More Yupo Futzing

Well, I spent another evening playing and pushing the paint around on yupo. I played with more squeegee-ing, stencil lifting and trying to get a better facial image. This was never intended to be a masterpiece, but so far everyone who's looked at it really likes it so maybe will will end up frame worthy after all. I started with a reference photo of my mother back in the early 1940's. She was never so playful when I knew her. I've wondered who took this photo and some other crazy ones back on that day.

It's all about me, of course

OK. I've been recovering from the painting blitz that i last posted about and now I'm on to getting inspired about working on Yupo. I've done several things before on Yupo, but just made up how it was supposed to be handled. I just watched George James' fantastic videos on how he works. It's such a different process. To move the paint around on this surface is like herding cats, but boy, does George have those cats corraled!.

It's fun and exciting so I attempted another self portrait, and then just played around with his techniques using a photo of my mom from the 40's. Totally just a worksheet, but i think it could have some potential as i go through the process.

Charity Event Painting Marathon

I see that I haven't posted for quite awhile, but I've been creatively in the doldrums while live has been on a rollercoaster ride. So busy!. Anyway a friend asked if I would like to be one of the 5 featured artists for a fundraiser for the Le Bonheur Group, a volunteer organization to beniefit the Le Bonheur Children's Hospital. So a month ago I got the details and they wanted eight paintings to offer for sale so that meant GET BUSY!. So here's the eight that I've submitted. The event is tomorrow night so I guess we'll see if they like me. If they really, really like me. (or maybe not...AAAHHHH!!!????) The good news is that it has gotten me motivated again, my schedule has cleared up and hopefully I'm back on track.

Hmmm....they say there's a resemblence

This is still a work in progress, but I think it's coming along. Curiously, both my husband and friend Linda think this looks more like me than the watercolor or acrylic versions. What does that say about me??? Eccentric maybe??

I'm pretty happy about the face, but I need to define the neck/ hand areas. I've pasted it down with repositionable adhesive (basically what holds postit notes on), so I can play with where the pieces are and can lift and layer differently as needed. I can give myself some pretty quirky expressions just by shifting the eyes. Not quite sure how I will permanently adhere them. I don't want the paper to wrinkle with wet glue. Any suggestions?

Will the Real Me Please Step Forward

Inspired the Carol Marine's Daily Paintworks challenges a few weeks ago, I decided to do a series of self-portraits. It is HARDER than you think. For one thing, I've been using a mirror instead of a photo, so everything is backwards when you try to look at me and the paintings side by side. The acrylic painting was my first attempt. The first go around looked rather ghoulish and pasty so i tried to adjust the colors to give me more life, but now it looks overworked and harsh.

So on to attemp #2. Watercolor and watercolor pencil. I like this one a lot better. I think it's a pretty good likeness with out being too exact. My husband doesn't particularly like it - doesn't like the chin - so every one is a critic (haha)

.....so then on to attempt #3 - paper collage. this one isn't glued down yet, so there's a lot of give and take that will happen before it's finished, for one thing I need to move it to a bigger piece of paper than the one I sketched the underlying image on. Anyway, I think this one will be lots of fun to work on !

Door County Conversation X Two

After looking at the watercolor for a day, I decided that I needed to break up the 3 color right edge so K will have something more to build from to paint the next panel. I also intensified the colors of the robe and changed the color of the beverage glass.

And then....

I decided to do another one using collage. I REALLY like this one. I think it needs a little more contrast, maybe paint over the white diagram area in the neck with a transparent color to bring out the design. What do you think? Cooler 1 or Cooler 2?

The begining of a conversation

I was really intrigued by the "conversations" that Jill Posby showed on her blog. Since K and I are always looking for ways to inspire each other, we decided to start some conversations of our own. K is starting one and I'm starting one. Here's my start. I think I need to make the edges a little more interesting so she has something to work from. So here you go....

I was so close to just scraping this, but after adding more color and directional lines to give it a better composition I kind of like it. I'm not sure it's worthy of posting on virtual paintout, but it's getting closer to a successful painting. I really liked the contrast in the personalities of these four women through their dress that the photo captured my imagination, but I'm not sure i did them justice. Hmmm.

And here's the second painting I've been working on this week. It is the Zippo lighter challenge for the Dailypaintworks challenge. The challenge here was to use the reference photo and paint it using only Ultramarine blue, Burnt Sienna and Titanium White. A nice little challenge in color blending, but of course I had to give it a twist...literally. Fun

Here's the next phase on this image from Romania Google Streetview. I worked into the background more and defined the gals a little more, but I'm still not happy and don't know where to go from here. The image has the potential to tell a story, but I'm not quite sure how to pull that out. I really want to improve on my figure painting, but they continue to look like "mine" and I'm not happy with that. The deadline for posting this on virtualpaintout is next Monday. We'll see what the weekend brings, but this may just get gessoed over.. Aargh.