Painting

A Crisp Fall Day!

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

fallleavesfinal
Fall is one of my favorite times of year. I love those sunny, crisp, blue sky days. Unfortunately they lead to damp, grey, cold days! Today is the perfect Fall day. I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts! 🙂

This painting was part of my painting party. I worked very wet, letting the colors bleed together, only hinting at each leaf. I added several layers of paint. After I was done, I added some details with ink.

leaves1leaves2

Table full of projects

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

table2
Today I set up the table like I was having a painting party – although it was all for me! I set up 4 different seats. I grabbed a couple of different leaves from the yard and some apples. I sat at 3 of the seats, working from a different subject each time. I went back and added paint to the fall leaves painting (left) and the red leaf painting (middle). I’m excited to add ink to the fall leaves painting!

I decided to work this way because:

  • I didn’t have a set subject I wanted to work on.
  • Since you need to let the paint dry before you can add more color and detail, it’s the perfect time to switch seats and projects!
  • I wanted to end up with several watercolors that I could continue to paint or add ink to.

Last week I had a lot of success with my sunflower project, where I started the painting several times. Ironically, I thought the success was what I turned the outtakes into. Not the final sunflower painting! So, I wanted to start a couple of projects and see what I could do with them.

My personal painting party:
table

 

Working with outtakes

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

sunflowerouttakes
The other day, when I was painting sunflowers, I started several versions before selecting one to work on in more detail. Today I decided to see what I could do with two of these “outtakes.” I used an ink pen and started scribbling away.

The first outtake immediately reminded me of a feather (when the sunflower’s center flowed all over the paper). So I added ink and made it a feather.

Outtake #1:
feather1

The second outtake, looked like a bunch of sunflowers, so I added ink to make it look more finished. Lately I’ve been having fun playing with ink. In the past I shied away – thinking the outline had to be precise and perfect. Now I’m just scratching away, the way I would with a pencil. Is my style coming out?!

Outtake #2:
sunflowers2

I need to eat more veggies.

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

veggies
Lately I’ve been warming up by painting vegetables. I’m playing around with adding loose ink lines, like I did with the swim goggles. I had a fruit phase, now it’s veggies, probably because I need to eat more of them! I wish I could say I painted from actual vegetables, but I used photos I googled for reference. I’ve been working alphabetically, so next I’ll try cucumbers. Those I have on hand! I’m not committing to the whole alphabet, but it’s something to paint when I sit down and don’t know what to start with.

Back to School – Back to Acrylics

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

girldiggingrev
I’m looking forward to the kids going back to school (lol!) and having more time to paint – especially with acrylics! This week I got a jump start and worked on my painting “Little Girl Digging.” It’s been almost 2 months since I worked on this! If I let too much time pass I lose momentum and then it’s really hard to get back into a painting.

Although I haven’t worked with acrylics all summer, I’ve been creative – sketching, painting with watercolor, etc. I’m proud of all I’ve done during these busy months. It will make September, when the house is quiet again, all the more productive.

Here is where I started from:
girl digging step 3
First I worked on the sand and added some definition to the ocean. Then (above) I added color to the ocean.
girldiggingc

Painting without a plan

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

loveflowers
While I’m sad that vacation is over, it is nice to have some quiet time to paint. What amazes me about these three paintings, is that I had no preconceived ideas until I sat down to paint – I just went with it. All three were done yesterday and they are all so different!

The first one I painted was the flowers in the container. I looked around my patio and picked the container just as I started painting.
flowerscontainer

The second painting was the hearts. I started painting the background, decided to leave the dry areas dry and filled one of them with a heart. Then I started adding more hearts and the word love. It is my favorite of the day – and I have no idea where it came from!

The third painting is the watercolor background with the ink flowers. I decided as I was painting – to make a colorful background and add ink to it. As I chatted with an old friend on the phone – I added the flower doodles. I looked around my yard for inspiration.

I am excited for another quiet day and more painting!