Musical Mural

At the end of each year, the Year 7 kids from our school do some sort of 'service' to the school. Leaving their mark in a positive way.

This year they decided to do a mural on the old 'whitehouse', which is a rundown building that houses the music rooms and second-hand clothes room.

And as I am a Year 7 parent, they asked me to design it, and the Year 7's will finish it in colour.  I got the outlines done today - can't wait to see them finish it off!

And here's another slightly blurry photograph from a memory of today, that makes my heart burst.

I love that kid. And he's not bad either.

My Creative Space - it's HUGE!

I've been painting a backdrop for a photographer friend, and it's not a neat process (or a lonely one, obviously,  can see 3 phone handsets in this photo!). I used my Ezibuy catalogues as drip catchers - now I can't buy anything out of them - it's a lack-of-self-control thing, the fact that it's not safe keeping them intact.

This is the end product on the dining room floor.

The rest of the house is stacked with chairs and tables. You'd swear we were moving.

Can I also tell you that this glue is fantastic.Better than Aquadhere.

I used it to glue the two pieces of primed canvas together for this project, and I also used it when I covered my desk in fabric a few months ago (you can see a bit of that desk in this photo, actually).

And I've just realised that I've photographed the French side of the label - there's English on the other side - but that's not quite as exotic, is it? Must be channelling my inner Nathalie!

Now go and get inspired at the home of the Creative Space - kootooyoo!

Animation Friday - Butterflies

Today's animation is of a painting done this week and mentioned in yesterday's Creative Space.

It's more of a 'decorator piece' than anything. The numbers are from the pages of the lovely old butterfly book that I refer to.

At the end though, I changed one of the blueish butterflies to much brighter colours as I wasn't happy with the weight of the tones. I also lightened the tone of the background as the piece progressed, to give more contrast and interest.

Hope these are still interesting enough!

 

For quite a variety of different animations, head over to the not-very-well-today Cinti at my poppet.

My Creative Space - Recycling

Things are very busy here this week.

During bub's sleep time today, I got started on a painting that I'm donating for my school's fundraising Race Day, coming up in a couple of weeks. I said I'd do two decorator pieces, as top prizes in one of the draws, which, for me, is better than doing one 'masterpiece' to be auctioned (which is like saying 'take my heart and see if someone can get a bargain' - usually awful).

I'm painting this first one over a painting I did two years ago (that hadn't found it's destiny yet), and it's nice to farewell the old and welcome the new.

By the way, I've just found a description of a terrific way to mark where you want to hang a picture  on a wall - here at 'Tatertots and Jello' - read down past the tutorial on specimen art (which is pretty cool, actually) and there it is. Involving painters tape and a thumbtack. Are you intrigued yet?

For more creative spaces, head over to Kootooyoo.

Monday's Art Tip 6 - Two Rules of Thirds

 
When it comes to painting (and photography), your composition will always work well when you're thinking about the Golden Rule Of Thirds.

(Please excuse the use of only my own paintings as examples in this Tip - I figured I wouldn't have to worry about copyright this way. I've done plenty of paintings that could have been a lot better if I'd taken my own advice!)

It's simple (and I'm sure you've heard of it before - but hey, I need to be reminded of things pretty often).

1. Divide your page into thirds, across and down. 
2. Then decide what your focal point is going to be.
3. Make sure your focal point is sitting on (or very near) one of the intersecting 'third lines'. Or at least ON one of the vertical or horizontal lines.
4. Then think of the rest of your image, and see how you can compose the picture to 'guide the eye' to your focal point.

So what's the other Rule Of Thirds?

It's to do with tone - think one third dark, two thirds light, and a little bit of mid-tone. Or the reverse - one third light, two thirds dark, and a little bit of mid-tone. If you squint, it'll be easier to judge the light and dark tones in an image.

I'm happy with the way this painting of "The Germans on Rainbow Beach" played by the rules, clockwise from top left - original, thirds, blurred (see the tones?) and greyed ( another way to see the division of lights and darks).

This cat painting (below) could have been more striking if I'd used more light tones, clockwise from top left - original with third lines, blurred (see the light, mid and dark tones now?) and greyed (see - too many mid tones), and corrected to have more light tones (it's a more striking image - this would look more natural if it had been painted with more light tones in mind)..

This has been a long post, so just one more thing...

I also like to allude to things that are existing 'outside' the edge of a painting. That means cutting off the top of heads at the top of a canvas (as with the little girl at the top of this post), or half a body (as with "The Germans" painting), or even a bit of a bottom (see "Josh Jumping", above), or half a fish (see "Rub a Dub Dub", above).

But remember - YOU CAN BREAK THE RULES! It's just best to know the rules, so you can choose to break them.

Some subjects do work best when they're slap bang in the middle of the painting. Or when the horizon is 7/8ths of the way down the page... and doing this can cause a viewer to stop and take notice. But if you're looking for naturally pleasing compositions, the Rules of Thirds are a great way to go.

My animation this Friday will show the steps in a painting that does use these rules.

Next week, I'll touch on adding variety to your painting. Thanks for listening and if you've got any thoughts on or examples of these rules in your own work, or in paintings that you love, please leave a comment!

Inspired to take Turkish Tea

I went to Brisbane yesterday, working on the redesign of my website (very exciting, really, it is!) with my very helpful brother, and his girlfriend, Erin, had this most lovely collection of colourful teacups that I had to photograph...

and so, fuelled by 'Mother' for the 1.5 hour drive home at 10.30pm, I arrived after midnight, still quite wired and unable to sleep. So I painted them. And it felt good.

I have been working on making things with my floral hearts and am so happy with the direction they're going, and now these teacups... it'll be good to have something very new on the new website!  Stay tuned for the big reveal.

I was VERY tempted to join in with Blogtoberfest this year, but have decided, that since this week is the beginning of ONE DAY OF DAYCARE/GRANMA CARE for my little ones (!!!!) that I'd best use that time to actually do work, instead of blogging, which is always the direction my procrastination seems to take these days.

So it'll be lovely to have plenty to read this month, but on the sideline I will be.

Giveaway wise, remember that I'll be drawing a winner for black or white poppies painting this Monday - so leave a comment here if you'd like to be in it! Good luck!

My Creative Space - Lete-ing inspiration in*

 

Last night I got a little homage to my art-crush Nathalie Lete out of my system.

I have a few ideas for these hearts - hope they look as good when I finish them as they do in my head! (That's often not the case, unfortunately.) We'll see!

Kristy's back from her break so head over to Kootooyoo for more creative spaces.

*Sincere apologies for the dreadful pun.

Monday's Art Tip 3 - A Giveaway and "What a difference a background makes"

I may be oversimplifying this tip, but I want to point out the difference between painting on a white background and painting on a black background. Of course, you could also paint on an orange or red or blue (or any other colour!) background (and I have done all of these), but for today, let's stick to black and white.

Can you pick the undercolours used in the two paintings above? And which do you prefer? Read on for details of my giveaway...

To demonstrate, I did these two paintings at the same time, starting with the sketch above. As a point of interest, I was looking at the composition and arrangement, making sure the focus in each picture would fall on a 'third' line, not slap bang in the centre or anything.

I then sketched the images onto the freshly gessoed canvases in yellow because it would compliment the eventual colours of the poppies.

There you go, now you know which is which!

When I got stuck into each painting, I was watching the tonal variations - making sure the black background didn't make the whole painting look dark... a problem I've had before. So I deliberately lightened the blue of the background towards the end, overpainting with zinc white (we'll talk about a couple of different whites next week).

I also underpainted parts of the white-background-painting in red and yellow - because red is the complementary colour (opposite on the colour wheel) to the green of the stems and grass that would go on the bottom of the painting, and yellow is almost the complementary colour to the mauve-y blue I planned to use for the sky... being able to see hints of these complementaries through the final colours adds life and movement to the painting. In group exhibitions, this can really make a painting stand out from the rest, and look more professional.

  

In general, I do like the effect that painting on black gives, as the edges of the poppies seem more subtle and blurred ... you can see here how the poppy was painted on the original black, but the bee was painted over the colour of the sky...

... and you can see the underpaint colour in the grooves of the canvas - which I think is more interesting in a painting like this than panes of flat colour would be...

You can see the yellow outlines a little in the white-background-painting, and the poppies are quite defined...

which is still a very acceptable way of approaching a subject like this.



So it really does come down to your personal choice. But if you've always painted on white, I encourage you to try black, and then other colours. You'll see your paintings come to life!

Now, which do you prefer?

Black

or White?

Leave a comment on this post, with a contact email if you don't have a google account, telling me your preference, and I'll draw a winner in two weeks time - on Monday 4th October (which is the day my kids go back to school - so I won't forget!).

These paintings are painted with Golden acrylic paints on a canvas panel and measure 20 x 25cm. You can frame them without glass, or mount them in a box frame, or simply perch them on a shelf or windowsill, it's up to you.

I'm keen to hear your preference!

I'll be animating the process of these paintings for Animation Friday later this week.

If you haven't read them already, my other Monday Art Tips can be found here.

Next week, my tip is about white paint - now that sounds exciting, huh!

Animation Friday - Flashback

This is a painting that I did a couple of years ago, so I haven't photographed as many steps as usual. Sorry! And I did an extremely brief blog post about it here.

But I think it demonstrates next Monday's Art Tip, which will be about painting on a coloured or black background.

I love all the bright colours and the freedom in this one. And it was bought by a family with four kids, three girls and a boy - that's them, floating in the sky! I think this animation also shows the variations in colours possible with photography. And they're not all good.

Once again, this is my contribution to Animation Friday, over on the lovely my poppet.

Animation Friday - In the garden on Margaret Street

Detail of "Margaret Street Garden", 60 x 90cm, acrylic on canvas

This week's animation is of another painting done for the Carnival of Flowers exhibition - delivery is this Wednesday. The theme has to be "Wine, Food or Flowers" (and flowers are obviously the subject here). I used to have an issue with painting flowers, thinking that they just didn't 'say' enough, but in recent years, I figure if Margaret Preston was happy to call herself 'a flower painter' then it's good enough for me!

To do this one I walked around my parent's garden (I've been painting at their place lately so Mum can help me with the kids) and took photos of some of the different plants, and put them together in this scene.

I overpainted a painting from a few years ago, starting with black gesso and then the shades of blue. I've propped the canvas up on a couple of my sister's tupperware containers which are now uniquely decorated - she didn't know about that, until now. Sorry Loz.

Glazes were used to 'knock back' the brightness of the greens, and to add depth to the background. I consciously made the background lighter than the foreground, where usually I do the opposite. I'll be talking about the different kinds of white that make this look possible in a couple of 'Art Tip's time.

And I finished off with my signature 'swirls and curls' for movement.

Often I think I'd like to stop at the 'sketch' stage though. That's the part that comes most naturally I think.

Thanks for indulging me! I hope someone finds this sort of thing interesting - I personally am really nosy about how other artists work! Next week I should have a different style of painting to share.

To see my fellow animators, visit my poppet today.

My Creative Space - flowerishus

These are the palettes, that painted this painting...

...that was from this scene in my parents backyard...

... and that is winging it's way all the way to Germany. Tomorrow.

Very exciting. 

Can you see the three bees?

I was lucky enough to catch one in my photo.

You'll see them pop up again in one of my Animation Friday posts.

For more of Thursday's creative spaces, off you go to Kootooyoo.

Animation Friday - Finches in the Flowers

Finches in the Flowers, 60 x 90cm, acrylic on canvas.

A painting I did this week, that will be in entered in the Carnival of Flowers exhibition.

I really enjoyed using big brushes, loose strokes and a limited colour palette. It's a bit 'decorator-ish', but there's a lot of detail up close, so it's really growing on me.

Come back Monday - I've got 20 topics for my promised 'Art Tips' Series, and it's all ready to go!

In the meantime, for more Friday Animations, visit the lovely my poppet.

My Creative Space - shiny shiny

Varnishing is my favourite part of the whole process of painting. I love my paintings to be glossy and shiny, it really makes the colours pop. And it's a signal that it's finished, ready to go out into the world.

My Mum helped with the girls this week, so I could fit in a few sessions of painting for the Carnival of Flowers exhibition that's coming up. With limited time, I paint like lightening! But I did totally redo the butterflies during the process of this one (I love acrylics - nothing has to be forever) and this butterfly (can't remember the name) is one that can actually be found in Australia.

I can't vouch for the other one though. I think he's a visitor from out of town.

For more creative spaces, head over to kootooyoo!