Creative Play

The January theme for Creative Everyday 2009 is . . . Play!

I’ve been feeling less than creative for the past few weeks so I decided to get a head  start on one of the projects that I planned on doing in January.

I wanted to try the charcoal technique from a video I posted on the 14th of this month, so I prepped a canvas, grabbed my charcoal, rubber stamps and began to create the painting below.

The Tree Song – Acrylic/Mixed Media – 8 x 10 Canvas

After I had applied the stamps and charcoal to the canvas, I began sketching  and painting the woman’s face and the bird, and then added a tree and music notation.

What fun! This little project certainly got my creative juices flowing again.

Phoenix Rising

The Phoenix is a mythical bird which upon it’s death, burst into flames and rises again from it’s own ashes, so it’s a perfect metaphor for how I have been feeling over the past few days.

I started another canvas today …  splashing, scraping, pouring and ripping paper to collage onto the painting as I thought about why I have been procrastinating about starting a new piece of work.

Lately, I have been spending much of my time reading, taking photographs and working in the yard, which I guess is another way of gathering ideas and stimulating creativity.

Phoenix Rising – Acrylic/Mixed Media – 8 X 10 inches on canvas

Fun With Acrylics

This afternoon I created an abstract painting of the goddess Brigit. I began by squeezing several colors onto the canvas and then used various tools to spread the paint over layers of acrylic medium and scraps of torn magazines. As I Moved the paint around with the palette knives, this face started to emerge and then everything else fell into place.

The tools I used were palette knives, old plastic membership cards, plastic forks and a putty knife.

Brigit – Abstract – Mixed Medium – 22 X 28 inches on canvas

Fiery Arrow

“Brigit, excellent woman,

Flame golden, sparkling,

May she bear us to the eternal kingdom,

She the sun, fiery, radiant!”

Seventh-century Hymn to Saint Brigit

Lady Of The Sacred Spirals

This afternoon I worked on a mixed media piece which has been hanging around for awhile waiting for me to finish it. The inspiration for this work came to me while listening to a CD by Sophia. I was listening to her sing ‘Gaia Shekhinah Nama Om’ at the time.

I kept playing the CD over and over again and as the music flowed over and through me, I created this painting. I sculpted the mask  and the feathers out of paper mache,  plaster and heavy acrylic medium.

Lady of the Sacred Spirals – Mixed Media – 22 X 28 inches on canvas

In Judaism, Chokhmah appears alongside the Shekhinah, ‘the glory of God’, a figure who plays a key role in the cosmology of the Kabbalists as an expression of the feminine aspect of God.

Whirlwind Monday

I was a busy little bee today. I started the morning with the ATC project I’ve been working on lately, then I moved on to an acrylic painting that has been waiting in the wings.

Afterwards I finished up a watercolor painting and then cleaned up the mess I’d made in the studio. Whew!

Kuan Yin – Watercolor – 16 X 20 inch

Touch The Moon – Acrylic – 16 X 20 inches on canvas – Work in Pogress

Acrylics & Foil

I spent most of the day working with Golden acrylics and aluminum foil. The painting I am working on is a mask sculpture, three dimensional, mixed media on canvas. I tried to photograph a portion of the butterfly wing to show how I embossed designs, symbols, lines, and such on the foil.

After finishing the embossing, I mixed the golden fluid acrylics right on the foil surface, and using enough water to keep the paint thin, I brushed them lightly over the surface patterns.

The next photo shows a detailed image of the textured portion of the canvas. I used Gesso and heavy weight Golden Gel medium, along with tissue paper to achieve this look.

The Butterfly Maiden – photo of foil detail

The Butterfly Maiden -photo of texture detail

Just Showing Up

When the weather is as beautiful as it was today, I wanted to be anywhere but in the studio. Then I reminded myself what Woody Allen once said, “80% of success is just showing up.” With that in mind, I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed towards the studio.

Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I put in at least 6 hours of work today, and loved every minute of it. Later on, I did manage to get out in the fresh air and enjoy some sunshine on my lunch break. Afterwards, I worked on the painting below.

Hope Springs Eternal – Acrylic, Mixed Media on canvas – 11 X 14 inches

Dragonflies in the Garden

I went out to water the garden this morning, and was greeted by lots of dragonflies in our backyard. It was so magical watching the dragonflies darting here and there. What a wonderful experience!

Later back in my studio I began working on a painting, which is almost finished. There are still a few areas which need work, but it needs to dry before I can continue.

One might ask oneself, “Is a painting ever finished?” This is a question artists have been asking themselves for eons, and it seems as if everybody has an opinion on the subject. Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with Rembrandt, “A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.”

I also worked on the painting Unity, and started another canvas. I felt inspired to paint a likeness of my aunt Dorothy. All in all it was a pretty busy day.

Aunt Dorothy – Acrylic, Mixed Media- 16 X 20 inches

Unity – Acrylic, Mixed Medium – 16 X 20 inches

Acrylics & Mixed Media

Here are two photos of something I was working on today, I had a lot of fun with this project using a canvas I had prepared with gesso, tissue paper, and various rice papers.

My intent was to play with color and lifting techniques with no particular design element in mind, so when I took a break and stepped back to look at how the painting was developing, I saw some very interesting patterns and shapes beginning to emerge.

I used gel medium, fluid acrylics, flow enhancer, and colored pencils.

Creative Experiments With Acrylics

Today I experimented with creating some more acrylic textures, this time I used Atelier acrylics, Golden acrylics, and Liquitex acrylics.

Test Series #1

Test Series #2

Test Series #3