Space. So much space.

This is our second to last painting for the semester, so we got to pick our own subject matter. I had trouble coming up with what exactly I wanted to paint. We had no limitations, no parameters and usually I'm not very good with that. Too many options just overwhelms me and makes my brain want to shut down.

And to make matters worse, Monday morning our crazy purple croc clad professor, complete with matching purple scarf, tells us that our mid-crit is on Wednesday. As in the next class period. As in two days from then. And I'm not going to lie to you, I panicked a little bit. I looked at the girls on either side of me, who returned the exact same expression of shock. After we picked our jaws up off of the floor, I decided right quick what I was going to paint.

I mixed a lot of black and went to town painting the background. I left some white space for the planets and then I painted in flat blocks of color just to get an idea of what it would look like.

And then I got all seriously excited about space and planets and stars and before I knew it I splattered white paint all over the place! Not only was it all over my canvas, but it was on my shirt, my hands and my face. What can I say, I really get into my work. Plus, I'm one of the messiest artists I know, so there's that. 

Those stars! Man, I tell you what. I was super impressed with myself, but also I thought they weren't quite finished. Space needs to have some depth to it, and this was just too flat still. So I pulled in some color from the surrounding planets. Then I added in some colored gasses around the planets for mysterious effect! 

As it was starting to look more like the cosmos, the TA asked me what I was going to do with it. I blushed and confided to her that I was going to do something totally and completely nerdy with my intergalactic painting. And then she got all excited about it right along with me. I've slowly discovered that professors love when you do nerdy things in your artwork. I feel like this is because it makes it more personal to myself? Maybe? Question mark?

So I did it. I added in my favorite space core from one of my favorite video games. Get arrested in space, go to space jail.

SPAAACCCEEEEEE!!!!! So much space! Gotta see it all! Space!

And for your viewing pleasure I included a detail shot of my little yellow eyed orb creation. In the big picture, because he's so white, he gets blown out and overexposed because of the lighting in the studio. But he's pretty cute, I'm not gonna lie.

I know right? Amazing.

just me

under painting as an original composition

I had to find a pre 19th century painting and turn it into my own painting by taking a portion of that painting, the under painting, and make it look like it is its own composition. I always get grand ideas about painting landscapes. I always think I can do it and it will be fun and awesome and all these things and then I start in on this painting and freak out a little when things don't look how I think they will. However, this one pleasantly surprised me.

This is just the under painting of my own composition. The sky is my favorite part.

Then I started adding in the textures of the leaves on the trees.

The stumps came next. It was difficult to make them look like they were part of the painting. They looked a little disconnected from the painting until I went back over them with more green to tuck the tops underneath the foliage.

I added a bunch more detail into the stumps and I re-did the tree on the right side of the painting.

After that I moved on to the cows and the reflection on the pond. The cows I am not happy with. I think they look kind of stubby legged, but oh well.

The red leaves on the top right corner had me super nervous. I was worried that they would take over the painting or not match the rest of the composition, but I was really happy with the way they turned out.

After I brought the whole painting up to the same level, the green leaves needed to be reworked, so I added some more high lights above a couple different tree trunks and added some more texture.

After our final critique it was decided that I needed to bring some red and orange into the other trees to make it look more like the leaves are turning colors and then that red in the top corner won't look so out of place. Also, I'm gonna darken the branches in the tops of the trees to make them stick out less like sore thumbs and look more like they belong in the tree tops.

fire!

I just finished what I think is maybe my favorite painting so far. We had to base our painting around the idea of abstract expressionism. I have been wanting to do something abstract for a long time, but the opportunity never really presented itself before this project came along.

I struggled in the beginning with deciding what to paint. Making decisions was never my strong suite, but I did it. I looked up some abstract expressionist art online. There were some things that I liked, so I wanted to take elements of those paintings and apply those techniques to my own painting. As far as subject matter goes, I tried to think about what exactly abstract means. I went with fire. While we were camping I took a really great flame photo that I thought would be perfect for this project.

So, using the camp fire flame as inspiration for my abstraction, I painted the entire canvas black in order to paint the flame over top. I started with the brightest part of the flame, and then I started adding in more of the darker reds and oranges.

I got a little carried away, and decided that the bottom left corner was too empty. So in an attempt to balance it out, I applied the color I was using in the flame portion to create a sort of "glowing" look around the corners.

By this point in the painting, we had a mid-critique. My professor asked me to flip my painting upside down from the way I had been going about it. The elements in my painting worked better as a composition from this angle, so I ended up keeping it this way.

I wanted to be done at this point. The flames are abstracted pretty decently, but I just felt like it wasn't quite finished yet. I wasn't nuts about the brightness of the corners. It felt like the corners were competing for attention with the abstracted flames. I figured that I would have to extend the corner colors all the way around the painting or knock the colors down.

I decided to mix more black and paint over the top of the corners to give it more of an ember glow feeling. And actually, I think it turned out great.

This is what I ended up showing at our final critique. I went home Saturday and Dad helped me frame it. The frame isn't quite dark enough, so I'm going to try and get a darker stain so the wood is more black - but it looks awesome.

Almost Finished

The tree needs a little more work to make the leaves actually look like they're part of the tree trunk. Also, I still have to lay in all the people that will be on the sand in the mid-ground. At this point though, I'm just waiting for everything to dry a little bit more so I stop pushing paint around on the canvas and making a mess.

I have to be completely finished by Wednesday at 9:30 in the morning, so I'm probably going to go back later tonight or tomorrow after school. Astonishingly, I actually like it so far. Who knew this would happen?

It's Starting Again

We are creating a collage painting of historical landscape painting. I had to take two different paintings and merge them together to create a new hybrid landscape painting original (somewhat) to me. We are required to use a pallet knife, and we all remember how much I love those, right?

Ahem.

I started with the sky because it's a lovely purple color. It's my understanding that color matching is not really something we are focusing on at the moment, so I'm not worried that my sky is way more purple than the original. Maybe I just really like purple, okay? Okay.

Now that that's settled...

I totally painted the sky too large, so that caused me to reevaluate my painting method and content placement. I think I have it figured out, I just have to wait for it to dry so I can layer some color over the top of what I already have on the canvas.

So far, I'm liking this more than my first pallet knife experience. Although, when I start getting into the detail work, we'll see how my attitude changes.

This is what I ended up completing today. Not bad for a couple hours of work, and I'll restart again on Monday laying down the browns for the ground and the large tree. The finished product should look something like this:

But don't hold your breath. I'm just saying.