Changing the Shape Can Change Your Life!!

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Square or Rectangle? Portrait or Landscape? 

The usual!  But suddenly a new shape appears and changes everything!!

That's what happened to me.  The Oval arrived!!

A commission came my way involving roses and an oval - working in that shape was a new one for me and as you can imagine a challenge.  They loved my Summer Roses (last post) but wanted them in graphite and in an oval shape.  I started with the usual steps: layout, drew the shape, refined them into flowers and started to work. But whenever I stood back to see how things were going I felt disorientated.  It seems my eye is tuned to the rectangle and I found it very hard to focus on the oval.  It was a very strange feeling, I couldn't really see if things were balanced.  Here is the finished piece, take a look.

IN FULL BLOOM - Graphite - 9 x 14 

Hard to see balance, isn't it?  

The blank areas on the page really throw your eye around, don't they. I fiddled a bit and then came up with my plan:  get the mat cut!  What a difference!  Now when I step back, everything falls into place and makes total sense.  I am really pleased with how it worked out.  

Here is "In Full Bloom" complete with it's mat.   

This was a really interesting project, working with a new shape really does inspire you to step out of the box. Have you ever tried working with unusual shapes? Any challenges with them?   What was your solution?
Have a good day,
Wendy

  

Drama In the Rose Garden!!?? - FINISHED

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

I held my ground!!  No Drama till the End!!

SUMMER ROSES - 11 x 15 - Available

It was a struggle, I must admit.  As I got more of the fellow roses painted I just wanted to "hit my dark and let her rip".  After I painted each of the flowers and leaves I wet my background down and started to lay in my darks.  A mixture of Permanent Rose and Ultramarine Blue.  Of course being cautious and working in the wet, things were not dark enough!!  Once things were dry I added just a touch of my yellow, and went at it again.  I loved that light glow of purple in the top left corner and decided to save some of it so only darken it a bit more.  Then I put a light wash over all the flowers and leaves.  This too needed to be done a second time to really darken some of the areas.  Finally I did some lifting to get a few highlights on the secondary roses. Things were looking pretty good but when I stepped back I could see my main rose was way to light in the front.  Once I put another layer on the bottom left corner, things settled down.  Summer Roses were ready for show!!

The Fuchsias in the Sunshine are up and running, they are now on display for my show May 1-3,  at GardenWorks at Manderville, Burnaby.  This is a very exciting event, my artist partner, Audrey and I will be the featured artists.  We have a full selection of new works to show off.  We are also running a workshop Friday, May 2, 6:30-8:30pm on Travel Journaling.  It is $25 (Pre-registration Required).  We have some great ideas to put excitement in your Journaling and Manderville is kicking in some free refreshments and appies to make it a real fun Art Party!!  A portion of  our Art Sales and Workshop Fees will be going to the Alzheimer's Society of British Columbia.

Have a great Art-filled Day, 

Wendy

Drama In the Rose Garden!!??

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Roses are Wonderful!  Love the colours, fragrances, lines and folds!  So much fun to paint and draw!

But how to make them exciting and new in a painting?  That was my problem.  

I decided to use Drama!!

Summer Roses - Work in Progress - Part 1

I started with my main flower in the corner to give it some importance.  Here was the fun. I love building each petal with glazes, wet on wet and then tossing in some special touches when it is dry.  I like to build each petal individually, it seems to help sculpture the flower and give it more dimension.  

Summer Roses - Work in Progress - Part 2 

Once my main flower was settled, I began to add the friends.  I know there is no drama yet and believe me I wanted to "dig in" and add the darks.  I was really starting to get impatient but I held my ground.  The secondary roses are not as tight, I wanted to give that sense of distance between them.  This is as far as I got today but I will be back at it tonight.  The finish should be ready for you real soon, I hope!

My Summer Roses will be part of my show May 1-3,  at GardenWorks at Manderville, Burnaby.  This is a very exciting event, my artist partner, Audrey and I will be the featured artists.  We have a full selection of new works to show off.  We are also running a workshop Friday, May 2, 6:30-8:30pm on Travel Journaling.  It is $25 (Pre-registration Required).  We have some great ideas to put excitement in your Journaling and Manderville is kicking in some free refreshments and appies to make it a real fun Art Party!!  A portion of  our Art Sales and Workshop Fees will be going to the Alzheimer's Society of British Columbia.  

Have a great Art-filled Day, 

Wendy

Must We Always Start with White Paper? - FINISHED

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Fuchsias in the Sunshine - 16 x 20  - Watercolour

Starting with Colour can be freeing, No White Space!!

My fuchsias were painted on a prepared paper washed with a few colours.  (See my  last post Must We Always Start With White Paper)  As you can see I just painted over the background, using the colours of the wash to make my painting.  Life still had a few challenges for me though: 

1.  I still needed a value plan: I found that the lower section was too light and so I needed to put frisket on the stamens and pour a second wash to darken it. Lots of fun keeping it away from my other area!!

2,  Some of the background became too precious:  I really fell in love with the lovely splashes of white from the coarse salt I put on the first pour.  I really had to be firm with myself and cover some of them up. It was for the best but it did hurt a bit!! 

I was really pleased with the final results, I hope you enjoy it as well.  

Have fun with your picture! Enjoy the challenges!!

The Fuchsias in the Sunshine are up and running, they are now on display for my show May 1-3,  at GardenWorks at Manderville, Burnaby.  This is a very exciting event, my artist partner, Audrey and I will be the featured artists.  We have a full selection of new works to show off.  We are also running a workshop Friday, May 2, 6:30-8:30pm on Travel Journaling.  It is $25 (Pre-registration Required).  We have some great ideas to put excitement in your Journaling and Manderville is kicking in some free refreshments and appies to make it a real fun Art Party!!  A portion of  our Art Sales and Workshop Fees will be going to the Alzheimer's Society of British Columbia.  

Have a great Art-filled Day, 

Wendy

Must We Always Start With White Paper??

NEW WORKS FROM THE STUDIO OF ART BY WENDY

Fuchsias in the Sunshine - Work In Progress

White paper as a starting point can often bring any artist to a stand still.  All that white space!!  I like to change things up a bit by covering all that 'white' with an interesting pour of colour.  For my Fuchsias, I first did a pouring of Aureolin, Permanent Rose and Indanthrene Blue.  I tried to keep them in a mid to low value range so that they would shine through for a background but also I could cover them with paint.  For fun I added some salt while the paper was still very wet.  That resulted in the interesting patterning in the lower right side moving up to the top left.

Once the paper was dry I turned it to where I felt there was a sense of weight on the bottom.  Then I drew my fuchsias and began to paint. I used the same colours for my palette but with much more intensity.  I am afraid I got so involved with the painting process I nearly forgot to take a picture for you.  From this picture you can get a sense of how dark the background is and yet my watercolours still cover it and make their own design.  The underlying colours do add a bit of richness and texture to the colour I put on top.  Things are going well with the picture and I am very excited.

Try a coloured background, don't worry about where it is going, just go ahead and draw and paint your picture on top.

Have fun and let me know how it works for you.  My picture will hopefully be ready in a few days.