A One-year-old’s birthday celebration.
A young girl dressed for fun.
A wedding portrait.
Last weekend we went to the Artists’ Reception at the 2010 Real People show in Woodstock IL.
The theme of the show is Figures. It was very interesting to see the different ways this theme was interpreted.
I was very pleased with how my painting was displayed. And I thought it more than held its own against the competition!
I recently provided a PopArt Portrait as a door prize for a launch party of a friend’s new business, Ellie Bean & Models. The response to the portrait was so good that I’ve started a business based on it.
I have opened an Etsy store and am in the process of putting samples of different types of portraits on it.
In addition to children and family portraits, I believe these would make lovely Engagement and Wedding portraits.
I’ll keep you posted on how this endeavor is progressing!
30x40" acrylic
My Matisse painting is now hanging in the Real People 2010 show in Woodstock, IL.
The show runs from Aug5 – Sept 26 at the Old Court House Arts Center. Gallery hours are Thurs-Sat 11am-5pm and Sund 1pm-5pm.
- 8×10″ gouache
My Batter Up painting is in a show at the Hoffman Estates Village Hall for the month of August.
If you are in the area of either show, I hope you stop by and have a look.
For the last several weeks I’ve been creating a new website & blog.
Since I have been branching out and using other media besides Oil Pastels, I decided to create a new website & blog that isn’t media specific like Oil Pastel Studio is.
The inspiration behind the new website name.
And so Spaniel Hill.com was created.
I combined the posts from my artblog.oilpastelstudio.com blog and my colordoodles.blogspot.com blog to have in this new blog.
Hope you enjoy.
And please sign up to receive emails when this blog is updated. The “Subscribe” field is to the right.
Ann
I have a pochade box that I can use for the gouache as tube paint.
But gouache can also be dried and re-wet like a pan watercolor. The paint will not be as thick or as opaque.
I wanted a small box that I can try using for “pan gouache”.
I had an extra Koi Pocket Box of 24 watercolors. I took the insert out.
Using bake-able polymer clay, I rolled out and flatten some clay. I pressed Altoid mints into the clay for the paint wells. (I read this somewhere on the web. It keeps the cavities in the clay open and dissolves easily to come out. Plus the kitchen smells minty fresh!)
After baking, I coated the clay with Golden’s GAC100 (basically fluid acrylic paint without pigment) to seal.
I cut down a small plastic cup for a water tray.
I bought a set of mini brushes for $9 and kept the Koi water brush & sponge.
Here are the paint colors I put into this box.
Back row:
Cadmium Yellow
Ultramarine
Light Purple
Permanent Green Deep
Cadmium Orange
Front row:
Lemon Yellow
Cobalt blue
Permanent Rose
Lamp Black
Permanent White
I can’t wait to try this pocket box this weekend.
I was at a Cubs game last week and had the good fortune to have really good seats.
I used one of the photos I took as a reference for this painting.
Although the Cubs lost in the 9th,it was still great fun to see the action up this close.
“Batter Up”, 8×10”, gouache (opaquewatercolor)
A while ago, I saw a Matisse exhibit at themuseum. Though his style is not how I prefer to paint, there was something thatintrigued me. I wanted to try copying one of his masters but in a way that wasstill mine. I decided to create my copy in a museum setting.
I was intrigued by how much people werestudying each painting. That was part of the inspiration for this painting.Also I wanted to try copying the style to see if I could get any betterunderstanding for his work.
I was proud of myself for thinking of theidea. Then as I sifted thru images of Matisse’s work. I found that he had doneit himself! He did a scene of the inside of his studio with one of his ownpaintings leaning against the wall!
I had to combine several references as phototaking was not allowed in the exhibit.
And the two painting I wanted to use did notappear together in the exhibit.
The two paintings “on the wall” areBathers by the River & The Dance. The composition took a lot of playing around. It seemedthat for all the busy-ness of the “museum wall” that the “viewer” needed to besimpler.
I analyzed the reference a lot before paintingeach shape. I’m not looking to make an exact duplicate. But I do want itrecognized as a reference to Matisse’s painting.
”Museum Series- Matisse”,
Acrylics.30″x40″
I’m happy with the finished painting. I finished it with 2 days to spare before theshow entry cutoff. Yeah!
Fingers crossed that the judge likes mypainting and it gets into the show!
Finally on Monday (our last full day at Dillman’s) we had a sunny, summer day. What a difference! The scenery went from nice to beautiful.
They have canoes & kayaks available for the resort guest to use. We didn’t take them out but I was intrigued by their shapes and colors and the shed that had all the life vests hanging on it and paddles resting against it.
I’m very pleased with how this painting is progressing. I think it is about halfway done. After two hours, the sun had changed the light too much on me so I had to stop working on this painting on site. I like this one enough that I will continue working on it in the studio.
Canoe Shed, 8×10″, oils
