New Mini Abstract Painting

Hi there!

I have so much art to show you, tons to catch up on, but I'll start off small.

This is a sweet mini painting I just did this week.  It's on a 5x5 inch gallery-wrapped canvas.  

I'm running low on my blank canvas stash, but in cleaning my studio recently, I noticed that I have many old pieces that I never finished for various reasons... so I decided to either finish them or completely paint over them and start again.  This is one of the starting over pieces.  I originally did an experimental collage on it that wasn't turning out how I wanted, and I didn't know how to finish it, so it sat unfinished for over a year.  The great thing about using these unfinished canvases is that they already have a great texture to them!  I added to the texture of this by gluing a few more bits of paper down, then painted over most of it with colors that called to me.  I finished it off by drawing and writing on it with a water-soluble pencil, then sealed the whole thing.

It felt good to get one of these unfinished paintings out of a drawer, and give it a new life ... ready to be seen and hung on someones wall!  Now I'm moving on to another unfinished one that's been calling my name!

I'm back... again?!

Hi there!

I've been trying to work on a longer post but I'm a bit rusty so I figured I'd just get a quick one up to get me back into Blogland in the meantime.  

We had a wonderful and very busy summer where we were gone a lot.  It didn't leave me with much time for art, but I took TONS of photos and gathered heaps of inspiration! 

Now that school has started up again and things are getting back to "normal" (is it ever really normal?") I've finally started to get some paint on my hands again.  Yay!  Paint just makes everything better doesn't it?  I know I'm not alone in this!  The above photo is a tiny part of a huge waterlily painting that I've been working on. 

 I have a lot of catching up to do with you all and I'll share more later, but for now the studio is calling so it's time to go get messy... 

Orange Post : Koi Carp

Ok,  I guess I didn't make the lil' sneak peek hard enough for you smarties... most of you knew it was a Koi fish (and to the nut who said "or an under-ripe tomato that looks like a Koi", I just went to your blog and now I understand, LOL!)  So here's one big cyber pat for all of you who guessed right  ** PAT  PAT**  Thanks for playing along.  It was fun!!  I think I'll do that again, but maybe make it more of a challenge next time!

This was inspired by a few photos I took of  Koi Carp in the pond at Fashion Island in Newport Beach.  I started off with a 9x12 inch canvas.  I printed out three separate photographs of mine onto regular computer paper and glued them down onto the canvas.  Then I used Heavy Gel Medium to create lots of "yummy yummy texture", to quote Jenny and Shelley (thanks ladies!).

Once that dried I added layer after layer after layer of paints and glazes.  Then a few more layers.  To finish it off I popped out  a few details on the fish with permanent pen.

These are the photos that I used in this mixed media painting.  The first ones are of the Fashion Island Koi.  The last photo is of our very cool chandelier in our bedroom.  I took the photo looking straight up at the light.  I like that you can't really tell what it is!

So here is my Orange Post for The Summer of Color.  I was SO excited to read that there will be a Summer of Color 2 next year, Yay!!  Hopefully next summer I won't be a week behind in all the posts,  LOL, but this was so much fun!  I now have some cool artwork that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for this challenge and the wonderful  Kristin!!