Dream Hawk - New Painting For 2012

This painting came from a dream I had many years ago, I had even made a pastel drawing of it at that time. I came across my old drawing and decided to give it another shot, my updated interpretation of that dream from twenty years ago.  The dream itself was very powerful in were I was given temporary guardianship of a hawk. The hawk in return gave me pure love and acceptance....I awoke from this powerful dream in such a state of peace and love.

I'm not sure if it's finished yet, I may go back and do a few tweaks yet, but here is my first painting of this new year. I've allowed lot of things interrupt me along the way and was not able to focus myself to paint on a regular basis...no excuses, but I'm glad to have this one done.

Below are some shots I took along the way of my process. I changed my approach on this painting somewhat. Most times I start with a black background, but this time instead of launching right into colour I fleshed everything out in white, then applied tints of colours over that. I think I may try this again.

I have to admit, I kind of like this softer version of my finished painting. I suppose I could have stopped somewhere shortly after this, but art is tricky that way, one wants to keep going to see where it will lead. 

Another Long Wait

Hi everyone, I know I'm not the most prolific blogger and it's been a while since I've posted anything but time just seems to fly by faster and faster all the time. I thought I had better post an update at the very least that I have been working on several paintings, none of which I am ready to post....but I will do so ASAP.

So in place of a painting, here is the view from my window yesterday afternoon. The weather is getting a little frostier now after a pretty nice November.

The bit of news I do have is that I have joined a site called Fine Art America, and for those of you who are artists please check it out to sell prints of your own work. What I like about this site, is they print on demand your artwork or photos onto canvas, prints and cards...so if you didn't know what to do with your paintings or before you sell of the originals on Etsy, get them scanned and onto FAA.  Most of their services are free and if you want more, the fee is very little. They also provide an online shopping cart for  your Facebook fan page....no cost.  I guess I can't say enough about them, check FAA out and decide for yourself.

Please feel free to come and check out my page at FAA and leave me a comment.

At Long Last, A Painting

Speaking the truth....I've had such difficulty painting anything since the beginning of the summer, then I remembered and put into practice a mentor's wise words about "painting mindlessly". So I finally let go and forgot about everything, not caring about the outcome or how the  painting looked and came up with this...Spirit Woman.

It was such a relief to enjoy painting something again after having such a hard time, getting caught up in being afraid to ruin what I already had put on canvas, getting past the bottom of the curve so to speak. It was quite paralyzing and kept me from taking paintings where they needed to go. I have a half started painting waiting for me to let loose on.....oh dear, I have to get brave all over again. 

Self Portrait

My version of me. I used photo reference for my face and hair but was influenced by the painting  underneath....yes, I was covering up an old painting again but I got the inspiration for the shawl wrapped around the shoulders from that painting. I just went with what I saw and this piece came together surprisingly quickly without some the usual pulling out of hair and not knowing what to do. 

 I love to blast loud music when I'm  painting, particularly tribal music, something with lots of drums and primal energy. It keeps me out of my head and painting from the soul, so to speak. I believe I was listening to a collection of didgeridoo music for this one.

The previous painting still shows, and how I was influenced by the stripes of colours to create the wrap. The old painting was actually painted over the previously mentioned "Fear of Flying" piece from my prior post...so there are actually three paintings going on here.

This is about the extent of any mapping out I do for most of my paintings. Sometimes I just slap paint on and see what images emerge and then pull those images out of the mix, but lately I've been trying to at least plan a starting point for my paintings...and then I blast the music.

Spirit Helper

After the mental anguish of my previous series of paintings, I started using some reference for my figures, not to copy them but to use as a starting point for shape and anatomy. So here's what I came up with. I'm still starting my paintings without really knowing how I want them too look, they just emerge as I go and things get changed around a lot sometimes. There's a few areas I would still change or finish off better but I've left it alone for now since I have a tendency go back and make a mess of things, so I'm a little scared to do the touch ups needed. 

The first picture is the finished version so far. I'm rather liking it. It came from a place far away from where I started as can be seen in the photo series below.

I wasn't loving the bear too much, so out it came and was replaced with another...oh how to let go of attachments to certain things, kind of like a life lesson.

This was my starting place which is actually on top of another painting I didn't finish. The small figure in the background is from the old painting. I rather liked it but as you can see he didn't end up in the final painting....letting go of attachments again. I look at this forlorn blue face and wonder what sort of pain is coming out through my painting. When I look at this early version and compare it to the finished one, I rather like this one better for it's raw energy and emotion. It's always a struggle as a painter to know when to stop and how to keep that first magical energy from getting too refined. It's a hard balancing act indeed. 

Awakening

I had been struggling with a painting previous to this one that had to do with flying, I painted most of it and then got caught up in an area I didn't like....I'm sad to say I let my temper get the better of me and I ended up painting over the whole thing...it no longer exists.  

But what does that have to do with this painting? Well, after my attempt to paint the flying theme, I started another painting, not this one even, but now flying turned into a figure entombed underground...yikes...what does this mean? I didn't really like the painting and never finished it to a state where I would want to show but it gave me food for thought about I where I might be subconsciously in my life right now. 

Now I'll get to how this picture relates to it all.  This painting is a continuum of fear of flying to rebirthing (the figure underground) to now emerging into a rich field of life sustaining wheat. I'd describe this painting as a young girl awakening unto herself, the bear being a symbol of coming out of hibernation. My boyfriend finds this piece a bit creepy, at least the girl, who he describes as zombie like. That's okay with me, art is to be interpreted in anyway that the viewer relates to.  I went through a lot of personal angst to get to this painting, it's not my favourite but it represents a great deal to me as to were I might be in my own life at this moment. 

After a bit of thought, I came to conclusion I would add my "entombed figure" painting that I had done previous to the girl in the wheat....I didn't know where to go with this one so I never really finished it....I pretty much got bored with it and just left it. 

So I also added the flying painting that doesn't exist anymore, except in this photo. I think I got mad at it because I wasn't using any reference for the figure and I just couldn't get it right for what I wanted it to look like...urg!  I kind of got lost on this one too. I started using more reference from this point on. 

Time to Catch Up

I'm hoping to slip a few more pictures of my progress up whilst I have a window of internet connectivity. Still no new tower hook up yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So far so good, I managed to upload these two images I worked on in May during my workshop with Wyanne in her online Paint Free workshop. This is a workshop that is certainly worth checking out and very affordable.

For me it's worked great because Wyanne works with how to find your creative self again and not technique or working within any boundaries or rules. It's all about finding that wild inner creative self through rediscovering your love of painting like we had when we were kids and to be able to paint mindlessly and with love.  So here are my last two pieces I did with that particular workshop.

I never know what I am going to paint before I start. This one is painted over another painting I had started on tar paper that I didn't like. I saved the child's face and that was all, everything else evolved from images and feelings I saw or had during the process. This process involved concentrating on feeling love whilst I painted and remembering to enjoy the feeling of the paint on the paper as I made the brush strokes....and everything just kind of emerged on it's own.

This painting I did on canvas, again concentrating on love and happiness as I painted.  This painting emerged from a thirty-second scribble drawing where I saw a face that I started fleshing out. The feathers  emerged from some wild brush strokes and the face at the bottom was a ghostly image that I filled out...and that's pretty much how everything happened.  I'm not working from any reference up to this point but doing everything from out of my head/heart.