"Rosy Lavender" - Color Throwdown 367

Here's another Color Throwdown challenge that I'm just managing to get done at the last minute. I'll get better at remembering the deadlines for these, I promise. 

I've decided to go with more of a greeting card style for this particular challenge, since to be fair that's what I'm actually supposed to be making when I enter these. If you wanted, you could pop a sentiment on the bottom left corner, but I decided to leave it blank. I tried to go for a loose colouring style with a soft brush, but I'm not sure if it just looks like I accidentally went over the edges and didn't bother to fix it.

"Rosy Lavender Greeting Card", November 2015

Thanks for looking. :)

Strive Home and Design - Handbags Coming Soon

Well I've been working hard this past month at my day job, so this morning I was feeling pretty fatigued. Luckily, I received an email this afternoon with some exciting news that has invigorated me. As some of you may know, I've been planning to have my designs printed on some things to sell in an online store. I've been going though the plans for the last few months, researching possible objects, finding manufacturers, discussing logistics, calculating potential cost and profit margins. It seemed like a big undertaking, with a lot of things that could go wrong. But, despite my cautious nature, I decided to say "Why not?" and took a chance on it. And today, it's looking like that chance is paying off.

This is the very first sample of the first handbag I've ordered. You might recognise the pattern as "Space Highway", from an earlier blog post. And here it is. On a bag. That actually exists. And I'm positively thrilled about it. All that remains is to look at the handbag in person when it arrives, then go about placing my first bulk order.

There are still some decisions to make, and some work to be done before I can start selling, but this is a huge step forward for me. I'd really love to be able to develop a business around my designs and today I'm the closest I've ever been to making that a reality. It's a good feeling.

"Lady Beatle" - Digital Mandala

I adore the colours in this one. Shades of aqua/blue and pink together make me so happy. I thought this one looked like a scarab in feminine colours, so I called it "Lady Beatle".

"Lady Beatle", Digital, September 2015

"Hibiscus and Pansies" - Floral Repeating Pattern

I keep coming back to pansies as one of my go-to flowers to draw. They have a nice shape to them, and they come in some pretty colours. I'd rather like this pattern on a summer dress.

"Hibiscus and Pansies", Digital, September 2015

I made this red hibiscus pattern first, before I drew the pansies. it looks very Hawaiian in red.

"Red Hibiscus", Digital, September 2015

"Ditsy Daffodils" - Colour Throwdown CTD364 - Repeating Floral Pattern

The running shoe seems appropriate because I'm in the middle of a marathon of shifts at work. My blog posts for the last few days have been scheduled and updated automatically, which is good because I've hardly had time to touch them. Unfortunately that also means I forgot to upload this one in time to add it to the list on the Color Throwdown website. Aah well.

I miss drawing at the moment, but in a couple of days I'll have a day off, so hopefully I'll get something done and won't be too tired to work on the ideas that have been floating around in my head lately. Today, here's a ditsy daffodil pattern, 

"Naughts and Crosses" - Digital Mandala

Another stripe-style mandala. I like the happy white cloud shape in the background.

"Naughts and Crosses", Digital, September 2015

"Naughts and Crosses Tiling", Digital, September 2015

"Cross Stripe" - Digital Mandala

Another mandala from back in September. I think I need to keep better track of which pictures I've uploaded and which ones are already on the blog. When everything is all together in one folder it's easy to lose things.

"Cross Stripe", Digital, September 2015

This one becomes a patterned stripe in tiling form, because the pattern doesn't touch the sides. So that's a kind of cool thing to do.

"Cross Stripe Tiling", Digital, September 2015

"Feather" - Seamless Repeating Pattern

At this point, I'm not even sure why I called this one "Feather", but that was what the file was called so I guess I'll go with that.

"Feather", Digital, September 2015

"Mermaid" - Digital Mandala

I loved this one so much I made it my new Facebook cover image. In hindsight, I wasn't that happy with the 'temporary' art I'd put there but forgotten to replace. So glad I finally realised that I had nice new art to replace it with. The brighter colours really freshen the page up.

"Mermaid", Digital Mandala, October 2015

"Chrysalis Psychedelia" - Digital Repeating Pattern

Today's piece has a bit of a simpler shape than some of the other art I've been working on recently. It's just an oblong with some marks inside. I'd like to create more like this, because I think it makes a rather striking repeating pattern. It's simple, but the gradient adds a bit of texture to it. The shape makes me think of a butterfly chrysalis, hence the title.

"Chrysalis Psychedelia", Digital, September 2015, 36x24 Inch

"Disco Ant" - Digital Mandala

Another of my mandalas, completed back in September. I have to start posting these as I do them, rather than thinking of something clever to say, or they'll never get posted.

"Disco Ant", September 2015

"Space Highway" - Digital Mandala

Talking about your own art can be one of the most difficult parts of the process. I've always wanted to share what I'm working on with others, but coming up with a spiel to go along with it tends to trip me up. It feels strange to just post an image with no accompanying explanation, but I find there isn't much to say. I'm not a very conceptual artist, so even coming up with a title can be tricky. And while I like to be a positive and uplifting person, talking about how much you like your own art leaves you balancing the fine line between obnoxiously self-confident and annoyingly self-deprecating. It can be hard to convey the fact that you're happy with your work (sometimes more than others) but you see there are things you'd like to improve upon and areas you'd like to explore. Except in that one exact sentence, and that hardly lends itself to a second blog post.

My favourite art bloggers seem to have galleries that they exhibit in, art-related businesses that they run, sponsors to talk about, or ongoing personal projects to discuss. It's easy to compare yourself to someone who has spent many years cultivating their online presence and find yourself falling short. But it's important to look at the things they do well and create those traits in yourself. 

I wonder that I don't have any projects to work on, but I don't start them. I get distracted easily by other ideas, which makes it very difficult to work in series or finish a long term project. But I intend to change that. For the last few months, I've been planning to have some things manufactured with my designs and sell them online. In a manner that is most unlike me, I've made concrete steps towards my goal, rather than planning things in the abstract until I lose interest. I know I have to see actual results, such as sales of products that I've created, so that I know the effort is worthwhile and I should keep going. The next step is to decide which artwork should adorn my first item and have the sample made up and sent to me.

I've been working on several abstract designs that I can have printed on handbags. So far, this is my favourite. Whether this ends up being my first printed design or not, I still haven't decided. But it's nice to be making art that I can feel proud of again.

"Space Highway", Digital, September 2015

The Curly Haired Lady - Acrylic Painted Portrait by Renee Dillon

After the slow blogging month I had in April, I've decided to try posting daily again, like I was doing in January. Unfortunately there isn't another 30 in 30 challenge going on this month, but hopefully I'll still be able to motivate myself. It's all about developing habits, and not letting myself get distracted by other projects.

My theme for this month is simple, graphic, pop art style portraits on 12x12 scrapbooking cardstock. I'm still working on exactly what I want to do with them. I like the simplicity of just the lineart, but I think I like the background to be painted a different colour to add a bit of contrast. In this piece, I decided to add a bit of colour to the lips, eyes and jewelry, to see how I liked it.

For today's portrait, I was inspired by this weeks Color Throwdown colour palette - bright pink, lime green and sky blue. Excuse the dodgy photograph, the colours are much brighter in real life. I'll take a better picture with my camera in the morning. But for now, it's here, and that will do. Not sure what possessed me to do pink for the eyes instead of green, but it is interesting. Experiment, try new things sometimes.

Valencia - Symmetrical Tiling Digital Abstract in Pink and White

Uploading images is not nearly as fun as creating art, but I'm starting to streamline the process a bit. Here's another of my new digital artworks. I named it Valencia because the little sections in the middle reminded me of orange segments. 

"Valencia", Digital Symmetrical Abstract

I really love the look of one colour on white. It's very simple, yet works so well. I'd love to have this pattern printed at Spoonflower and make it into a shirt or dress at some point. If you're interested in purchasing prints or items with my art on them, you can check out my Fine Art America or Society 6 stores. Fine Art America is also great if you want to see my art in more of a gallery format, rather than in blog posts. Thanks for looking. :)

Taking the Plunge

Now that I'm not pushing myself to post everyday to my blog, I find that I'm trying to come up with blog posts that contain more substance. If I only post once or twice a week, I feel like I should be able to come up with something relevant or profound to say to accompany my art or my process. Which is all well and good. But the pressure of creating fewer, better quality blog posts is leading me to avoid posting at all. I've still been painting and drawing this past couple of weeks, of course. But the idea of the deadline that spurred me along is gone. I've been second guessing the things that I want to say and the work-in-progress paintings that I could have posted over the last few days.

I find that this happens a lot with my art. I'm getting better at the concept of just creating something, without worrying whether it will be right or good enough. But when it comes to things like taking print quality images of my finished art, connecting with other artists and bloggers, writing tutorials and useful guest posts to share my art around and developing blog traffic, I put it off. I think there's a part of myself that puts these things off because they make it too real. If I haven't done them yet, I can still consider myself to be at the beginning of my journey. I haven't made the attempt yet, so I can't consider that it hasn't worked.

It's not even the fact that I believe it won't work. I'm almost positive that if I do the things on my to-do list, it will increase traffic to my blog, followers on my Facebook page, sales of my prints and original paintings. But the nagging feeling is still there that it won't happen straight away, or at all. As long as these concepts are in the future, I don't have to deal with them just yet.

Now is the time to let go of that mentality, and move forward. It's time to start really trying to advance my artistic career and see where it takes me. One day I'd really like to be able to work as an artist full time, both teaching art and selling my work. The only way I'll ever get there is to do what any other successful artist has done - plunge in and start working towards it. It won't happen all by itself. There won't ever be a better time than now.

After writing this blog post and psyching myself up, I finally got a decent quality photograph and uploaded my artwork Austin to Fine Art America. Judging by my previous blog posts, I've been meaning to do this since about August last year. Better late than never. You can now buy prints of this image as well as throw cushions, phone cases etc. The original is also still available for sale for $1800.

"Austin", 29x39, Acrylic on Canvas, $1800

Amy Work in Progress - Symmetrical Tiling Abstract by Renee Dillon

Here is my offering for the 1st of February, my very first hour of the month, as mentioned in my previous post. The first image was actually from January, and doesn't count as time spent in today's hour, but I thought I'd post it anyway. It's a digital draft or colour palette test that I whipped up by colouring over my sketch in Photoshop. I think I should do these colour tests more often, but I think I should stick to them rather than choosing random colours for the digital version and then choosing random colours again for the painting. The digital also tiles at a smaller scale than the original, which makes it harder to see the detail.

As usual, my photo of the painting is a little crooked, so please forgive that. Also, the colours didn't photograph very well. The grayish colour you're seeing is supposed to be metallic purple paint, which looks quite nice in real life. The yellow and green were markers, because I thought I'd go a bit more mixed media with this one and see how it turned out. The markers definitely give a lot more control in small spaces, which I like. Bic Mark-Its also seem to be fairly streak-free in small spaces as well, which I love.

I won't necessarily be trying to post daily in February, but I'll try to stay on the wagon as far as actually creating art goes. Wish me luck!

Total Time Spent Making Art in February: 1 Hour

Pink and Yellow Lady

This is one of the faces that I drew while I was in Birmingham, England. I didn't draw as much as I would have liked while I was over there, as we were pretty busy a lot of the time. There was also a lot of waiting around time, like on planes or in airports, but I never felt like getting all of my drawing stuff out during those times. Sketching isn't too tricky in a public place, but getting out multiple coloured pencils or markers is more trouble than it's worth if you have a spare ten minutes to doodle.

I'm finding it a bit hard to find the words to go with these blog posts. I've been letting my art pile up while I think about something meaningful to say, but ultimately I think I just have to post the pictures and let them speak for themselves when I have nothing else to say about them. Not every blog post has to be a novel.

Larry the French Bulldog - Watercolour Pencil Pet Portrait by Renee Dillon in Orange, Pink and Grey

I finally got around to trying out my new camera and uploading a video to Youtube. I've been wanting to post a video of my art for a while now. I'm still a little daunted by the process, but it was more simple than I thought it would be. My camera setup and editing skills will get better with time and practice.

The beginning of the video is cut off because the camera went to sleep while I was setting up and pressing the record button just woke it up rather than starting recording. That's something to keep in mind. I've also found out that recording sessions are recorded to about 29 minutes on still cameras, as the sensor heats up more quickly than conventional video cameras. That wasn't an issue on this occasion, but I was a little wary of it because I don't want to burn out my new camera.

For my first video, I painted a french bulldog with my Derwent watercolour pencils and waterbrush. I haven't used watercolour pencils in years, so I need to get back into practice using them. I like the control of coloured pencil combined with the softness of watercolour, but they can leave scratchy pencil marks that don't blend out very easily. The lineart was drawn with my Bic Mark-It in Tuxedo Black, which is the best waterproof pen I've found. It's important to have a waterproof pen when working with wet media or it will bleed everywhere and become a mess. Trust me. I still remember the times before I knew waterproof pens existed.

I've also been looking into the Icarus Drawing Board If you haven't heard of it, it's a heated pad that warms coloured pencil as you work and melts the wax to form a softer, blended image more quickly. At over $200 for the smallest version, it's a little pricey, so I've been looking for a homemade alternative to melting coloured pencil wax. Burnishing with baby oil works really well, but I've left oil stains on work before by accidently using too much. Finding the right art materials and techniques can be a long and complicated process, but I'm slowly getting to where I need to be.

I'll post a picture of the finished artwork later. For now, enjoy my speed painting of Larry the French Bulldog.

"Jasper" - Color Throwdown Challenge CTD308 - Digital Seamless Tiling Abstract Design in Yellow, Orange and Pink

Yellow, pink and orange is one of my favourite colour palettes, so I was very excited when I saw this week's Color Throwdown Challenge. This week I decided to go back to seamless tiling abstract artworks. I haven't been making enough abstracts lately, and I need a few to get some greeting cards or post cards printed up. Also a few Spoonflower fabric designs. Maybe some throw cushions. I'll see where it takes me.

I went a smidge brighter on the yellow to get it a bit closer to the banana yellow shade of the bottles. That shade of orange is similar to the one I used on "Austin", which reminds me of orange sherbet. The shapes I've used came out looking like lanterns and hourglasses. That's one of the things I love about making symmetrical tiling abstract art - you can get an idea of how something is going to turn out, but the end result is almost always surprising in some way.

"Jasper", Digital Seamless Tiling Abstract Art, 6x6

Remember to follow Renee Dillon Art on Facebook if you'd like to stay up to date with my new work. Thanks for looking. :)

"Austin" is Now Available for Sale

So, remembering that I have a blog today. I'm not nearly as consistent with it as I would like. I've been posting nearly daily on Instagram to try and build up a following on there. I find that I get very single minded with social media, and post in batches on one while neglecting the others. Then realise I haven't posted anything on my blog or Facebook page for a month. The difficult part is that blog require words as well as pictures, and what I have to say isn't always relevant to the artwork. Maybe I should talk generally about my life more, I don't know.

Anyway, I finally got around to putting a Paypal Buy Now button on my blog so I can actually try to sell some art. I couldn't find out how to set it up so the button doesn't let two people buy it, so in the unlikely event that two people buy before I have a chance to disable the button, I'll refund the second purchase. EDIT: Fixed this problem and hopefully it will now only sell one painting to one person.

"Austin", Geometric Art Nouveau Style Acrylic Painting, Acrylic on Canvas, $1800

Will try to get a decent photo of it hanging up on a wall. So many things to do. I've also made a list, below, of the social networking sites and galleries where you can find my work (or will be able to find my work in future). Thanks for looking.

Renee Dillon Art on Blogger
Renee Dillon Art on Instagram
Renee Dillon Art on Facebook
Renee Dillon Art on Society6
Renee Dillon Art on Fine Art America
Renee Dillon Art on Saatchi Art (Formerly Saatchi Online)
Renee Dillon Art on Etsy
Renee Dillon Art on Twitter