Recycling an Old Post

I wanted to share an old blog post I wrote nearly a year ago that you might enjoy again.  Go ahead and check it out!

CLICK HERE


I hope everyone is having a good day and week!!! Take care!

Sketch a Little, Think a Little

What a time this has been!  When the weather is this nice, good times are to be had!  We enjoyed a festival this weekend and a bunch of outside time.  Just before I put my son down for a nap we played in the water outside.  He has a little squirt bottle he enjoyed chasing me around with while he squirted water at me.  I hope you are enjoying your time with family and friends!  Also, happy belated Mother's Day!  It rained here so we didn't get to do what my husband wanted but I still didn't have to cook or clean all day!  Now that was nice!  I can not wait to see what he has in store for me now that it is nice out.

To continue on from last week's post about research, I hope you are sketching away on your ideas.  I worked a little today before my son starting chasing me around.  Here is an example of how I work:

This sketch isn't complete but a good start to what I am working on.  I think I want to do a mini series of butterflies but monochromatic in theme.  When I was talking about research I meant learn about the subject you plan to draw or paint.  I spent some time learning about butterflies and now I am sketching them.  The hard part about butterflies is that they are symmetrical which makes painting them with their wings open hard.  I might throw in a few closed wings to make that process simpler.  Notice the notes I take along with the sketch.  It helps remind myself of the thinking process I have as I sketch and brainstorm my finished product.  Problem solving through a painting starts at the very beginning and goes all the way to the very end.  Just watch some of my painting videos and you will see....I still kept working through problems.  

I hope you are enjoying working through your projects and having fun with this weather.  Remember to be the best artist you can be!

Research

I love this weather but the down side to it is having my car windows open.  It doesn't make sense does it?  Let me explain.  Right about lunch time I found myself driving around town with my windows open.  I passed a restaurant and BAM!  I smelled the delicious food cooking inside.  That is the downfall to this weather, I can smell all the wonderful cooking going on.  We have a rule in our house.  We can only watch cooking shows while we are eating.  If we are watching a food show about burgers and have not had dinner yet....we want burgers.  It has happened so many times that this rule we made went into effect.  I hope you have better self-control then we do when it comes to food.

Have you ever thought about what an artist does before they sit down and paint?  Or do you think they can just pop something out like it is nothing because they are an artist?  Many times people just write off my art like I can just create something at the drop of a hat.  It really is not that simple.  One of my favorite paintings I have created took months to do.  That does not just include the painting process.  I have to do studies.  Studies being pictures of the subject I want to paint, sketching over and over again to get the subject done just right, and thumbnail sketches to prepare the whole image before I put it on canvas.  A thumbnail sketch is pretty much what it sounds like, a small sketch of the intended finished product.  A lot of the time I will scale down the image's intended size so I can create the proper ratios in the image.  So, when I scale the image back up to the intended size, the dimensions and ratios look correct.  (Who would have thought an artist can sound all technical?).  Artists are problem solvers.  That is why art is so important for children to experience.  I find myself trying to solve problems in my art all the time.  How can I make this look right?  Why is that color not looking bright enough?  I need more space in this image, how can I achieve that?  This is why researching your painting before you paint it is so important.  I find myself thinking and working through an idea for months sometimes before I even sketch it out.  That is what I have been doing lately.  I find myself thinking of exactly what I want to do and how I am going to do it.  No artist starts a painting without some sort of planning and research first.  Do you have an idea?  Plan it out.  Research the subject.  Sketch.  Sketch some more.  When you think you sketched enough, sketch some more.  Then, start you painting.

I wish you luck in your research, and remember to be the best artist you can be!