Bumps in my art world

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Well, the 20 minutes a day did NOT work out. Bad choice in terms of timing I guess. I was hoping to keep up with my portraits, but I just couldn’t make it happen.

I have been behind on my art projects. Summer at work is always busy, hoping that the fall will open up a little more time for me. I do have a new project in process, I am thinking of focusing a lot of my art on ocean themes. I love working on the fish, mermaids and beach scenes. It might help me to narrow some subject matters down and try to be disciplined. However, I am going to continue working on faces, because I am really enjoying that.

20 Minutes A Day Challenge

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So for two weeks I am going to try my best to stick with the #20MinutesADay challenge. I am on day TWO! So far so good. I decided to work on portraits as I am still trying to get better at that. 20 minutes seems to be just the right amount of time, not to little, but not too much! I am hopeful that I can keep it up.

Maybe I will develop a good habit!

Sea Creatures

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I must be easily influenced! One of my friends mentioned interest in Horseshoe Crabs and off I went to work on Horseshoe crabs. Never would I have thought to do a painting of this particular sea creature. But, it was super fun! And, I learned a little bit about them too. I am going to do a series of 3. One more to do. I actually love their shape and design. These lent themselves to the encaustic medium as a finish…and the addition of white broken shells. Both of them are done on cradled birch panel, using a combination of oil bar, watercolor and casein, encaustic and the found natural shells. Lots of fun! I just have to decide the color scheme for the last one!

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Recent Work

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I have been drawing, just not posting. Fourth of July holiday was our week vacation time. Lots of camping and sailing…and I always have good intentions to do some sketching, but it is still difficult for me to settle down. We seem to spend a lot of time moving our gear in and out of the boat and then off to another island!

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Luckily we spent two days at Little Hens so I spent a little time doing some landscape drawing (which I really never do). Once I got back home and unpacked it was back to #sktchy and faces. I am also working on some fish studies for larger paintings. The Right Whale seemed a good choice.

One and a half days left on vaca and then back to work.

Sktchy and Materials

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Along with doing quick simple faces I want to be able to do a more finished drawing. This started with leftovers (I hate to waste paint!) I had painted a blue(ish) ground on my strathmore toned paper…then had some left over acrylic paint that I decided to squash on there. Over that I decided to paint some watercolor…which looked interesting…kind of like a stain. I thought, well, this might be a good surface for graphite.

I am not sure about it. The graphite went down smoothly. But, I felt like I couldn’t get the darks as dark as I wanted. Maybe I just needed to control the ground more in areas. I think that the effect is interesting though, will try again!

Fishing

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I have been trying to finish this one up for a couple of weeks. Fish drawings for my husband! I was doing a lot of birds and he said, how about some fish! So, this is for my husband John.

Our plow guy takes out our house marker (or mailbox if up) every year. Another one bit the dust this past winter. Here is our new sign, found wood on the beach, painted in acrylic–atlantic salmon seemed a good choice for a coastal Maine house. We’ll see how long it lasts!

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Still working on my faces. Work in progress today–taking more time than I normally do.

Still going

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I am still doing a face a day…but some don’t turn out as planned. This was from a few days ago, since then I haven’t been happy with any of the others. I guess I am going through a rough patch. I always feel like outside factors (like stress or feeling overwhelmed at work) shouldn’t influence the drawing–but they seem to!

But, I will keep going!

This one was done with ballpoint pen in my everyday journal. I downloaded the Adobe Draw app which looks like a great way to add color to my sketches. But, it is different than my computer version and will take a little getting used to

Still having fun with #sktchy app!

Imagination

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I am finding the great thing about #sktchy is not just the endless photo resources, but learning how other artists are using their photo resource. So many folks do such a great job of really just being inspired by a photo–you can tell that they used the image, but they really used their imagination to create something entirely different! This is something I want to learn how to do!

This is the first time I felt like I deviated a bit from the original image. The resource photo of the girl was great, and somehow she reminded me of a gypsy girl! And, I felt like she need to be looking out of a window with shutters. So….I am happy with this re-interpretation of the image. It’s not a perfect likeness and I have changed her hair and the surroundings. I am going to try and do more work using my imagination!

Two days of faces

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Trying to keep up with the face a day! Not everything will work out as planned, but I am really trying to keep up. Top face is from Monday–ballpoint pen #sktchy, bottom one is from Tuesday. Tuesday’s face did not turn out at all, it is from #sktchy, but I didn’t post it on the app. The resource face was so nice, and this turned out so wonky, it just didn’t do the resource photo justice. Do over planned.

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Quick Draw

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Keeping it simple is really helping me feel motivated to draw with limited time. Somehow I have convinced myself to just sit down for 15 minutes and that if I make a mistake, it’s okay! And, coloring in photoshop is quicker (and easily changed if needed).

Today’s face from #sktchy. Ballpoint pen, photoshop color.