Ghost Dancers

                                     Ghost Dancers Debut

Admittedly, Halloween is my absolute favorite time of year, but I didn't actually set out to paint a Halloween picture.  It just kind of happened... as I fiddled with this painting the ghost dancers began to emerge, and I just couldn't turn them away.   This was supposed to be an experimentation in color and technique, but it was  pretty much out of my control once the ghost dancers took charge.  Have a scary Halloween!

Modern Art Inspired by Ancient Art

Well, I'm actually feeling hopeful.  I've been messing around with my big huge canvas and for a while I thought it was going to be a total disaster, but I threw caution to the wind and starting slapping up some bold colors and I'm actually starting to like what's beginning to emerge.  I started with an under coat of various shades of yellow, then added some burnt sienna.  Although it was looking a lot like a cave wall, I had to remember my mantra is "Modern Art Inspired by Ancient Art," and so far it wasn't looking any too modern.  So I had to ask myself what would turn this into a "modern" work of art?  And the answer is... color.  So I mustered all my courage and whipped up a brilliant aqua that will go great with the wall color and furniture in my dining room and at the same time it will hopefully turn my ancient cave wall into a fun, modern work of art.  I'm contemplating where to go from here, but I'm feeling pretty good about it... stay tuned!

Not Too Productive Today!

Weekends aren't usually real productive for me, but this past weekend my dear sweet hubby was out of town, so I found myself sitting in front of the t.v. quite a bit and then I would wander into the studio and slap some paint on a canvas, and then I would end up back in front of the t.v. for another little nap.  It was great!  I've got about 5 paintings going right now.  I used to think that you worked on one painting at a time and only one painting, but I've discovered that's not true.  While one is drying you can be working on something else... I also find that I frequently miscalculate how much paint to squeeze out of the tube and I squeeze out too much, so rather than throw it out, I try to work on another painting to use up the excess, if one of the paintings doesn't happen to need that particular color I just start a new painting.  I've always loved the realistic style, and I always want to paint in a realistic style, however, I think I've finally accepted that I'm just not that kind of artist and trying to do a realistic painting just isn't much fun.  Its really hard work, and this is supposed to be fun and relaxing.  I have the most fun when I just let loose and I end up with abstract type paintings usually with lots of color.  I didn't actually paint today, but I do plan on getting back into the studio tomorrow and will hopefully have something new to show you pretty soon.

So What Have I Done Lately?

Well, I'm creeping along with my big project... the first step is to create my cave wall and I will start by adding a bit of texture... as you know, cave walls are rough and full of texture.  I've been contemplating the colors that I intend to use and since the finished painting will ultimately go in my dining room and the colors in the dining room are teal and browns I think I will probably use predominately golds and yellows.  Unfortunately, I'm rather low on funds at the moment and I don't know if I actually have enough of the right colors to proceed much further, so now that I've gotten the texture on and I kind of know what direction I'm going, I'm going to stick it back in the corner for a while and contemplate where I want to go from here.  In the meantime I'm going to work on some other paintings using the colors I happen to have on hand.  I hope to get back to the big cave painting soon.

My Big Scary Project

                                    36 x 48 Canvas

About a year ago I bought a really big canvas with the intent of painting one of my modern petroglyphs for the dining room wall.  However, upon arriving home with my canvas, I immediately realized that I had a few problems to overcome.  The first being that I'm rather intimidated by working on such a large piece and I also discovered that I don't really have room in my studio to work on a piece of this size.  The other problem is that I normally do my petroglyphs in oil pastel, on pastel paper, but you can' really work oil pastel on a huge standard canvas, so I needed to figure out how to go about creating a petroglyph in acrylic or oil.  So with that being said, the BIG canvas has stood untouched in my studio for the past year. I haven't forgotten about it, I couldn't possibly forget about it as every time I walk into the studio... there it is... staring me in the big blank face!

So for better or worse, success or failure, I plan on documenting my efforts to transform this big blank canvas into a work of art worthy of my dining room.

Here goes nothing!