#PaintSeptember's Final Contribution

September has come to a close.  I only painted one more for the month - a water color painting from a photograph of a flower (I think it's a dahlia), growing in a neighbor's garden. The piece started out using water color pencils, but I was unhappy with the way it was progressing, so switched to actual water color paints about two thirds the way through.

That just made the piece saturated with water paint and didn't necessarily make me any happier about it lol. I was going to post some work in progress photos, but decided to just post the finished painting because it ended up changing so much from how it started.

There is a reason I usually work with acrylic or oil paint, because I tend to try for too much detail using the paint instead of allowing the water to help create the final image.  Perhaps I can learn how to chill about it - keeping the 'less is more' attitude for the next water color painting I attempt, or maybe staying with acrylics and oils is a better match for me and the style I'm most accustomed to.

There are a couple more hash tag groups starting this month - #thedailysketch and #DRAWtoberfest - both of which are a great way to keep moving forward producing new artwork, while also continuing to meet and support other artists which has been so inspirational and fun.

Regular color pencil drawings and water color pencil drawings/paintings would both fall into those hash tag categories, so this might be a good opportunity to keep practicing with them more - or maybe getting out the graphite pencil and keeping the artwork dry for awhile is a better idea.

Thank you to anyone who may read this :)

Where Does the Month Go?

September is almost over, it has been a very creative month. Today I'm working on what will likely be my last #paintseptember painting which I will post when complete, but meanwhile, here is the next one painted after those posted already below. A brightly colored, stylized version of a flower  - acrylic paint on canvas.

Following that painting, I was inspired by something I saw one night while outside. I looked up and the moon was for a very brief moment peaking through from between the clouds. I photographed it (which was of course blurry and non defined seeing as I used my phone), but it did give me enough to go on for inspiration to paint this next one - acrylic paint on canvas.

While trying to decide what to paint next, I thought to give painting some rocks I have collected a go - I've collected many rocks over the years and as I was going through them to decide which ones to paint, came across the three heart shaped rocks that I'd found while digging through the garden. This first photo is the work in progress, showing the actual rocks and the water color pencils that I used to create the drawing, with the first one painted.

This is the finished artwork, though I may still add a background - haven't decided yet, but for now it is complete.

Have a great Sunday everyone and keep the creative juices flowing! Now back to #paintseptember number 7 :)

Joined Zazzle, new features and 'Two Tulips' added

Well I figured I might as well expand my online reach a little bit more and signed up at Zazzle.com. For those of you unfamiliar with Zazzle, it is a venue for 'store owners' to upload designs which can be printed on various items and clothing on demand.  I will post a link once I've got my first store all set up and ready for visitors.

Meanwhile, I spent most of last weekend scanning various forgotten drawings and art that has been sitting in my portfolio case.  Much of it likely won't make it online, but some is worth preparing for upload.

I have decided to put less energy into maintaining my profile on Image Kind, since I have been reading in the forums that there is a genuine concern by members of a poorly designed internal search engine in place.  Even though IK offers high quality prints (some say among the best), this search issue is a problem since other unrelated images appear first a lot of the time (even if searching with the exact keywords).  As a free member it is doubly hard to get noticed since we are only allowed limited categorization and keywords and the poorest placement in the search hierarchy to start with.

I'm very content with maintaining Fine Art America, Red Bubble and The Untapped Source however :)

There are a few more features to mention since last week; 'Bono' got it's second feature on FFA yesterday in http://fineartamerica.com/groups/realistic-portraiture.html and 'Tillie' got her first feature on FAA today in http://fineartamerica.com/groups/shelter-dogs.html.  'John Lennon' has been featured four times since my last post (to view the groups, please see the links posted under the painting on the 'Paintings' page).

This morning I added 'Two Tulips', which is a 9" x 12" acrylic painting on canvas:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/two-tulips

http://www.redbubble.com/two-tulips

http://www.theuntappedsource.com/two-tulips

Cheers! :)