6 months of my creative resolution!

June 30, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

…and still going strong. In the past 6 months I have accomplished 52 watercolor paintings, 8 acrylics on canvas and 64 sketches! It is amazing to me what writing a goal down can do.

When I first typed the words, “I hope to draw, paint and create my way through 2014!” – I didn’t know what I would spend my time doing. Would I be decorating the house? drawing? painting? refinishing furniture? Imagine my surprise when the first months were filled with acrylic painting – one of the things I have the least experience in! I even pulled unfinished canvases – years old – off a shelf and finished them, like this carrot.

And one day I decided to add watercolor to my sketchbook and suddenly I was falling back in love with watercolor! I wanted to do more and more things. Each project led to ideas for 10 more! I felt joy and fulfillment.

I certainly had moments when I wavered. The unexpected connection and support from fellow bloggers pushed me on as well as the encouragement from my family who kept saying, “Don’t stop.” Six months in and I’m not stopping. I’m still not sure of my direction, but I’m “finding” myself as an artist and learning a lot along the way.

Thank you for joining me on my journey! 🙂

The Cottage out back

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

I’ve been wanting to paint this watercolor for a while. The “cottage” looks so pretty with the flowers starting to bloom. I often imagine turning it into an art studio. In reality it is the garage – lol – and it is filled with bikes, the lawnmower, gardening supplies, beach chairs, sleds, and all our other stuff! Not to mention scary jumping crickets.

Some of my steps:
First I drew with ink.

Then I added in the color:

Watercolor Week!

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

This week, I’ve ignored my “weekly checklist” and instead ended up being free and loose with watercolor. After struggling to paint faces the last 2 weeks, it’s a relief to just play, with no expectations and it was fun!

It’s been a while since I attempted a landscape of the beach. I didn’t have high expectations, I just thought, “Let’s give it a try.” I took the reference photo a couple of weeks ago. I grew up at the beach and love everything about it. I’ve always tried to capture it with paint and I’ve had some success and some failures. Water and sand are hard!

For this painting I decided, before I started, that I was going to use white. I think I’ve used white once before – and it wasn’t pretty! I started laying the background colors:

Then, I added in darks and details, including the white foam. I have to admit that I’m proud of how it came out. It’s amazing how just playing can lead to unexpected success. I feel like each painting is a learning experience. 🙂

Fun and loose in the garden

June 22, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Today, I decided to sit outside and do a loose, fun watercolor. I didn’t overthink it. I tried hard not to overwork it and I’m happy with the results! It feels good to have some success after two weeks of torment! The week before last, I struggled with beach girl’s face. Then, last week I took a step back and tried to figure out watercolor faces. She is still a work in progress.

Today’s steps:

Floating in the pool

June 16, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Beach girl is playing in the pool! I can’t wait for the lazy days of summer! With two kids “moving up” this past week was crazy busy. I’m looking forward to the summer days when we say, “What should we do today?”

Painting the water was fun.

I struggled a lot with the shading on beach girl’s body. I can’t tell you how many times I “erased” watercolor and tried again – too brown, too black, etc.

And her face! I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to present this piece too you. I erased her face so many times, the paper was a wreck and she looked scary. Because I was “done,” I scanned it in and did the best I could to give her a new face (in Photoshop). What are you going to do? Time to move on.

BTW – When I was in high school (a while ago) I saw a painting at MOMA called “Drifting.” What was so cool about the painting was that the dingy in the painting wasn’t centered on the canvas. It was literally drifting off the canvas. What a lesson in composition! I’ve never forgotten it. I’d like to say that beach girl is purposely floating off the page. In reality, I was following a photo I had taken.

I’m looking forward to more time for art next week and more successful projects!

Painting a Figure (Little Girl Digging – Part 2)

June 10, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

It’s hard getting back into a painting when a week or more has past! I’m so glad I made notes on how I mixed the colors and saved some of each color. It reminds me of a bread starter – not that I’ve ever used one! I added a little bit of my saved color to my new mixes to keep some continuity. I mixed a skin tone color that isn’t as subtle as before. [Not a perfect match – but at this point I’m not going to over think it. I’m focusing on getting the Little Girl’s figure right.] As I painted Little Girl’s body with the new color, she is popping out of my background (above). I tweaked her shape as I painted. See how subtle she was when I started:

A few days later, I mixed a lighter sand color and added it to my canvas. Still focusing on Little Girl’s shape, I used the sand color to edit her shape as needed.

I’m getting there – slow and steady! lol. Read my previous post – Painting a Figure (Little Girl Digging – Part 1) and see how I started this painting.

Watercolor redo

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

Which one do YOU like better? Above is my first attempt. I started very wet – probably too wet. It was for fun and I really didn’t have any expectations. So I worked wet, messy and quick. But when it was finished I thought – It’s kind of cool. There is some real potential here. Maybe I should try it again and be more careful.

Below is my second attempt.

With the first one, I did the background sky/water and sun all at the same time.

With the second one. I first painted the sun and reflection, waited until it was almost dry and then added the blue.

The inspiration for these paintings came from a cool photo I found in the book “A Pocket Guide to Seashells & the Seashore.” The picture credit is “Digital Vision.” I was drawn to the colors. Specifically, that all the color was in the background and the foreground (the reeds) were black.

I was trying out a new paper – unsuccessfully. I’ve been using Strathmore “Bristol” for my watercolors, because it is bright white and smooth. For these paintings I used Strathmore “Vellum.” I know that I need to find better watercolor paper! I just don’t love the textured watercolor paper. I also bought an Arches hot press art board to try out.

Inkblots – So much fun!

June 2, 2014June 6, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Turning inkblots into characters was so much fun. What a creative project! Thank you to Judy Watson. This was the first time I’ve tried this. It only took about ten minutes. I started making up stories about some of the characters. What a great way to get the creativity flowing.

Beach girl – 2 different approaches

May 28, 2014June 6, 2014 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

I decided to try my recent approach to watercolors: Start with the background and play. I wet the paper, brush on color, add drops in areas, even splatter! It’s amazing what a difference in the backgrounds (above and below). Which is better? Hmmm. I love the sky above. (btw – This exercise was more about the background than beach girl herself.)

It’s been a while since I worked on my beach girl! Last time I worked on her, I practiced her face. I found a face I liked, but I’m having a bit of difficulty. When I redraw her, she looks different and if I use pencil instead of ink, she looks different. There is more playing and practicing to be done!

The inspiration to try the “background first” approach to beach girl came from an interesting blog post – “10,000 hours” and the link contained in it (Alina Chau’s watercolor tutorial.) Wisteria Interior’s post inspired me to not give up and keep trying. And as I read Alina Chau’s tutorial I started to wonder, “Why wasn’t I using all my watercolor techniques on beach girl?” It was like an “aha” moment. So, thank you!