Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label painting. Show all posts

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Turn on your creativity. Its in all of us

When I lived on the house on the hill, there was a huge play room. A place for my children to play, and hang out, and a place for me to create. Its the only place I have ever lived in that allowed me easy access to the things I use to create. I had a table, and book cases, and space for my easel. It was wonderful.

When the children were at school, I would put on music - anything that my heart desired, and paint and paint and paint. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say 'I couldn't paint if my life depended on it'.

You see, I believe that everyone has the ability to create. In some form. Be it sewing, crafting, sculpting, writing, painting, drawing, craving... you get the idea. It is only the individual who limits their ability to create. I had a number of friends come and paint with me for the day. Armed with a canvas, and a sense of 'I can't paint', they would come to the house on the hill, and stand in front of their empty canvases, too frightened to put paint on it. To frightened to let go of the logical side of their brain and let the creative side take over.

I would be madly away in my creative world, and they would still be standing looking at their blank canvas. Covered in paint, paint brush or palette knife in hand, I would guide them over to the stack of art magazines and books I have. "Here. Look. Stop thinking so much about it, and just look for somewhere to start." This would always end up being the point of departure for them, and they would start to paint. Timidly at first, then with more abandonment. It was wonderful to observe.

For me, creating - specifically painting - is soul feeding. It helps restore my equilibrium. For many reasons, I stopped painting as much as I used to. Since I started working in an Art and Craft Supply Shop, my desire to paint has been reignited and I am creating again. And that is a wonderful thing.




 
 
Todays prompt is "Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)" I KNOW that everyone has the ability to be creative.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

23. Art workshop with a new medium



Ticking another thing of my bucket list. I have started watercolour classes, a medium I have wanted to learn for ages. In a beautiful piece of serendipity a man came into the shop I'm working at looking for something. We got talking and he informed me that he teaches water colour classes, that are just up the road from me, on a Monday, and at a price that can't be beaten!

It's lovely to be using a new medium, and learning a whole lot of fundamentals in the process as well. While I have no desire to be a watercolour landscapist, learning how to manipulate this medium is great. So I will do the exercises for the process, and take what I want, and leave the rest behind. Bit like most things I do in life.

values, washes, techniques and playing

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A painting for my best friend... and lover...

It was M's birthday at the end of last month. Among other things, I started a painting for him. Do you think I got it finished in time for his birthday... No, not likely - other things got in the way...

After my post I paint its been annoying more then ever that I hadn't finished it. So I gave myself a good talking to saying MAKE THE TIME VICKY....

Moon Goddess acrylic and pen on canvas



There is a quote along the side... my favourite 'What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us' Ralph Waldo Emerson. (I love it so much I have it tattooed on my side...)

I'm very happy with it. And I am pretty sure he will be too.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

I paint...

.. on paper, canvases, anything that can be painted. It feeds my soul. And I don't do it enough. I don't consider myself an artist (though others call me that, and I blush). I don't sell my paintings, I give them away... usually after they have adorned my own walls for a while or as birthday presents.




 dragon fly on stained glass watercolour pencils on paper


Blue leaves watercolour pencils on arches paper



And then there are others that I will never give away.

self portrait charcoal on paper

Irises oil pastels on paper

And I don't just give them to anyone. They are given to people I love, and care for.


Colour your world acrylic on canvas

Peacocks and reeds acrylic and mixed media on canvas

Unfortunately, some of my paintings have be given to people that are no longer in my life... and they have either been destroyed, or who knows what. That hurts me ... deeply. To me its the ultimate in rejection. Destroying, or whatever, something that I poured a little bit of myself into hurts profoundly. It feels like they didn't "get it". To them it was just paint on a canvas, but for me, there is a little bit of myself in there, a little bit of myself that is gone forever.



I wonder where they are now....

There is no rhyme or reason to my paintings. No magical "thing" ... other then a feeling I get inside and need to express in some way. I paint a lot in my head. Much the same as I write a lot in my head. I love to learn new techniques and ways to play with paint and mediums. Its like discovering a secret.


watercolour and pen on paper

Tapestry of Hope acrylic and impasto on canvas

watercolour and pen on paper




  
My best paintings are the ones I have done with complete abandonment. Have been seized with a fervour that doesn't stop until I have finished it...

When I think about it too much - I stall, and it sits on my easel waiting for inspiration to ignite me once again. Usually I am thinking about it too much because I have so much noise in my head, and instead of it being something to soothe my soul, it becomes a task, and painful. And I stop because it no longer joyful and soul feeding, but just another job that I have to do.

Sometimes Life children, bills, ex husbands, cleaning, cooking, 'flu, etc. etc. just gets in the way.

Think its time I told Life to wait for a while....

 

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