30 in 30 - "Sunrise" and "Celebrate"

Apparently some people are having trouble uploading their links to the 30 Paintings in 30 Days blog. I wrote a how to article explaining How to Join a Link Party to Increase Your Blog Traffic a while ago now. Looking back, I'm not sure if it goes into enough detail, but hopefully it will help someone.

I like how brightly coloured today's entry is. I'm enjoying the opaque oil pastels on the brightly coloured papers. I should try doing some layering next and see how that turns out.

Day 4

"Sunrise", January 2016, Oil Pastel

Day 5

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'"Celebrate", Oil Pastel, January 2016

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Final Thoughts

So, Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge is finally over for the month of January. I might not have completed 30 finished paintings, as was my original plan, but I did make 22 blog posts, as well as some other art experiments or unfinished pieces that didn't get posted at all. So overall, I'm happy with my effort, and want to compound upon it in future. 

My next rather ambitious goal is to see if I can work on art for at least one hour per day for the whole month of February. That's 28 hours total. I wonder how much I'll actually be able to create in that time. More than if I wasn't pushing myself, that's for sure. My main aim is to set aside a period of time in which I'm not allowed to get distracted by other things. Hopefully it will also encourage me to work faster so I have something to blog about at the end of each session, rather than sit there pondering colour palettes or mediums.

Here are some of the things I didn't get around to posting this month.

Digital Layout of Abstract

Digital Layout of Abstract

Work in Progress of Flower Painting, Need to Add Detail with Pens, Pencils etc.

You might see more of these in future. Or I might get distracted and work on other things. But I thought they belonged here as part of the record of the month anyway.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 22 - Amy Lineart WIP

So very close to having my painting space back. Today the computer that has been living there for the last couple of weeks will be going to its new home and I can move my painting supplies back onto the desk and up off the floor. Looking forward to it.

Here's the lineart for another abstract. I've been getting a few things started lately, but not quite finished. Looks like that might be a job for next month.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 21 - Wilma WIP 2

Another crazy impromptu addition of colour - this time a lime green. Then finally, bright blue. I thought about adding bright yellow to finish it off, but I quite like the white there. I've already started on the lineart of my next abstract today.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 20 - Wilma WIP 1

Started adding colour to Wilma. I added the orange first, then took a little bit of a left turn from my original colour ideas and started adding a powdery blue instead of aqua shades. 

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 19 - Wilma Lineart

Here's the lineart for my tiling abstract, Wilma. I'll be able to start painting it later today. I was annoyed while projecting it onto the paper because the computer went to sleep half way through and when I turned it back on it had moved slightly. I managed to move the paper to line it back up, but trying to move the projector back into the right position was impossible. Lesson learned - next time I'll have the computer play a movie in the background or something so it doesn't think I'm not doing anything with it. Usually I have music or something playing, but today I was listening to the rain outside while drawing.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 18 - Wilma Work in Progress

Taking a break from the "Goldfish Girl" I have been working on, to start a new tiling abstract. I've missed working on larger abstracts, so it will be nice to paint another one. This one is only 12x12 inches, so not as large as "Austin", but still larger than the 4x4 inch abstracts I tried earlier this month.

I'm thinking of using a colour palette of shades of teal and aqua, bright orange and cream/beige.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 17 - Goldfish Girl Work in Progress 2

More of my Goldfish Girl, now with dark hair. I still haven't had much of a chance to work on it lately. The time I've been at home has usually been waiting for someone to arrive, which makes it tricky to pull out the paints when at any moment you may need to pack them up again.

I'm a little behind due to other commitments, but hopefully I'll have another chance to create today.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 16 - Goldfish Girl Work in Progress 1

I've started my next 12 x 12 portrait. This one is taking a little longer because I had a friend in town at the moment, which cuts down on available painting time. I started wit a layer of orange and blue leftover paint from the previous painting, which I spread liberally over the surface. Some of it mixed to make a surprisingly nice green. I'm pretty picky with greens, usually. I then drew my lineart directly over the painted page with a Bic mark-it pen in Tuxedo Black.

The orange sploshes amongst the blue remind me of goldfish swimming in a pond, hence the title "Goldfish Girl". She also looks a bit like a hipster in those glasses, so she reminds me of the Starbucks logo mermaid.

Not quite sure where to take it from here. I guess wait and see.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 15 - J K Rowling Final Mixed Media Portrait

I'm guessing this is the second last picture of J K Rowling. All I have left to do is touch up the lineart that has been hidden under layers of paint, then she's done. I'll probably edit this post with the finished artwork rather than make a new post, because six posts of J K Rowling is probably at least 4 posts too many. 

I've painted this portrait on the back of a piece of 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper I bought from GOLO when they were closing down. I wanted to see if scrapbooking paper made a nice surface for painting on, and so far I'm pleased. It held up nicely to layers without too much creasing or buckling, which is good. It's kind of a cardstock thickness. I'll have to check what gsm is written on the paper pad. I might keep an eye out for seasonal paper pads when they're on sale, because I predict I'll be using them for painting again in future. Maybe after next Christmas I'll have finished with the paper I have and it will be the perfect time to buy a new one.

Here's the final piece with reinked lineart, unless I choose to go back and figure out where the rest of the lines in the hair go, Which I might, but that's a job for later. Tomorrow, a new piece of art.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 14 - J K Rowling Work in Progress 2

So now J K Rowling has dark hair and looks nothing like J K  Rowling. Admittedly, it wasn't a great likeness to begin with, but now she looks like an entirely different woman. I wanted to cover the splatters with my house paint sample - a British Paints sample pot in the colour Blue Gum Park - then go over that with a lighter blue that would be more similar in value to her actual blonde air. I'm getting into the process of layering different colours to add depth to the final painting. It will be easier once I figure out how all of my different brands and types of acrylic paint react to each other.

PRODUCTS USED (Assorted brands of paints):

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 13 - J K Rowling Work in Progress

I've started adding some colour to the J K Rowling sketch I painted yesterday. The splattery texture in the hair is there to cover up some lines I didn't want to keep. I added more spatters to make it look like a uniform pattern rather than one random splodge where the line was. It will mostly be covered up when I add the additional layers of hair colour anyway, but I wanted to make sure the original line wouldn't be visible.

I know I'm technically not posting a new artwork for the 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge today, but I've decided that I'd rather do part of a larger artwork each day than pump out 30 smaller, less polished artworks for the month. As long as I'm continuing to draw, paint and experiment with different ideas and techniques, and as long as I have something to post each day, I feel like I've accomplished what I intended to anyway.

PRODUCTS USED (Assorted brands of paints):

EDIT: Added these two posts into one because there wasn't that much progress between the two images.

Next step in the J K Rowling portrait. I've added some more shading and highlights to the face to make it look a bit less flat. I've used yellow, orange, red, magenta and blue to create the kind of purpley hue I've ended up with, which I quite like. The hair spatters are looking quite messy now, so hopefully they'll be covered up in the next step.

I'm probably going a bit overboard with the amount of blog posts for this one piece of artwork, but I like documenting the process for future reference. Maybe one day I'll look back at this and think "Good grief, why did I do it like that?" Only time will tell.

PRODUCTS USED (Assorted brands of paints):
 

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 12 - J K Rowling Sketch

Going back to working on some portraits today. Here's a 12x12 sketch of the author J K Rowling I'm working on at the moment. I'll need to fix the hair a bit in the painting stage, but hopefully that goes alright. I still have to decide what kind of colour scheme I'm using as well. I can't decide what would suit best.   

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 11 - Bethany

Just a small, simple abstract today. I played around with some simple techniques involving layering that ended up with me spending a large portion of the day on what turned out to be an unsatisfactory Mark Rothko impersonation. I put this together from unused paint and ended up preferring it to the main artwork I was working on. Such is life.

I've decided to work a little bigger for a while, which may slow down my 30 in 30 progress. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a portrait to show off that I'm a little more pleased with.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 10 - Jared

I've named this abstract Jared, mostly for the reason that I can't think of anything else to call it. Went with a male name this time, since it's fairly geometric, as opposed to some of my other abstracts like "Samantha". Might add some colour to it later, but for now I'm liking the black and white.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 9 - Beach

So here's a drawing of a beach in coloured pencil and ink. The colour of the sky and water seem to be too close together in this picture. The sky is more purple in the original. Every day, I have less and less to say about these pictures. Daily posting is hard.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 8 - Elephant

This time, I painted a little elephant. The background was originally orange, then painted over with green. It does provide an interesting depth of colour. I'll have to try that again. Maybe next time I'll underpaint a whole image, then paint over it again in contrasting colours.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 7 - Two Pears with Dots

Experimented a little with using strongly contrasting colours to make shading and texture with this one. The white of the polka dots was done with a sakura gel pen, but I think I might go over it with white paint as well. Next time I try some colourful pears I might try adding even more colours. It's hard to experiment with things that need a lot of layers to dry when you want to upload something every day.

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 6 - Half Pear

I'm finding that even redrawing the lineart that has been painted over it makes such a difference in how much the image pops. Also found out today what a difference it makes to paint an underpainting in a completely different colour to the one you want showing on top. That will be coming up in a couple of days. Todays pear was an experiment in painting a thicker layer rather than being so sparing, and I'm pretty happy. The colours aren't quite what I originally envisioned, but I quite like this one as it is.

I almost missed the deadline for submitting this one to the 30 in 30 linkup on Leslie Saeta's blog. It was sitting in my email ready to upload, but I didn't realise I hadn't submitted it. 

30 Paintings in 30 Days - Day 5 - Orange Cat

I've been drawing a few cats this month. I'd like to improve my drawings of cats, since it always frustrated me as a kid when the cats I drew looked like monkeys. It's kinda nice to think back to things like that and realise that you must have improved since then, and will continue to improve in future. I'm still a bit frustrated with my painting abilities. There are some bits I need to touch up where the paint brush got away with me, and I need to plan out my colour palettes better.

I'm going to go back over the lineart with my pen when it's dry so it looks dark and bold again. Might add some detail with coloured pencils as well, such as colouring the stripes.