Painting BIG

Normally, I paint small....no larger than about 12x12, but several years ago I bought this great old easel at an auction, and promptly bought a couple of huge canvases. Then it sat....for years. Suddenly the other evening I decided I just had to paint one!

I decided to go for it and do something kind of like the background I make for journal pages. It helped me get over the fear of that pristine canvas, to just think of it that way, and not worry about how it turns out...after all, if I hated it, I could gesso over it, and start anew.

I used Golden fluid acrylics and some acrylics in tubes. I layered on the colors using brushes and my fingers.

Added some water, and letting gravity paint.

  I painted with my fingers quite a bit. I also used foam brushes, and regular paint brushes.

 

I've not painted anything this large since high school. It was fun! I will definitely be trying this again in the near future.

This is the day the Lord has made....

This is a little project I started a while back:

I painted the bike, and then was searching for a verse that would fit, and also fit with a bike. Since riding my bike IS a way to rejoice in the day, I thought this one was perfect. It has my hand done wonky lettering, and I embrace that these days. In this day and age, most everything is computer generated, so I think it's rather refreshing to see something that is hand lettered and hand painted. As you can see, this is the same style sketch that I often do in my journals.

Vintage Camper...Home Sweet Home

I've been working on some little canvases today. I started out with some pretty greens and blues and yellows.

 I painted a vintage camper on an old map of the United States, and added some doodling. I love vintage campers, and someday I hope to have a little "canned ham" to travel with.

I like to paint the edges so they are as fun as the front. That way it doesn't have to be framed.

Muffler Men move to England

It makes me so happy to see someone fall in love with a piece of my artwork. Last month, Jules became the happy new owner of the Muffler Men of Illinois. This piece will now live in England! I like to get a picture like this one when I sell a piece...it makes it a little easier to let it go.

Cowboy Motel

Starting on another Route 66 piece today. This one is the Cowboy Motel sign which is Amarillo, Texas. I'm going to add some color to the cowboy drawing, too.  This one is on artist panel instead of canvas. Stay tuned!

Muffler Men on Route 66

 I do believe they are done. I love the old advertising giants that you find along Highways like Route 66. Those and great old signs draw me like a magnet. This piece has ledger pages and other vintages pages peeking through the painted background. It also has hand-printed papers added to the background. The men are painted in watercolor on shipping tags and held in place with glue and paper fasteners. In the corner is a flattened Route 66 Root Beer cap.

What's next? The Cowboy Motel in Texas!

Route 66 Canvas

I drew these tags last year, and I'm finally getting around to (hopefully) making them into a finished piece. This has vintage papers (some from towns on Route 66), monoprinted papers, acrylic paint, and tags that are inked and watercolored. I'l probably use the Route 66 stamp I carved too.

One thing I like to do, is to pretty much make it all myself...stamps, papers and all. This is going to be one heck of a bright piece, but I'm liking it so far.

Three Rivers

This is a piece that was commissioned. I wanted to incorporate elements of the recipient's Native American heritage. All the elements have meaning, the ledger paper I drew the Indian on, the map, the stars, the 7 feathers, the arrowheads.  It was interesting trying to get it all to work together. The customer was very happy with it, and that makes me happy!

I wanted to use the 7 feathers, and I also wanted to make them look a bit magical, and the "zentangle" or doodling seemed to fit the bill. The little dots and circles are to represent the wind....to make them kind of swirl around the piece.

I loved making these feathers and will be making more of them, I'm sure!

I drew this hunter from the image on the website. I tried to find multiple images to work from, but the one on the Sappony website was the only image I found of a Sappony Indian. I went ahead and drew from it, since I wanted the Indian to be accurate for that tribe, and not a generic image.  So, I did him in ink on vintage ledger paper, and antiqued the edges a bit with ink from a stamp pad.

Feathers and pressing on

I was going a bit crazy last night. I'd been trying to do the background for a piece that I need to have done soon, and nothing was going right. I kept muddying up the colors and...well my mojo had left the building. So I covered it all in gesso and started over. I decided that maybe simpler was better, and I picked 2 greens and a yellow and applied them with a credit card. I like it! Especially since I've started drawing over it with the white. I need to work some antiquey papers on to it as well, and I'm not sure how that's going to work, but think I might be able to mesh the two somehow. I have a couple ideas floating around in my head.