New Beginnings

With next week being the beginning of a new year, I've decided to step out of my comfort zone and do some paintings of things I wouldn't normally do - using techniques that I haven't used before. The way we learn and grow is by stepping outside the box and reaching for new heights.

As a beginning artist (I'm a 1-year old), I have so much to learn, but I find I get stuck in a rut just painting the same things over and over again and while I see improvement, I am bored. There are only so many flowers I can paint in a year. What really gives me energy and stamina to keep on going is to paint those things I've had an adventure around - so travel, doing something fun, and painting from my own photos is what gives me energy. When I know the story about what I'm painting I just can't seem to get enough. Where I'd really like to go next is painting dancers. My husband and I do ballroom dancing - it's wonderful! I've never done "people" before so this will be interesting and you'll see my first attempt below.

So this week, being Christmas week I did a few quick paintings. One is of Waddesdon Manor near London. The other I did using masking fluid to create a woodsy scene. For both of these I was experimenting with Twinkling H2Os, luminescent water color paint from ColourArte (http://www.colourarte.com/). I'm always wanting to learn more about shadow and light so that is what these two paintings are all about. Bringing pieces of the painting forward and leaving the rest in the background. Making shadows and creating light. Oh, so many painters out there make it look so easy to do but it's the one thing I struggle with the most.

I also did not want to paint the building a horrible limestone color. I like for my paintings to reflect emotion, so I went with the colors to make it feel happy but regal - it was a happy time to visit the manor and the woods also make me happy. So that's why all the color!



The third painting is my first "dancers" painting. I think it turned out pretty good - It was difficult to control the Twinks from a flesh color perspective. I will need to figure out how best to paint flesh in the future - could be I need to use normal watercolor paints - although I really like the sparkle effect on the female dancer's tights! I also now see that the painting was not entirely flat on the scanner so there are some shadows in the upper right and right side.

Thanks for stopping by! Please leave me a comment - thanks so much.

Posting to Paint Party Friday, Friday Sketches and Art Journal Every Day (see the links on the right). Happy New Year!