Skip to content

Category: Peeking Behind the Easel

January 6, 2012
Kathy
2 Comments

Fresh, Clean and Ready To Paint

Posted in Organization, and Peeking Behind the Easel

I'm finishing up the yearly major clean up of my studio.  It's always amazing what has been lost behind canvases, what has been misplaced, and  what I forgot I have.  I started the end of the year clean up when I was doing a large amount of custom painting for private clients. The push to finish orders from September into December always turned my workspace into a hot mess by the end of the holiday season.

I like having a clean, well organized workspace to start off the beginning of the year. It's a chance to do an inventory check for taxes as well.  Everything in the studio gets cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, wiped down from top to bottom. Old paint brushes get donated to children art classes, almost empty paint containers get placed in front to be used up first, canvases and paper get sorted by sizes and placed in their labeled spaces. Photos and reference materials are an ongoing challenge but they at least get placed on their shelves and photo cards near the computer. It's a jump start on one of my new year resolutions and a great way to start the year.

Paint brushes photo from pinterest and allthingsstylish tumblr com

Photo credit: allthingsstylish.tumblr.com  via Lindsey at Pinterest

I'm excited to be picking up my paintbrushes and getting started on painting. I'll have new paintings to share starting next week!

December 15, 2011
Kathy
Comments closed

New Teddy Bear Painting

Posted in Art Work, and Peeking Behind the Easel

Here's my newest painting:  "Teddy Bears Three" 

teddy bear - sibstudio dot com

  I started this one several months ago and got stuck on the teddy bear fur.  I've written about getting stuck on a painting in previous posts. In this case, I knew what the problem was but it was going to need serious concentration to move it forward.  I pulled it out after joining StitchSilly in her pledge to build up shop inventory by add one thing a week for 8 weeks. 

I used my daughter's old stuffed animal collection for the initial composition. I liked how the well loved toys no longer sit up straight – they lean against each other to stay up. I used an Ampersand gesso art board for this painting. The art board has a very smooth surface and handles lots of light layers of paint well.  Painting teddy bear fur requires light layers of gradating paint colors, lightly tapped (stippled) on to create the soft fluffy look of the fur.   I started with mid tone brown and slowly added burnt umber ( dark brown)  to the mix as I stippled on the fur. Then I use the first mid tone brown and begin adding a little yellow, and then white to create the lighter fur.  When layering 15 -25 layers of paint, it's pretty easy to end up with a muddy look  – which is what happened on the first round. This week,  I slowly reworked the stippling, painted on the bows and faces.  Now  I think it looks like fluffy teddy bear fur.  : )

SibStudio dot com Teddy Bears

That's a peek behind my easel!  Thanks for stopping by!

 

October 12, 2011
Kathy
6 Comments

A Tribute to Garlic

Posted in Art Work, Peeking Behind the Easel, and Reference Photos

A Tribute to Garlic

What's not to love about garlic? Just about any dish with garlic is delicious and it has a huge amount of folklore behind it.  What I like most about garlic though,  is how it looks.

SibStudio.com Garlic Photographed for painting

The entire bulb is wrapped in thin translucent paper – like nature's tissue paper. As you pull out each individual clove, they are also wrapped similarly.  It's like a little wrapped present from the garden. Once you get the clove unwrapped, the smoothness of the clove contrasts with the papery roughness of the bulb. It's an interesting vegetable and really fun to paint.

SibStudio.com garlic
As a tribute to garlic, I painted all the parts of the garlic – the bulbs, the paper skin, the cloves and the undersides with the hair-like  roots.  I chose a creamy white neutral  background to not detract from garlic. However it needed a few pops of color, so I added sage and forest greens as an ode to the garden it grows in and to add some depth to the painting. I also added a little touch of maroon – red in the garlic shadows to contrast with the green.  And if you look closely at the both the photos, you can see the subtle maroons in the garlic shadows.

SibStudio.com painting of garlic. Can be found on Etsy.com
And that is my tribute to garlic and a peek behind my easel.  

September 30, 2011
Kathy
2 Comments

Pearl Painting

Posted in Art Work, and Peeking Behind the Easel

Pearl Painting

I have a new miniature painting in my Etsy shop. This is the kind of oyster I want to find.

SibStudio Pearl on a Half Shell Oyster

One of the things I like about painting the miniatures is they can act as a thumbprint for a larger painting.  I've painted oyster shells in prior paintings but haven't tackle pearls. This was a chance to experiment with capturing the luster of the pearl. I used little touches of purple, blues, and creams to recreate the colors you can see in a pearl.

I took a little artistic license and used a bed of sand rather than the oyster itself. I wanted to contrast the texture of sand versus the smoothness of the pearl. 

I also used a pearly finished paint for the background to contrast the dullness of the oyster and highlight the pearl. I think in a larger painting, the pearly background would be overkill, but it works well on a small scale painting.
And that's a peek behind my easel – enjoy the rest of your day!

September 27, 2011
Kathy
2 Comments

More Rain

Posted in Peeking Behind the Easel

More Rain

We are 5 inches short of breaking the all time rain records here in Eastern Pennsylvania.  And of course, it's raining again today!   : )    Yesterday when the sun was out, streaming into the house,  I was thinking –  Wow!  The house looks so nice when it's sunny.  Lol!  

I don't have the patience to take rain photos so here a cool one from the copy right free files of bing.com.  The good thing about rain is it's easy to get to work in my studio. It's really hard to paint inside when the sun is shining and the temperatures have cooled off.  As I'm gathering up my brushes and paints, here's a little rainy day humor :

Isn't that helpful?  LOL    Enjoy the rest of your day!