Practicing painting pansies and other things…

April 29, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Throughout the day I kept being pulled back to “practicing painting pansies” (say that 10x fast). My intention was to dedicate the day to acrylics – why was it so hard to do that?

I started with a quick warm up sketch. Then, I started playing with the pansies in watercolor. I kept finding excuses not to start with the acrylics – breakfast, more coffee, stripping the sheets off the beds – lol! Finally I forced myself into my studio and started painting.

First I started adding branches to my “sunrise trees” painting. (Inspired by my other tree painting.)

Then I pulled out my “jellyfish”! It has been awhile. I’m not sure I’ll ever finish this one, but I like what I’ve added to it.

Why was it so hard to get into the “acrylic groove?” Watercolors are easy to pull out and work on (and easy to put away). Acrylics require more setup and clean up. Is it that? Or is it that I’m not that inspired by the ones I’m working on? Or maybe I’m more confident with the watercolor? And somewhat intimidated by the acrylics? Whatever it is, I plan on pushing through.

Inspiration found during my run

April 25, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

tulips
I’ve been wondering what to paint next in acrylics. I spotted these tulips, while on my run. These would make a pretty painting! I love running. Actually, back up and erase that. I don’t love running. I love that it’s a quiet time to think and observe – no kids, no distractions. I don’t always feel good while I’m running, but I always feel great after. Sometimes it’s a struggle and I have to distract myself. If I think too much about how far I have to go, I’ll end up walking. So I listen to music or an audiobook and think and look around for inspiration!

An acrylic painting finished!

April 9, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

It is a huge accomplishment for me to actually finish one of my acrylics! As an inexperienced painter, I often hit a roadblock and give up. Over the past few months I have spent a lot of time painting in acrylics and have learned a lot. I am proud that I moved past the “color” roadblock that I hit while working on this painting.

I did a lot today. I added darks to the leaves, and painted the center of the flower. I also painted the tips of the petals so there wasn’t a gap between the background and the petals. I brightened up the color of the flower, with a more saturated pink.

A part of me wonders, “Is it really finished?” I know I could tweak it for awhile. As I was adding my last tweaks, I thought, “I don’t want to ruin it!” So I stopped and declared the painting done.

Steps today before the finish:

How do you keep track of your mixed acrylics?

April 5, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

When I went back to work on my daisy painting, I immediately had trouble mixing and matching the green. It was way off from what I started with. I realized that the more I mix my colors, the more trouble I’ll have matching them later. I had time that day and went to the art store. The woman there was very helpful and I was asking a lot of questions! I asked her how she kept track of colors she mixed. Her only advice was to keep a swatch of the color, which I already did.

When I told her I was painting a flower, she recommended “Hookers Green,” which is a leaf green. I was using phthalo green, which not surprisingly was very blue. I wasn’t so sure of the color when I first put it on (bottom right leaf in the photo below), but I decided to go for it and covered all the leaves. Then I started adding the details of the leaves. I had mixed shades of the Hookers Green using the Brilliant Yellow Green, which was the base color of my painting. I thought painting the leaves would be easy, but I was wrong! I think I started to get the hang of it. Painting in watercolor and acrylic is very different!

This time when I mixed my paint I used the disposable palette sheets I bought at the art store. These are perfect for me, because I hate cleaning up. I also bought a palette about the size of the sheet, to support it. When I was done, I was scraping off the paint I wanted to save, when I realized I could write on the sheet to label the paints and the mixes. This is so helpful! I have a terrible memory and sometimes don’t return to painting for several days (or even weeks). I guess I answered my own question. But I would love to hear other ideas! 🙂

I’m trying to figure out what section of the painting to attack next. Finish the leaves? The center of the flower?

Progress on my acrylic Gerbera Daisy

March 29, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

I stole an hour this morning, before the craziness of running around with the kids, to work on my latest painting. I really like how it is coming out! I had a great sense of accomplishment that stayed with me throughout the day.

My latest progress:

The dark areas really make the flower pop and I didn’t even add any paint to the petals. I plan on continuing to work on the leaves in the background before working on the flower.

The starting point this morning:

Previous stages:

Acrylic Gerbera Daisy

March 26, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

I made some progress today on my Gerbera Daisy. I’m pretty happy. When I first started adding the light pink to the tips of the petals they looked a bit streaky, but I got the hang of it and I really like where I am so far.

Back to Acrylics

March 24, 2014June 6, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

It has been about 2 weeks since I painted with acrylics. It feels like forever. Lately I’ve been playing with watercolor. Today, I was determined to paint with acrylics, but it took a while for me to get to work. I took a half hour to clean my palette because I ended up scrubbing the whole slop sink!

I wasn’t in the mood to work on my jellyfish painting, even though I think I’m close to finishing. I had a couple of ideas for new paintings and plenty of fresh canvases! Here is my list:

Donut with strawberry icing and sprinkles (yum!)
Gerbera daisy (I came across a photo I took 10 years ago!)
Ocean
Sunrise through the trees

I didn’t know which one to work on, and it probably wasn’t the best plan, but I decided to start all of them and see which one pulled me in. It was so fun playing! There is something exciting about starting new projects. It’s the finishing that’s hard – lol! In the end, I only started two of the paintings. It seemed like too much to start going in four different directions!

The background for “Sunrise through the trees” was a lot of fun, even though I ended up doing something different than I originally intended. I’m loving the colors! Notice I’m using bright colors, some directly from the tubes. I love it! It’s feels very springy. I just plopped the paint on with a foam brush. I plan on adding paint to blend the colors after this base coat is dry. (I hope that isn’t a mistake.)

Of the two projects, the Gerbera daisy painting was really tugging at me, so I worked on that one the most. I think I got a really good start! It is amazing how “just starting” changes your whole perspective. Here is the photo and my progress:

Patience and Painting

March 11, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

By nature I am not a patient person. The other day as I was painting in my sketchpad, I got annoyed when the painting wasn’t going quickly and easily. This gave me reason to pause and think, “Am I too impatient to ever be a great artist?”

Later that same day, I was back at work on my acrylic jellyfish painting. I had finally gone out and bought some bright colors for the background. (As much as I tried, I was unable to mix a color that popped the way the photo did.) I was working a blend, of these bright colors, into my water background when I thought to myself, “This painting is really hard. It’s taking forever.”

This brought me back to my earlier thought, “Am I too impatient to ever be a great artist?” But, I continued working on the background, getting into a zone. I hit a point where I wished I could “undo” everything I had done that day. I thought I had ruined the painting. My daughter walked by and admired it (and the colors) and I looked at it again and thought, “Maybe I haven’t ruined it.”

The jellyfish painting is getting there. I can’t say for sure how long it will take me to get there. I do know, it is on the top of my list for my next painting session. Impatient nature or not, I will continue to persevere.

Defining paint color with help of the eyedropper tool (in Photoshop)

March 6, 2014June 6, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

It has been three weeks since I last worked on my jellyfish painting. Isn’t it ironic that when I last worked on it, I wrote about it under the title, “Procrastination and Painting.” Seems like I’ve been procrastinating getting back to this painting! I know the reason why. I hit a stumbling block.

I was struggling with the color of the jellyfish. What I ended up with was a very orange color. No matter how many times I mixed it, I couldn’t get it to look like the photo. When I left off, I planned to use the eyedropper tool in Adobe Photoshop, to help pinpoint the colors in the photo. It certainly seemed like a good plan. Let’s see if it actually works!

When I opened the photo in Photoshop and starting clicking around on the jellyfish photo, I was surprised to see the colors that came up – maroon, brown, tan, gold. I already felt that it was helping me “see” colors in the jellyfish that I wasn’t seeing. Since I use thalo blue, cadmium yellow and cadmium red to mix my colors, I decided the RGB (red, green, blue) breakdown of the colors was the most useful. I tried to mix and measure following this breakdown.

My first try wasn’t great. I mixed a color which seem to match, but when I painted on top of my existing color, it didn’t look great. I guess the fact that I was painting on top of color, was an issue. The orange beneath my new color, was having an effect on the new color. I didn’t give up!

I kept mixing colors until I got something, that when I put it on top, it looked right. I feel like I’m starting to get there, but have my work cut out for me. I’m so inexperienced I pick hard things and don’t realized they are hard until I’m in the middle of it.

The thing that I love about this photo is that it glows. The colors in my painting are dull and I’m not sure I can fix it – if I’m mixing the colors. Tomorrow I have off and I plan on attacking this painting to see what I can do!