had the emotional resonance to pull me out of the rut. It was for family and I was really able to put my heart into it.

And it turned out to be a rather nice painting as well.

Karen's Birthday Present

The birthday stuff has come and gone. We delayed Matt and Karen's birthdays because Jessi and Patrick couldn't make it down the weekend right after.

Karen has always been good at framing and displaying her pictures so I got her a collage picture frame from Michael's and then prettied it up with various bling. Karen loves stars so that's what I focused on.


It's mostly mosaic tiles with some wire embellishment here and there. I particularly like the shooting star...



It's minimal but it was mostly an experiment and I think it actually worked. Karen's favorite color has been purple for a few years so that's what I went with mostly. But I also had some white glass and lighter blue to mix it up.



I like the way it all came out. The tricky part was not doing too much. The important thing was that Karen liked it. I look forward to seeing it up at her house.

The point of this...

Is to give me some motivation as far as the creative goes. I want to be a bit more proactive in regards to my artistic pursuits so this will be the place I work on paintings and other outlets.

Enjoy!