For the month of October, I will be posting my comic “Eating Crayons”. This has been created on Pro Create. I hope you will enjoy and join me for the month. I will be posting every day this month beginning with Eating Crayons Day One.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to come to Gallery in the Garden. It’s always a good time to talk to everyone about art and painting with watercolor. The winner of the Giclee print drawing was notified and the print delivered. It was one of Becky’s students. Thanks to all those who went home with a bit of new art to hang on their walls.
I’ve been working on “As A Hen Gathereth Her Chicks”. It started with a drawing in my sketchbook. The sketchbook is a good place to gather ideas that pop into your head. If you don’t get them down, they will disappear. Then you take those ideas and work with them a bit and see where they lead you.
So get in the sketchbook habit. It is a place to work and practice on your craft and to collect ideas.
Sometimes it’s not what you paint but what you don’t paint. The white space around the object you’re painting has to be designed and is an important part of the painting. You have to think, variety of sizes of shapes. And you also have to think of variety of edges. Sometimes I take a moment to remind myself before I begin a painting, save the whites. You have to think a bit about how you want the painting to look.
So here are two more paintings for Gallery in the Garden. I’ve got them framed and varnished, framed without glass. Like how much white space to leave, you also have to think what will be the best way to frame this painting.
So come check them out if you’re in the area Friday August 26th 5-8pm. Saturday August 27th 11-8pm Hartvigsen’s Garden 120 South 800 East, Centerville, Utah
I’ve been busy painting for Becky Hartvigsen’s Gallery in the Garden. Once a year we set up in Becky;s beautiful backyard to display some of our latest paintings. This year there has been water restrictions so it will be Gallery in the dry Garden. It’s a chance to meet people again and chat about art and painting.
I love to paint flowers. You can be so free with your colors and brushstrokes. The painting can end up looking like flowers but the design is what gives the painting power. So if you’re in the area come check out the art and say hi. Drop by next Friday or Saturday August 26th and 27th, 2022. FRIDAY 26TH 5-8 PM SATURDAY 27TH 11-8 PM. 120 South 800 East, Centerville
I will be there with Becky Hartvigsen, Joyce Baron, Tom Howard, Steve McGinty and the latest oils by Diane Turner.
My grandson was making a postcard to send to his other grandfather. He became so frustrated that the image he had in his head was not being reproduced on the page. He stopped creating and couldn’t put brush to paper anymore. He was devastated. I told him to just keep going, to take joy in the process. He did and the postcard turned out amazing.
There is something to be learned by just finishing your painting, or your project. As you’re beginning, a lot of paintings go through an ugly stage where you want to quit but if you keep going you can pull it past that point. You learn about adjusting the values so that they work. You learn about the joy of creating and seeing how your painting has ended up. Each painting is a stepping stone to the next one. You learn something from the previous painting that you can put into the next one. Part of the joy that comes from painting is the quest for a better painting. It’s a lifelong quest. So paint and when you get the feeling that your painting is not turning out like you wanted, don’t rip it up, finish it and take joy in the creative process. making something that wasn’t there before.
The left side of our brain wants to label things. That is a tree and this is how you draw a tree. And so you draw a triangle with a rectangle stump and your left brain says that looks good. Now paint it green. Your right brain is left not quite satisfied. Your right brain is looking at the shape the tree actually is. Our right brain is looking at the variety of edges, the angle that the wind is causing the trunk to grow and wait a minute, the color is not the green straight out of the tube. There might be some red popped in there. We need to look to see what is actually there.
Its the same way with people. We want to put them in nice groups with nice little labels. But if you take the time to really look and see, you see the beauty that lies within. That beauty comes from looking in there eyes and getting to know what lies inside. It takes time when we can’t just lump people into a group and walk on by. You get to know them as individuals. It takes some effort but the rewards are great.
