A Self Portrait

A pencil drawing of my daughter and I.... not sure what I will do next. I am getting itchy to work on the bits and pieces book I have had in my head for a long time now... Time will tell!

A Painting and some winter photos

My latest painting... still pretty hard for me, but maybe not quite so frustrating. I will keep practicing, but I am feeling the need to work on something completely different.

When I was out walking this morning the lighting was beautiful, so I ran home for my new camera to take a few pictures.

This picture I took a few days ago, later in the day, so the lighting was much different

The one above and below are both from this morning. It is feeling like spring here, even though it is February. A very beautiful day!

More Portraits

I have been very busy lately, and any time I have for creating has been used for portraits - on-line course I am taking with Misty Mawn
I wish I had more time to work on it, as it is a matter of practice, practice, practice to learn it. I find painting very difficult, but I will continue to work on it.
I really enjoy the pencil drawings we are doing... and will continue to practice there too. I wish I had time to work on other creations - I am hoping that will come when hockey season slows down a bit...

Another Portrait!

This painting was done with Shiva Paintsiks (oil paints in a stick form)- it was fun, just took me a long time. We used our finger as a brush - how much fun is that! I am still chicken to try the portrait with acrylic paints - it is so much less controlled. I would like to have not such a controlled look about it - I just still want it to look like a face. I am hoping to have the time (and courage) to try it tomorrow....

Portraits continued...

This is the last pencil drawing I did for my portraits class. It takes me a very long time to draw, but I enjoy it, and am hopefully getting better.

THis week we are working on painting portraits. I am already very far behind. I have not painted with acrylic paints very much before, and find them very challenging. The first assignment was to paint just using black and white. Now that it is on the screen I see lots of places that I could continue to work on, but instead I think I will move on to another painting.

Portrait Drawing Class

This is only part of the image I drew... keep reading to hear why.....






Misty Mawn's on line portrait class began on Friday....I am busy drawing portraits.... these are supposed to be realistic - I will keep practising.






This one looks like she needs to wash her hair.... practice, practice, practice.
I decided to see what she looks with some of her hair cropped off.... much better I think - THe cropped version is at the top of this post.

I also need to post these on the flickr site the art group is using. I have never used flickr before - So much to learn. Next I am supposed to draw a profile, and then a 3/4 view, and oh yah a page with different face expressions on. I have a busy week ahead.

Another lesson

Here are some bits and pieces for the new book I was hoping to make. I don't know when it will happen, as my creating time is very very limited right now, and the time I do have I will be working on the online portrait class I am taking.(started today)

More bits and pieces. These bits are made from used tea bags that I let dry out, and empty the dry tea out of - wash and dry and iron. I then stamped and painted on them with inks and coated them with a gel medium. Eventually they will show up in the book. . . . . . that could be a long time in coming though.

As a preassignment for the portrait class we were asked to draw masks. We are also supposed to have a flickr and facebook account. I started both of them, had lots of trouble with the flickr account, decided to deactivate my facebook account, and will keep trying with flickr. I am supposed to upload images to flickr, and I did but they wouldn't show up. After much frustration I went to the help section, and it says that if I have a new account I will need to upload 5 images before it will show up on the group pool account! Oh well.... I will continue to live and learn - - - - - patience - - - - - - look in the help section earlier.

I need to remember - What will be will be.

Today is snowy and beautiful, but it was spectacularly beautiful a few days ago and I managed to take a few pictures. I am slowly working towards a new book project that I'm calling "bits and pieces" ..... it seems besides being made of bits and pieces it is also going to be made in bits and pieces of time as I manage to find them.... life is very busy!

Here are a few more pictures of the face book I have now finished. Not sure what I am going to be working on now. I do have to go back to work and the real world starting tomorrow.... The portrait online class with Misty Mawn I am taking starts in the middle of January.



Here is a messy corner of my studio (small space in the loft of our home). It seems to get messy quickly! Oh well.....

Yesterday when the sun rose above the horizon at 11 AM, I headed out for a walk with my new camera to take some pictures. It was -30 degrees outside, but the light was beautiful.

I tried some closeups.....

and used the zoom.....

As well as the regular lense. The light on the mountains was beautiful, but within an hour the sun had gone behind the mountains again. My camera performed very well in the cold temperatures, with it being tucked into my jacket in between stops I made. My hands were usually too cold more quickly than my camera was. The battery only slowed down once, and I quickly tucked my camera back inside my jacket to warm again before moving on.

A beautiful last day of 2009 - Now on to 2010.... HAPPY NEW YEAR!