Online Art Class, Lesson 4!

My Favorite Teapot – Mixed Media on Cradled Board – A4 Size

Lesson 4 was about using the skills we have learned thus far and making a dynamic background to draw our favorite cup.  As I don’t have a favorite cup, I used my favorite teapot.  There is a bit of pentimento going on here too as I wasn’t happy with how the water soluble crayons and pencils were reacting with my paint, so I covered it up.  Although some of the marks show through, I am quite happy with that.  I used a skewer, and a scraping tool that looks a bit like a hair pick.  I think it is a felting tool, but not sure.  Anyway, it makes nice lines!

Will look nice in the kitchen with my Yellow Teapot and Barcellos Cockerel.

My Barcelos Cockerel – Acrylic on Canvas – 60x40cm

This isn’t exactly to scale.  The cockerel is A3 and the teapot on top left is A4 and the yellow teapot is a little bit smaller than A4.  They are all varnished and ready to hang this Easter Weekend!  Hopefully I will get to finish off lesson 5&6 this weekend too!

On another note, many items in my Etsy Shop with expire on Easter Monday, the 2nd of April and I am having a 40% off sale with a minimum purchase of £50!  This is chance to start your very own Arlene collection.  Please share with your friends!  Thank you!

 

 

40% Off Etsy Sale!

Flowerburst – Acrylic on Canvas Board – 10×12 inches

Hello everyone, I am having another Etsy Sale!  This time I am offering a whopping 40% off with a minimum spend of £50!  Most of my paintings are not much bigger than the one above, so this is a good time to order a couple or a few, as we know that unless you are going BIG, smaller paintings and prints look better in a group, as below.

The reason behind this massive sale is that many items will expire on the 2nd of April and I will not be relisting most of them as I am working on new projects.  At the beginning of the year, I reduced the prices of many of my paintings and kept the prices of the prints reasonably low.

I am running out of space on my walls!  Everything you see on my wall below is listed on my Etsy site and will be shipped with the mat (NOT framed).

Here are a couple of ideas for groups:

The Blues – Acrylic/Ink on Canvas Board – 10×12 inches

Roses – Mixed Media on Canvas Board – 10×12 inches

 

Remember, these are all originals and when they are gone, they are gone!  I made my first Etsy Sale this week!  One of my little paintings went to live in the USA!  I hope it gets there quickly and in one piece!

In the meantime, you can visit my shop by clicking here or on the link in the sidebar.  I would be really grateful if you would share with your friends if you think they would be interested.  Thank you for stopping by!

Online Art Class-Lesson 3, Part 2

Pimiento?  No, Pentimento!  One is a pepper and the other is regret.  Pentimento is a change by the artist in the process of making a painting.  Whoops, I should have put that there, or, I changed my mind.  I have seen this pentimento mainly with Old Dutch Masters.  Sometimes you might see and extra limb or garment underneath the body of the painting.  The artist would have changed his mind and rather than throw away a perfectly good piece of canvas, they would just paint over their mistake.

With intuitive painting, many layers are built up and you may see marks or shapes underneath the final layer.  Unless one is painting impasto, most paintings are built up in layers with thin applications of color and perhaps building up to thicker paint.  Thin before thick helps stop the paint from cracking.

In lesson 3, we intentionally made an underpainting to paint over with the idea that some of the underpainting would show through.  Sorry about the quality of the photo, I haven’t had good light.

This is my mixed media piece on Saunders, cold press, 200lb, watercolor paper.  As my bedroom and living room are painted lavender, I used that to make an analgous/complementary color scheme.  I decided on paper as I found that the final marks made on the cradled board smeared when putting on the top coat.  In this case, cost was not a factor as this rather large sheet, Imperial Size, was about the same price as a 12×12 inch panel, if not more.  Rather, I cut the sheet to 14 inches square and masked off to make a slightly larger than 12×12 square to fit a picture frame I have that is 16×16 inches with a 12×12 aperture.

Here is a close-up.  You can just about make out some of the marks under the painting.  I forgot that I was painting on paper and was careful about using my watersoluble media at first, but when I had a doh moment and realised it was going under glass, I didn’t hold back.  There are a lot of scratches and pencil marks too.  This was a fun thing to do even though I wasn’t intending on filling in all of the spaces.  However the empty spaces were calling out for something.

While doing all of these exercises and paintings in the first 3 lessons, it led me to think about Matisse, Cezanne, and Cubism.  So I started looking up artists online to look at their work.  I’ve ordered some books too! How unusual of me!

I’m a bit behind with the lessons and have three more to do.  It looks like I might have a busy weekend ahead! 🙂