I had really wanted to have something handmade for relatives this year for Christmas.  We have a very large extended family and it costs quite a lot to buy presents for everyone so we discussed having a handmade or cheapie-gift exchange.  It was really, really fun watching the families opening these gifts (which were wrapped in old pillowcases).  The first three are watercolours and the portrait is pastel.

Gifts for (and from) Rhonda Jean

 Watercolour; Hanno's Hettie

 Rhonda's lovely gifts to me

A quick pastel portrait of Rhonda's little grandson for the swap theme "something blue"

I belong to a forum which was begun by the famous author/homemaker/home life blogger Rhonda Jean Hetzel.  Last year we did a swap and I was fortunate enough to be paired with Rhonda herself. I think the theme of the swap was "something blue or purple..."?  Not sure.  Anyway, Rhonda had seen some of my artwork and she so sweetly and humbly requested that if it *wasn't too much trouble* could I *please* do maybe a picture of a chicken, or a cat?

Well...I managed to be very ill right around then (yet again) but I didn't want to leave poor Rhonda without a gift, so I did a very quick pastel portrait of her little grandson, as he was wearing this adorable blue Captain America outfit, which matched the theme! and mailed it off to her.  But I filed the "cat or chicken" thought back in my mind for a later date as I really wanted to give her what she had asked for.

In return, I had received from her a beautiful linen apron -- made from linen she had used in the photos in her new book -- (A gorgeous book, may I add) -- and a quilted table runner with 8 cloth napkins, all lovingly and skillfully made by herself.

A few months later, I had recovered enough to get the paints out again.  It had been a long time since I had painted anything by that stage, but she had a striking photo of their old white cat, who had recently unfortunately died, and as I was sure they might want something to remember her by, and the photo was so striking to me, I took it on as a challenge.  I really wanted to get that white light and reflected lighting just *so*.  I felt that I succeeded.  Hanno's Hettie is my favourite painting so far.  Maybe because I just got exactly what I was looking for. 

Adventures in Pastel Painting

 Pastel #2; Katy on Tasha Tudor Day

Pastel #1; Study in Red

 Pastel #3; Grip

Pastel #4; Clay

It's been ages since I blogged.  I honestly can't remember what all happened in what order last year.  We had a lot of really not very nice things happen whilst I was attempting to make art and we are still trying to recover time lost half-way through this year. 

Nevertheless.  I hope to catch you up-to-date within the next week or two. 

So mid-last-year, I was invited to attend a workshop/art session on Wednesday nights at a local art gallery.  I wasn't feeling very inspired at the time due to the factors written above, so rather than bringing my watercolours, I brought along a very nice set of pastels I had bought years ago and had always been too afraid to actually use. 

My dear friend Jeanette Giroud, a skilled artist, helped me with my first attempt.  That was the little sketch of the red-headed boy with the red chicken Study in Red.  Obviously I had no idea what I was doing but I found the pastels extremely easy and intuitive to use and almost even relaxing.  Not being one of those people who finds art-making in the least bit soothing, this was quite a novelty to me, and the following week I did the little portrait of Katy, which I was very pleased with.  Then there was an art exhibition at Ellis House shortly after that, for which I did the larger painting, Grip, and also the painting Clay, which never made it to the exhibition at all due to it having sold before the exhibition started.

I have done one other pastel painting since then but I will save that for a future post. 

I will try to be better about posting!  It is hard to make art a priority, and I even tried to give it up altogether this year because my schedule is so tight with working, volunteering, and studying.  But I found I wasn't happy at all giving it up, and so I've decided to do the complete opposite and prioritize it instead.   I never know what to do with myself. :)

Jewels' Girls

In Progress at Ellis House, Bayswater

 Jewels' Girls with Kitten

12x16 (A3)

NFS

Do you remember years ago, when blogging was a pretty new thing, there was a gorgeous, absolutely stunning blog called Eyes of Wonder?  What an amazing blog (and an amazing mama blogger) that was.  I wouldn't be the only person to say that Eyes of Wonder changed the way I viewed large family life, homeschooling, homesteading, even chores and housework.  Jewels, the author, wrote beautifully and her photos were equally wonderful.

Over time, Jewels and I became internet friends ;) and recently she gave me permission to use some of her beautiful photos as inspiration for a series I'm planning to do on family.  Part of what makes her photos special is the handmade, vintage-styled clothing her children wore.  It made for gorgeous photos and I think it will make equally beautiful paintings.

As a thank-you, I made the very first painting especially for Jewels, and sent it off to her.  These are her two eldest girls.  She loved it. :)

Queens Of The Back Yard

Queens Of The Back Yard

12x16, A3 

Sold

April and May were interesting months for me.  The kind of "interesting" that the old Chinese proverb curses its foes with.  I had two trips to the ER, hospitalization, many many trips to the doctor, a surgery, narrowly avoided another surgery, and massive amounts of antibiotics, the effects of which I am still recovering from in the middle of June.

But when I could, I did manage to get some things done.  One of them being this little chicken painting which was commissioned by my online friend Wammy.  You can read about how that all came about on her blog, here.

This painting was very involved and complicated, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  And more importantly, Wammy is thrilled with it.  I sorted through hundreds of her photos to choose ones that portrayed the personalities and some interesting poses of Wammy's beloved chickens.  I tried to match lighting (not too much directional sun, cloudy day, snow or no snow, etc) and perspective.  Wammy wanted the chicken coops in the picture too, so I needed to completely adjust the perspective on those little buildings so that I could get everyone and everything in the painting.  Wammy could tell you that I left a lot of details out! but with so many busy ladies, it could be a very overwhelming view, so I had to not put quite EVERYTHING in there.

I worked this painting completely backwards.  Everyone would tell you, work from large to small.  Big areas first, small areas and details after.  This is very good advice.  However, I did not follow it.  The reason being that I did not think I could paint a chicken.  So after spending about a week on just the layout and drawing, I picked the chicken I thought would be easiest (little blue-black Esthelle) and gave it a shot.

I was SO surprised that my first chicken looked like a chicken.  I wanted to shout the news from the rooftops, that I PAINTED A CHICKEN AND IT LOOKED LIKE A CHICKEN.  I posted it to all my friends on Facebook (believe me, I think everyone was sick of me and my chickens by the time this painting was finished).  I chose another chicken, and painted her and to my surprise, the second one worked out too!  They all worked better than I could possibly imagine, except for ONE which gave me a heap of trouble.  But I'm not going to tell you which one. ;)

So after all this incredibly detailed work on the chickens, I found myself needing to work in the background.  That is when the trouble started.  I must have reworked that background 20 times, adjusting colour and shadows and darks and lights and busyness and detail...I must have been >< this close to packing it in ten times.  But I did not think I could do all those chickens again so I had to work it out.

You can decide if it worked or not.  Wammy loves it, and I consider the whole thing a huge learning experience, very hard work, and quite an accomplishment at the end of the day.

The Exhibition

Rain Dancer, watercolour 2015 A3 (#4)

I had promised my friends at Ellis House that I would enter a painting in the next members' exhibition.  Unfortunately the entry date snuck up on me and, when I realized how soon I needed to have the painting in -- Easter weekend, which is already really busy at my house anyway -- I had a bit of a panic.  But I had promised, and figured why not try?

The theme of the exhibition was Water Rhythm (or similar).  Not really having a clue as to what that meant, I figured something watery would probably do it.  You can get away with a lot as a newbie.

So the same night I finished the previous painting, which was Good Friday, we went to the Good Friday evening service at church and then I came straight home and started looking for a subject to paint.  Painting one of my own kids wasn't a good idea because I already knew I couldn't put a price tag on one of those.  So I had a look online and found a sweet photo of a girl dancing in the rain with a creative commons license to use.

I asked some friends on facebook what they thought (love it!) and the general response to the photo was good, so I quickly drew it and started painting.

I knew what I wanted to do but I had no idea what order to do it in or what colours exactly to use.  Still had the wrong yellow ;)  I made sooooooooo many terrible mistakes and finally at around 2am I gave up.  I got out a huge mop brush and dunked it in the dirty paint water and swooshed it all over the painting.

Big grey-brown drips rolled down the painting, across the girl in the orange dress, onto my desk, everywhere.  I turned the painting the other way and did it again.  I didn't have any hope of salvaging this horrible painting.

Then I went to bed.

Next morning I got up and hubby said, "I really like your new painting!"  I snorted, thinking he was teasing me but when I looked at it, it was dried and it didn't look...all that bad.  I hadn't got a frame yet or anything so my time was really short for me to get something completed for that afternoon, and suddenly I thought I would just go with this painting.  See what happened.

 

I bought some mat board in a grey colour and a mat cutting set.  I got the frame at IKEA.  Somehow the mat and frame worked with the second mat I made to set off the poor painting and I couldn't say that it was all that horrible.

I put it in the exhibition.

It sold.

:) :) :)

And then after that, someone else wanted the same painting done again for them.  And several other people wanted other paintings done for them.  And just like that, I knew that I was actually an artist.

I can say more about that but to put it simply:  I believe an artist is someone who is able to translate ideas from one form (sometimes unable to be spoken) to another (possibly able to be seen or heard or felt).  Some people make pictures, and that's fine...but it's not the essence of art.  When someone connects emotionally with something you've drawn or made, that's art and you are an artist.  It doesn't really have anything to do with selling stuff -- but having people willingly part with money in order to own what they've connected with is a good indicator that you have made art.

Conquered the Fear

12x16" Watercolour 2015 #3

 This is the portrait that I was afraid to paint.  It was done from a snapshot of one of my boys at around age 2.

So many challenges for a newbie.  Back-lit face, almost monochromatic colour scheme to enliven, water, light, perspective (which had to be completely adjusted from the snapshot photo), tiles, and more. 

I couldn't put it off painting it any longer though.  What is the saying:  "In life you either need inspiration or desperation."  This was a true case of desperation.

The issue was that I had moved up to a 12x16" paper, but it was a block of paper (glued on two edges).  And I had promised my friends at Ellis House that I would put something, anything, in the next members' exhibition.  Here it was Good Friday and the exhibition painting, which I had not yet started nor even planned, needed to be in the next day.  I had this little portrait drawn and ready to paint on the top of the block, and I didn't want to take it off and have to stretch the paper.  Plus, I really just needed to overcome my fear and get it done.

So I did.

I didn't have the yellow I wanted.  So I used the one I had, although I knew it would be unusual.  But it turned out.

And I loved it.

Bravely Attempting the First Face

A4, watercolour, 2015 #2

Before I tackled this little watercolour portrait, I had drawn a larger picture of one of my other children, but because it was backlit and with delicate lighting and a very particular mood, I was still too scared to try painting it.  I felt satisfied with the things I'd learned from the first portrait and thought I must try to do a face, but I wasn't ready to do that one just yet.  So to keep my momentum, I found this cute picture of another son from a few years ago.  I don't normally like "photo faces" in portraits because of the obvious and unnatural posing, but this so perfectly captured his personality that I thought if I could pull off the squashy-face grin, I'd be really pleased.  Nothing like a challenge for your first face.

So here is the series of progress photos.  The first was taken just for fun with my iphone and posted for friends/family on Facebook, and the second I took to post to the local art group for their advice as to whether I should darken the background.  Opinions were mixed, but I decided to go ahead and do it.  The last photo is of the finished painting. 

My favourite part of this whole painting is the shoes.  Funnily enough, it's also the favourite part for the subject.  He loved those shiny silver sport shoes. What a privilege to be able to work at bringing back precious memories for my little ones.

The Story of How I Started Painting In Earnest

A4, Watercolour, 2015 #1

Besides the fact that I really wanted to learn watercolour, we had also recently moved from overseas and brought nothing with us besides what could fit in two suitcases each.  So there was nothing on the walls of our new home, and nothing to put on them.  I was able to obtain some free picture frames that someone was throwing out, and determined to fill them with something meaningful to make our space more homey.  It's very hard when you can't hold on to things that mean something to you, and the next best thing you can do is create something with your own hands to redirect those lost orphaned feelings to a new belonging that somehow means as much as the missing item did -- because you made it yourself and put your own memories and feelings into it.

When I joined my friends at the Ellis House Community Art Centre, I was immediately taken under everyone's wings as a total newbie.  Karl, pictured above in the yellow shirt, was doing water colours too so I stuck pretty close to him at first, and he gave me good feedback and tips.

The first week I worked on a quick "sketch" of pink flowers, but it turned out poorly.  I was using Cotman tubes, which were okay, but I hadn't painted since 3 years before (and not at all before that) so I couldn't remember anything about how much water to use or how to hold the brush or how to use the water to its best advantage.  That same first week I also did a larger drawing for a painting that I was too afraid to start adding colour until I got a grip on how the paints worked.


The second week, I started work on my first portrait, of my little daughter when she was about two years old, pictured above.  I had such trouble with some parts of it but in the end, for my first effort, I was pretty happy.  It's on my piano room wall right now.

One thing that I appreciate the most about my own foray into art, is the interest that my little ones have taken in making art works of their own that mean something special to each of them.  I'll post more about that later, but suffice to say that the little ones picnicking in the back yard of Ellis House were also taken under everyone's wings when they came to visit and create art for the day, and it is so motivating for them to keep creating and learning new skills too.