Last night I decided to paint something "really fast". I had been working on a fiber project so it was about 11:00 p.m. when I started, and I didn't want to get to bed really late.
I didn't do a preliminary drawing, just worked wet on wet loosely following a reference photo.
By 12:30 the painting was done, photos were taken and cropped, and it was ready to be blogged!
So I think the painting took about an hour - my fastest yet. And I'm happy with the result! Yay!
See you tomorrow.
Kit
Soooooo. You may or may not have noticed that things have been a bit wonky with my blog over the last week.
It's because I had a brilliant idea. :0)
So, about this time last week, late at night, puttering in my studio after having finished a painting, it occurred to me that my blog name should more properly be Kit Lang Art, rather than Kit Lang Fiber Art.
Fiber art worked when I made the switch from quilting to making art quilts, to making textile paintings - and it continued to work as I dabbled in beading and embroidery.
But since last fall, I've had this idea - a new direction in my work, and really, when it is gathered together with my paper work and everything else I do, I decided that Kit Lang Art would cover not only this most recent direction, but any new ones that arrive in the future.
So, last week, late a night, I went to my blog settings, and changed my blog name to kitlangart.blogspot.com.
And I woke up the next morning to find I had completely disappeared from the internet as if the last 8 years had never happened.
Not only were my regular blog followers unable to find my blog (it said it was gone!), all of my pictures on the internet linked back to nothingness. I was totally freaking out!
So the first thing I did was move all of my bloglovin followers over to the "new"(old) blog called Kit Lang Art, and then tried to figure out how to re-direct eight years of pictures and posts to the new blog. Finally, I threw myself on the mercy of Blogger, and they said "We can't do anything about it. But we can change your name back to Kit Lang Fiber Art".
I of course leapt on that with many joyous virtual hugs of relief, but then realized that my Bloglovin Followers as well as the people I'd sent e-mails to were now happily going to kitlangart.blogspot.com
And since that was the result I wanted in the first place - I decided to keep the new blog.
So yay! New blog. :)
I'll post in both places until September 1st, and after that - I'll be moving over to Kit Lang Art permanently.
I'll look forward to seeing you there!
I'm pleased with the bunny (and really pleased with my drawing)
but I screwed up the grass because I couldn't leave well enough alone.
Augh!
:)
I'm catching up again! This is my day 19 and 20 of world watercolor month, I thought I'd do an abstract. The eagle eyed among you may have spotted that I did a fabric version a couple of months back - I showed you a sneak peek then. It's finished now, but you know me - I'm behind on posting!
Anyway - it was doing these abstract watercolors on fabric that made me decide to pursue learning how to watercolor on paper in the first place. So here's a paper version. :)
The paper I used for this painting is twice as large as what I've been using all month, so it took me twice as long! :)
If I seem to be a bit obsessed by foxes at the moment, I am. lol Of course, this one is more like the baby of a fox and cat, which may explain why current obsession given my love of cats!
It's interesting - I read this article by a watercolor artist (I've read so many lately, I can't remember who it was) - and he said that you should spend 50% of your time on your drawing: that your painting will never get better than your drawing. This makes sense to me (if you're the type of watercolourist who draws first, which I am).
And as if to prove him right; I had a really difficult time drawing the face on this fox - getting it at just the right angle, with his face snugged up into the corner of the tree was beyond my current abilities.
Eventually, I gave up on all of my scratching and erasing - I was seriously afraid to damage the paper. And sure enough, when I painted it - the painting was worse than the drawing. Alas.
So I have a kitty-fox tucked up in a tree. :)
I thought I'd share a textile painting commission that I finished back in May. This is Queen Nanny Maroon, holding her horn to summon her forces, hiding in the Blue Mountains behind her.
I loved making this piece, and am so grateful to Black Lives Matter for commissioning the piece from me.
Kit
P.S. And if you've managed to find me here after my accidentally deleting my 8 year old blog (!) *cries* Thank you!
P.P.S. - I'm putting this here in order to "move" my blog followers on Bloglovin. *waves*
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Tonight, as I was trying to figure out what to paint for today's watercolor, I realized that in my pursuit of getting "better", I was losing me.
So, I decided that just for tonight, I would make something that made my heart happy - not worry about whether it was "good", or an "improvement", or whether I was learning something - so I painted that crappy background, acknowledged it was crappy, and kept on going. Then I just let go, and painted that totally adorable elephant, and then I painted the balloon.
And I lost the plot. lol I worked and worked and worked and overworked that balloon, for literally hours (including the time for the layers to dry) and at one point I sat back and realized that was the best I was going to get without totally destroying the paper, which is when I realized that I'd completely forgotten what the point of the evening was.
So I have a really cute elephant as a result of just letting go; and a balloon that is so HEAVY that poor little elephant would fall out of the sky as a result. lol
P.S. - this was my inspiration photo:
(which I found on one of those wallpaper sites) :)
I've discovered that I get the best results when I'm not totally exhausted. Go figure.
I do find that this process is a bit too much, actually. Painting every day wouldn't be so hard if I knew what I was doing. But I have no time for my real art, either. And I'm starting to think that what I need is a drawing class, not a watercolour class!
I've been painting, but not posting, because my efforts have been mediocre at best. Observe.
But then I remembered that I said I'd post the good, bad AND ugly, and that I wasn't afraid to show my mistakes. So. Again I say. Observe.
lol
Day 11 - this little bug ate a hole in the leaf, and then peeked out.
"Someone has been eating the leaves on your tomato plants...huh. I wonder who...have you checked in with that butterfly over there. HE looks a bit sketchy..."
This sleeping bunny and bird are not at all reflective of how tired I was yesterday when I had to decide what to paint. :)
*yawn*
Soooooo, yesterday was quite a day (bygones!) and I couldn't paint. So I did days eight and nine today.
On the Facebook page for World Watercolor Month, someone said the other day that newbies like me needed to put their big girl panties on try a portrait. You know me - always up for trying anything (after all, like my fiber work, it's just fiber and paint, not brain surgery, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or show them to you) so I decided to try one today.
Obviously, I royally screwed up the hand on the right - I tried to fix it, but the paper kept pilling, so I guess it's toast and unfixable; but otherwise, for a first try I'm pretty chuffed with it.
The bunny, "Day 8" (although technically also Day 9), was me trying to figure out how the medium works again. I saw somewhere (YouTube perhaps?); that if you "draw" the outline first with water and then apply a really wet paint, it will follow the water line. And it DID. lol
It was kind of a cool thing to watch, but I'm not sure what the application for that might be. (It will probably become clear at some point in the future). His proportions are off (or maybe he's just a very FAT bunny), and his smile is lopsided, but I think he's pretty cute just the same.
So, a good Day 9.
See you tomorrow!
Hey check it out! I made a watercolor that actually looks like a watercolor! And it still looks like "me".
I may be starting to get the hang of this thing!
(Of course, in 24 hours I'll probably be posting my dismal failure as a result of my hubris.)
But tonight - we dance!!!!! :)
I've been hinting to BSP over the last couple of weeks that I really need a new bike, and it sure would be great to get one for my birthday.
Well, I came home from work today to find a shiny, sexy, yellow hybrid waiting for me in the back yard, even though my birthday isn't until September.
After riding around Leslieville and Riverdale like a banshee for hours (lol), I was too tired to put a lot of effort into Day 6.
The bike is superfantastic though. :)
You know what I just realized? I have been painting for five days and I only did a tree on day FIVE. That has got to be some kind of record for me. lol
Of course, I've been relying heavily on blues, as is my wont. I think tomorrow, no matter what I end up doing, I'm going to stay away from blue*.
So, today's little experiment. Well, although it's bragging to say so, I've got to tell you that I made this stunning background. Seriously, it was so gorgeous that I almost just posted the background and called it good. But then I decided it needed a tree on it (well, that was it's purpose); so I plunked the tree down and then completed obscured it. Alas.
This one, once again, I was trying to push the water around with my brush and a teensy bit of color (so unlike my acrylic work on fabric which is all about layering on thick swaths of color); although after I completed 10 - 12 greens, yellows, blues, reds and browns for the leaves in that tree, you'd never know that I had only used a "little' color.
Anyway. Here it is. Day Five.
This is EXHAUSTING. lol
Guess what, guess what? I sold my first watercolor! :)
I've never sent a 12 x 12 framed piece before, so it was a bit of a struggle finding a box, but then I remembered the pide* place at the top of our street uses plain white pizza boxes.
I brought the piece over to them and they were quite interested in helping me find an appropriately sized box; finally we determined that a 16 inch box was the best size, and they gave it to me for free.
So then I put it in it's glassine sleeve, bundled it up in bubble sheets and tucked it into firmly packed papers. And now it's on its way.
I never thought I'd be selling my watercolors!
Hurray! :)
*Pide - is a Turkish take on Pizza. It's something like pizza dough, stretched out into a long oval; the fillings are put in a line down the middle, and then the edges are folded over. They do sell some typically Western fillings to appeal to those without adventurous palettes, but where they really shine is when they fill to their tastes. Ground lamb and mint and other yummy things, tender vegetables, seasonings and feta cheese, SO DELICIOUS. And they come with wedges of fresh lemon, raw onion rings, hot peppers and curly parsley. If you add those things to your selection it's even better! Wait. I'm hungry now... :)
I really like the background in this one, but I just could NOT get the bird right.
On the other hand, it took years before I got good at textile painting - and this is only day 4.
Patience, Grasshopper.
:)
Here is day 3.
After yesterday's post, I realized when looking at it, that I wasn't taking advantage of the properties of watercolor paint. I was treating it like it was fabric, resulting in a painting that looked very much as if I had made it out of textile.
So today, I decided to begin to learn how to use the "water" portion of watercolour.
I feel like my execution isn't up to my expression. I had a LOT of trouble with that little bear, and would have preferred a more realistic looking watercolour-y bear. lol I don't know if you know what I mean, but *I* know what I mean!
Anyway - tomorrow's another chance to try again. :O)
Until then...
So today, I decided to begin to learn how to use the "water" portion of watercolour.
I feel like my execution isn't up to my expression. I had a LOT of trouble with that little bear, and would have preferred a more realistic looking watercolour-y bear. lol I don't know if you know what I mean, but *I* know what I mean!
Anyway - tomorrow's another chance to try again. :O)
Until then...
So, at least in this one, the moon is a little better. I wanted to do another hare, dancing under the moon in a field, but my beloved spouse wanted me to do some birch trees, so here we are. :)
See you tomorrow with another one! (this one I finished just under the wire at 11:55 p.m.!)
Well hello! Although I intend to show you some of my fiber work that was completed lately, I thought I would get into the groove of blogging again by sharing a project that I am working on.
I joined World Watercolor Month as a way of learning to paint watercolor, so I will be posting my daily paintings here.
This is the first one. If you are a watercolorist and have any tips or advice, please share! I want to learn. :)
Cheers,
I joined World Watercolor Month as a way of learning to paint watercolor, so I will be posting my daily paintings here.
This is the first one. If you are a watercolorist and have any tips or advice, please share! I want to learn. :)
Cheers,