Found Art Tuesday

The theme this week was Fire. Here is my effort – left in the carbonated drinks isle in Tesco!




The Pastels were so incredibly messy and the drawing was very easily smudged. In the end I sprayed it with some varnish I have, which is meant for oil and acrylic paint! It seemed to work though!

Chalk Pastels on A5 heavy weight paper

Tranquillity

Anita advised me to try to draw something every day – practice makes perfect after all. I can’t promise that I will, but I will definitely try.




With these smaller pieces I’ve noticed that my phone camera takes a better photo in day light, so this is a piece I drew last night and photographed today, and my Found Art Tuesday piece will be photographed tomorrow (which is a shame because I wanted to leave it somewhere tonight).

I'm not sure what sort of a tree that is! I just kind of made it up!

Oil Pastels on A5 heavy weight paper

Found Art Tuesday – on a Saturday

I’ve been really itching to do some painting or drawing or just something that involves me freeing my mind of all the garbage this life throws at us, but most of that garbage exists or happens in or around my home so it’s not really an environment conducive to feeling inspired creatively. I’ve also been pining for my pastels from 20 years ago. So last night I made a decision, and nothing (and I mean nothing) was going to thwart my plans!

My poor friend was dragged out of her house today and away from her painting, into town. I bought pastels, both oil and chalk, and we drank hot chocolate in Costa Fortune Coffee whilst we created our Found Art Tuesday pieces. What a lovely experience, and definitely one I will be repeating.

Anita did a sketch in pen of a man sitting outside with his friends, and when she showed it to him through the window he was chuffed to bits! He came inside to speak to her, and she let him keep the drawing, using it as a good opportunity to tell him about her upcoming exhibition. She then drew a beautiful Sun for this weeks Found Art theme of “Day”, and called it “The First Creative Day” (I should have taken a photo). My piece was called “Dawn, on The Blue Planet”.



Whereas last time we looked like a right couple of suspicious characters, trying to leave our Found Art without being seen, this time we had no qualms about just leaving our pieces on the table where we had drawn them. Who knows, maybe we will gain a reputation for drawing and leaving art in public?

But most importantly - Yay! I have Pastels!

Oil Pastels on A5 heavy weight paper

Vision

I see it now. I’ve been struggling with the lady’s jaw line on Cloud Nine for what seems like an eternity. I had her face so that she looked like she was tilting her head, and then I made some alterations to her hair and jaw line and I lost it, and I couldn’t seem to get it back. But I see now that I have more to worry about than just her jaw line! It seems that as time goes on my eyes are opened more and more, and now I realise that there is a lot wrong with both of them! So now major alterations are underway!

What a strange process this is. It’s amazing how, as time goes on, your vision and perception changes. I see things now that I didn’t see before. What worries me is that in another months time my eyes will be opened even more, and then even more the month after that, and I could actually end up altering this piece for the rest of my life!

So my question is this: when is a piece finished? Surely it would be when you are happy with the outcome? (Which hasn’t happened totally with this piece yet) But what if you’re happy with a piece initially but then realise it’s wrong? Do you keep it as a reminder of your progress or try to correct it? Are you ashamed of early pieces?

I also have conflicting emotions about what is “right” and “wrong”. On one hand I want to learn how to paint accurately, but on the other hand I don’t believe that beautiful art always has to be “correct”. I want my paintings to be free and expressive, but I don’t know how to achieve that. I have a lot to learn.

Alterations

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t started anything new recently. I started a portrait one evening, nearly four weeks ago now, and haven’t touched it since! One thing I have been doing is touching up “finished” paintings. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Both “She’s on Fire” and “Cloud Nine” have really been bugging me. They were irritating to look at because they didn’t seem right somehow.

In “She’s on Fire” I felt that her elbows needed to be raised slightly. Of course, once I had done that I then needed to try to blend the background in, which was easier said than done and resulted in me changing quite a lot of the background. The camera doesn't show the true colours at all.



In “Cloud Nine” I raised her jaw line slightly, and I’ve changed the shading on his face because I think people thought the shading was actually his jaw line and so kept telling me his face was too small and hers was too big. I’ve also tried to make their hair wispier around the edges – they are supposed to be cloudy after all.




Any suggestions are always very welcome, except anything along the lines of “Don’t give up your day job!”

In other news, I have been trying to find an evening class to attend but so far haven’t had any success.

Cloud Nine

Inspiration can come from the most unexpected places. As I watched the TV one night I saw a clip of a programme with blue sky and fluffy clouds in the back ground, and I thought to myself “That cloud looks like a person’s face” – and that was it. I immediately had the idea of clouds in the shape of two people in love about to kiss.




I tried to paint this piece solely from imagination to start with, and I wish I had kept a photo of it for you to all have a good laugh at! As hideous as it was, they probably looked more like clouds than they do here! I decided to paint over it and start again, this time using one of our wedding photos as a guide. I wanted the woman’s head to be tilting away slightly though, and in the photo my head doesn’t, so I found her face much more difficult than his.

One important thing I have learnt from reading other art blogs is that even the most experienced artists ask each other for advice on their pieces from time to time. I’ve been a little stubborn up until now; determined to do it all my own way. But I’ve learnt that asking for advice doesn’t mean I’m no good. I am, after all, just learning. If an experienced artist can be humble enough to ask for advice, then I should be able to as well.

Thank you to Philippa and Anita for your advice on this piece.


Provisionally completed 18th February. Acrylic on canvas, 50 cm x 40 cm.

Found Art Tuesday

Ok, please don’t laugh at me… alright, you can if you like. I really wanted to have a go at this Found Art thing; it’s such an exciting idea. What a lovely way to brighten someone’s day!

So, the theme this week is History (see Found Art Tuesday in the side bar). When I think of history I think of old sepia photographs of family groups, or cobbled lanes and old buildings – none of which I am capable of painting yet, and if I was it would involve too much effort to leave on a park bench!

I thought about the history of our town. This area was at one time well known for its shoe and boot industry, and actually some of the film “Kinky Boots” was filmed in a village not far from here. So I put together… (drum roll please)… Bootylicious!



It’s not a very… vegetarian-friendly looking piece is it?

This is my third attempt – the first one looked like a Christmas stocking, and I tried flowers on the second one but they were hideous! The cow and pie represent things from our town’s history as well – the cattle markets and the pie factory – all things that are long gone. And I got to use some of my canvas from the discarded Red piece!

Anyway, I plan to meet up with Anita tomorrow who has also made a piece for Found Art Tuesday, and we will decide where to leave our pieces!


In other news, I finished another painting today which I will post a picture of later this week.

Acrylic on card.