Pointillism

So no painting video this week...but still a blog post!  I did a painting this week but I will post a picture later.  It is a gift so I need to wait until I give it before I can share with the world what it looks like. The weather looks like it is finally getting warmer and the days will stay lighter longer so I can finally climb out of my home to see the sun.  I feel like I have been hibernating these last few months, trying to keep my little cub warm.  We are going to visit family this coming weekend and go to one of my high school friend's weddings.  Most of my friends have been married so I am finally coming to the end of going to weddings and soon my friends can have some babies and join me in my lack of sleep but complete mommy bliss.  I can't wait!

As usual I was trying to find what I would write about this week.  I thought I can write again about Art Therapy because I read a great article about it this week but thought nah...y'all need something new.  So my chromcast gave me my answer as it scrolls through its random pictures it displays on my television.  George Seurat and pointillism.  Pointillism defined by Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is:

Pointillism: a style of painting in which a picture is formed from small dots of color.

Artists who use this technique are well educated in the art of color theory.  They use certain colors side by side to enhance another color.  And they also let the eye mix the color instead of doing it with the paint.  So putting yellow and red next to each other will let the eye mix it into orange instead of pre-mixing it on the palette. Here is one of George Seurat, a famous artist who used pointillism, more well known works:

Sunday in the Park Grande-Jatte by George Seurat

You might know this famous painting from one of two places....The musical "Sunday in the Park with George" which is a great musical where at the end all the characters line up to create this painting OR the iconic scene in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" here is the scene:

Ferris Bueller's Museum Scene

Pointillism is one of my favorite styles of painting because of the use of color theory and softness it creates to the image.  Also I have a lot of respect for anyone that works with this technique because the amount of patience it must take...I just do not have that patience.  

I hope everyone is enjoying their week.  Do not forget to change your clocks this weekend.  Remember Fall-you fall back an hour, Spring-you spring forward an hour.  So we will loose one hour of sleep...so try to go to bed early.  But if you are anything like me....you'll stay up trying to finish watching the newest season of House of Cards.  

Also do not forget to check out my Etsy shop:Brenna Dailey Art Shop

and my twitter: @BrennaDaileyArt  I posted that article about Art Therapy if you want to read it.

Have a great week and remember I am here to help you be the best artist you can be and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in the comments below.  

One Down More to Come

The orange painting is finally done!  What a relief!  I have been wanting to bring the final product to you so you could enjoy it and see what I was wanting it to look like for so long.  I hope you like it and have had as much fun as I have doing these videos.  My videos might be choppy and not the best quality but, we will get better as we do this process together.  I do hope you learned something.  I have all this knowledge in my head and I would love to share it with you and I hope that some of it got to your ears.

Here is a close up of the finished painting.

I do want to apologize for the brightness in the video and how you can not see much of what I am doing.  It was just so bright outside that day from the snow that using white on camera was really out of the question.  If you like this painting but not the fruit, say you want a blueberry or pear let me know and I can paint one for you.  This painting is up in my Etsy shop and ready for purchase at the link here:

Etsy Shop

I will not be doing anymore videos for the next few weeks because I will be traveling and I need to think up some new things to show you.  I plan on just doing some fun videos for information that you can use.  I will of course keep posting blogs and keeping you updated on any art I will be working on.  The painting videos will come back just not for a few weeks.  If you want me to answer any questions you might have about any art related topic, let me know, either here or in person if you know me, and I will answer them at the best of my knowledge.  

Do not forget to check out the video, the link is below.  I hope you enjoyed these first videos!  Take care!

Watch the Video Here!

Slice

I have finally painted the slice!  Well...so far.  Once you watch the video you can see I get a little confused and I tried to cut out the bits where I got frustrated.  I started off painting it without really knowing how I wanted it to come out and you can tell.  I had to do some major problem solving throughout the video.  I do plan on going back into it this week.  But no worries I will just give an update in the next video about what I did instead of prolonging the completion of the painting.  What happened was I layered on too much paint and it just got muddy.  I kept changing my mind and instead of scraping off paint, I kept layering on more.  That is the downfall to painting thickly.  You make a muddy mess.  I plan on getting all problems solved before the next video installment.

In the video I give some vocabulary for you to learn.  Hue, Shade and Tint.  Here are the definitions according to Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

Hue: a color or a shade of a color

Shade: a darkened area in a drawing, painting

Tint: variation of a color produced by adding white to it

So, if you ever hear me talking about a "hue" know I am just meaning a color.  If you ever hear me talking about a "shade" or a color, it is that color+black mixed in.  And finally, if you hear me say "tint" I am talking about that color+white mixed in.

I hope that helped clarify it for you.  Sorry that the video was cut a lot because of my frustration.  But you will find that happens when you paint...you get frustrated that the painting is not working out.  Those are the moments you just need to walk away and come back later.  At least, that is what works for me.  I hope you enjoy the video and look forward to next week when we FINALLY finish the painting! YAY!  I will now leave you with a picture of an orange....all this talk about oranges makes me want one.  Take care!

WATCH VIDEO HERE!

Seeing Things Differently

As I wait for my video to upload I usually try to write my blog.  I am so impatient when it comes to the computer.  I grew up in the time when I am used to getting information right away.  This week I re-worked the orange that I started and I like how it came out.  I do not plan on touching it again and will finally be able to move on.  I know you as a viewer are thinking "finally!"

During the video I talked about what I wrote about in last week's blog.  About taking a picture with your camera to see the contrast in your painting better.  I think a lot of the reason it works is it makes you see your painting in a different way.  You begin to see all the flaws or the good parts of your work.  Do you ever feel that way when you see yourself on camera or in a photograph and think...."what am I wearing" or "is that how my hair really looks".  I find myself doing that when I re-watch the videos.  I think "my goodness Brenna....why did you wear that shirt" or whatever critiques I have for myself.  Even my painting I think looks different in the video then it does in real life.  At the end of the video I include the pictures I take in the video at the end of the video so you can see.  You might think too, that painting looks different!  Here are the pictures:

I like the painting so much more in real life then in the video.  But, the video is there to teach you something new, not for the best quality cinematography.  See how the black and white filter shows you the contrast in the painting?  It helps me see if I need to add anything.  I am happy with how it came out and plan to keep it as is.  I am excited to start on the slice next week.  I might even work on it this week during my son's nap time.  If I am not tired from the night before with him waking up.  So keep coming back and seeing what is going on and I hope you are getting something out of this blog and video series.  If you would like me to help with anything or answer any questions you are having, please comment below so I can address them for you!

Watch Video Here!

The Value of Color

I finished my second video and as I filmed it I realized I need to talk to you about the value of color.

The definition of Value according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary is:
 the relative lightness or darkness of a color, the relation of one part in a picture to another with respect to lightness and darkness.

When people think of value they usually think of the range between black and white.  Well, color has a value too.  I will show you how you can do this by showing you a little trick I figured out.  In my video I explain this too, but, color a piece of paper with the colors of the rainbow, for time sake, I found a picture online:

I took a picture of it instead of just copy and pasting it to show you my trick.  Now change the mode on your camera to "black and white" now take a picture again:

Are you surprised by what colors are dark and which are lighter?  I know I am always surprised that red is dark.  But, it makes sense if you heard in my video that when adding red to a lighter pigment like yellow, it dominates the yellow.  So, if you are painting an image and you do not think you got the value right and know you need to add some lightness to the image, take a picture in "black and white" mode with your camera.  That will show you if you need to add more value and where and how.  

Like last time, I kept walking by the painting I am showing you in the video and I realized I need to add more.  So next week, I will keep working on the orange to get it just right before I work on the slice.  

I also wanted to add the link to the article I talk about in the end of the video about the history of paint.  It is very interesting and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  

History of Colors

Also do not forget to watch the video here:

Watch Video Here!

My First Video

As promised I have made my first of many videos demonstrating my painting process.  I added some advice and information to the video so you can learn as you watch.  Please know that these videos are to benefit you as you create your own work and become the best artist you can be.

I am no cinematographer and you can probably tell with the video.  As I make more videos, I hope to get better.  You get to see that process and how long it will take me to get there....it might be a LONG time.  In the video, I talk about basic color knowledge that I have found a lot of people forget after grade school mostly because their is not much use for it in the real world.  Well, if you are an artist or trying to get started with your art, you do need to know the basics.  Your primary colors are the three colors you use to make other colors.  Yellow, Red, and Blue.  From them you get your Secondary colors, which you mix two of the Primary colors to create.  Green, Orange, and Violet.  Below are the color combinations to make those colors:

Yellow + Blue = Green

Red + Yellow = Orange

Blue + Red = Violet

I quickly mentioned in the video about complementary colors.  They are the colors that are opposite of another color on the color wheel.  This is best shown in the Color Wheel Image below:

I made sure to find a Color Wheel image that did the best in showing the color opposite of another.  So, you can see that the opposite of Violet is Yellow and Blue is Orange and Red is Green.  What has always helped me in the past is I always remember that one set of Complementary colors are Christmas colors!  Red and Green.  General knowledge of this can help the Color Theory of you paintings.  Since I am painting an orange I will use Blue to help bring out the colors of the fruit.  In my next video I will talk more about this.  

After I filmed the video I kept walking past the painting and thinking...that orange is just not big enough so, I went back and made it larger.  I did not film this and my husband thought I should but I figured I would just tell you here so you don't freak out when you see the Orange is larger (I doubt you will freak out but bare with me).  

This begins the series of videos and blogs about my paintings and any advice I can give.  Please leave me comments below or in the video's comments if you have any questions.  Also do not forget to follow me on Twitter to see what I am talking about @BrennaDaileyArt.

Today is National Chocolate Cake Day so I don't know about you but I am going to celebrate! 

YUM!!!

Click here to view my video

Watch and Enjoy!

Preparing Your Space

I received my supplies!  They came in last Thursday right when I was getting ready to go out of town for the weekend so, I didn't get to start on my paintings.  Which is a good thing since I still need to prepare my work space.  This week is a great time to prepare your space since next week I will start posting short videos to show you my painting process.

Find a space in your house that you can set up your stuff without it being in the way.  This is hard for me because we live in a small house with a mobile baby and a hyper dog.  Our laundry/mud room/sun room/ whatever room is my best location.  I have a closet loaded with my art supplies and my easel already in there.  As you set up make sure you have a surface to set your canvas/board down, in my case I have an easel.  Then, make sure you have a table next to that surface that you can collect all the supplies you need on that table.  Also, make sure you have a stool if you like to sit while you work.  I'm odd and get up multiple times during painting because I like to move while I think through my process.  Finally, collect your supplies you plan on using.  I will have paint brushes, palette knives, a cup of water (since I am using acrylic paints), paper towels, the modeling paste, pumice gel, PAINT, a plate or surface of some kind to mix the paint, and a glass of water to drink (don't mix that up with your rinsing water...that might not taste too good).  Have it all ready?  Great!  Now, you can get started!

Next week, I'll get started!  I will upload a short video on my first part of my painting.  I will start slowly and each week I will add to the painting.  This video is for advice not to copy my work.  Please create your own masterpiece!  It will be a lot more fun to tell people that you created it all on your own.  At the end of the video series for my first painting I will sell the painting to whom ever would like to purchase it.  I will load it to my Etsy shop for purchase.  This week get those spaces ready and your mind buzzing with ideas of paintings you would like to try.  See you next week friends!

My supplies!  Modeling paste and Pumice gel

Etsy Shop