Fergie - Mixed Media Portrait by Renee Dillon

I feel like I've found a solution to the problems I was having with finding a substrate for my art. I thought I'd get a nice pad of watercolour paper to try out. Instead I found a Canson Acrylic Pad at Lincraft. It has an almost canvasy texture to it, but it's still thin enough to use on my lightbox. It doesn't crease and the paint sits nicely on the surface.

This was my first experiment using the new paper and I'm loving it so far. It feels a bit more classy than regular cartridge paper, so I wouldn't feel bad selling an artwork made on it, but it's not so expensive that I'm too afraid to use it.

PRODUCTS USED:

(Not this paper pad, but something very like this, various brands of paint)

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 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 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 2 - Purple Cat

The photo of this one looks a little washed out. The original is purple with a coral orange coloured background. I'll have to adjust it later to make that more apparent. This is day 2 of Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days challenge, which I wanted to upload before I went to bed.

Good night, everyone.