93 CENT PAINT! A Fresh Start With New Paints

 Now that I'd used up nearly all of the tube acrylics I'd  had for the last couple of years I was looking for a cheaper alternative and found an amazing deal from Dick Blick. It was a sample set so I was expecting small tubes or packets. After all, what can you expect for 45.00 for 48 tubes? Imagine my surprise when THIS arrived:

I've NEVER had more than a dozen colors on hand at one time in the 53 years that I've been painting so I am "over the moon" at the possibilities.

Here we are at the start of the first painting with these paints. The colors are lighter and the texture a bit thinner than the paints that I am used to working with but on the whole I like them and find them pleasant to use.

I liked it at this point. Nice and fresh and bright but I had a feeling that more texture would be needed to make it marketable. No one likes a starving artist, especially the artist. Although the idea persists that we are above such things but at the end of the day. everyone has bills to deal with it so it's time to chuck the romantic illusions and get real.

I'm calling it finished and attempting to sell it at this point. It's one of my 4 x 6 inch "Pocket Paintings so it will be cheap and should move well. Wish Me Luck!

Are they any good? Only time and use will tell so please follow me along on this journey and,

Paint along with Me,

Julia

a note from the Artist

 Good Morning Everyone,

I've pulled myself  up and out of the recent series of paintings to take care of health and household issues so I thought I'd take this opportunity to visit with you as well.

I've got 3 different varieties of lettuce in the hydroponic planter this time and only one is large enough to begin harvesting from so a few leaves will be topping sandwiches or salads today.

Here are a couple of photos from the birdfeeders outside my window.

Here's an odd canvas I've been playing with in between things around here.

A you can see I'm having a quiet day at home to recharge my batteries and I hope you all do it from time to time.

 This afternoon I plan to get back to putting that latest water lily painting on more merchandise in my zazzle store. links to the side of this post.

bye for now,

Julia

Water Lily Memories

 When I was a young girl I was taken to see an exhibit of famous impressionist paintings and among them was one of Monet's Water lily Paintings.

It affected me profoundly because I'd only seen slick, smooth images of that painting in books. Standing in front of it I was shaken by the sheer size of it. 

 The next thing to shake me was that when you looked at it up close it had the same lumpy, uneven and thick surface as paintings that I had been stacking out by my dumpsters for years because I thought I was doing it wrong. I used to watch and wonder as  people carried them away what they wanted them for or what they'd be doing with them. I guess I still wonder all these years later.

I never attempted to paint water lilies myself because he'd already done so many that the world wasn't likely to need my feeble attempts.

I'm older now and after half a century of being my own sort of Artist I don't really care what anyone thinks and figured I might as well try painting a few waterlilies myself.

This photo shows my second painting I did along with the coffee mug that I had it printed on. I was very happy with the way that the pattern repeats matched up.

Not having the money or materials most people have I started with 4 x 6 inch canvas panels that I thought could be poked in birthday cards etc. as gifts.

Here are a few of my first attempts:

#1. Acrylic paint on 4 x 6 canvas panel

#2.  Acrylic Paint on 8 x 10 inch stretched canvas

These photos are in reverse order so that you can enjoy the finished one first.

The reason that there are so many photos is that I just couldn't decide where to stop.

             I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback on it.

# 3. Another 4 x 6 inch canvas panel.

Here are the working photos of this one in the correct order.

 

Between this photo and the finished one I kept working on adding stokes in different shades of pink, blue and yellow.

I enjoyed this project and the things that it taught me so I think that WATER LILLIES are a subject that I will return to again and again.

I was very pleased to see how well this matched up when used as a repeat pattern.

This 4 x 6 inch waterlily p0ainting was done in Feb. of 2021

A few words from the artist

 Hello again,

It's a wet and grey day as I write this. One of those days where you feel like nothing and everything is going on. So many things to think about, lots to be done and few resources to manage it.

Is that a bad thing or a good one?  It's hard to tell. I just have to go where the day takes me. Here are a few of the things I've been working on.

All of these are using up the last bits of tube acrylics I had with the help of a bottle of black all purpose paint.

I have no idea how this picture got in here twice or how to remove it any of your suggestions or explanations would be welcome.

Some of them are small canvas panels that I had used for pallets while doing other paintings. Which of course reminds me of an old story that I told you in a previous post so I'll move on.

As you can see. Somewhere along the line fall set in and I was apparently too busy to notice it much. By the time I got around to painting falling leaves. They were all on the ground.

What I was attempting to show here is how well the transplanted strawberries were doing.

As always the marigolds did well and are the best of the color left around the place.

I love this picture up into the trees in my yard.

Somehow I think I should have stayed away form that blue paint. How many of you think I should have stopped earlier on the leaf painting?

The dark side

That last floral was a pretty interesting experience so I decided to take a crack at that sort of thing one more time...with a twist.

I wish I had stopped here. It felt good and I loved it.

The main reason I keep om with these and eventually cover up the best parts is because of the kinds of remarks people make about the state of my mind and my mental health compel me to keep painting until I reach something that people recognize and accept.

I never quite knew what to call the way I paint but I've been watching a lot of art shows and things on you  tube and the paintings that looked a lot like the way I like to paint and have always done naturally is called ABRSTACT EXPRESSIONIST.

 I've got to say "I like the sound of that. After 50 years I finally know who and what I am. The question now becomes with my heath being in the state it is whether or not it's too late to get a fresh start and create all of the new work that I want to do.

 The other question is how in the world did I waste an entire half a century going down the wrong path and caring what people think. 

Here I'm beginning to turn it into a vase of flowers. It's an old trick of mine that sold out my very first art show in high school in just 3 hours at the signal hills art mart back in the early 1970's. 

It got me out of school early and allowed me to buy school clothes as well. I'd been getting by on old dresses from the thrift store and people often made fun of my clothes.

For me art has always been the solution to my problems so I figured it was about time to give it another try.

My old technique (all done at once with pallet knives, my hands and actual silverware as well as sticks, kitchen and regular tools) took more energy and mobility than I have now that I'm confined to a wheelchair so I've had to improvise.

Now I have to do things in many short sessions and find ways to make it work. This negative space technique is something I picked up from a you tube video.

It gives things a whole different feel and I just wasn't happy with the plain background

At this point I started removing the solid background and getting back to some of original colors and feeling like "me" again.

I began to feel better about it but let the black lines fence me in. Because there is still that idea that I have to draw them a picture that they can recognize.

This was the best compromise I could come up with so I'll be eager to find out what everyone's reaction is to it.

This was the last of my tube acrylics so I had a very limited number of colors to work with. So for better or worse. Here it is. Take that world! You know what you can do with it.

I felt that I'd overworked it at this point so that I started by making the outlines thinner by painting them out.

 It began to make it look lighter and brighter.

I was really liking it at this point but didn't quite trust my judgement.

                          I kept on with it.