About the art: I'm continuing my exploration of incorporating the wood panel color and texture into paintings. It feels very exciting to me ! For this one I began with a sketch and created a stencil to mask off the figure shape. I taped the top and bottom and then put on a smooth coat of black gesso, preserving the wood for Santa's figure. Then some painstaking pen and ink for all of the line work, and a tiny Posca Pen in white for the highlights. Though a figure of this size and detail might seem tedious, it is actually quite meditative. It requires full presence to be in control of every line - no mind wandering when using pen and ink on wood! I'm delighted with this one - grinning every time I walk past it. :) The May Reader Giveaway continues! Please leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered. The winner will be selected at random at the end of the month, and will receive a piece of original art in the mail - FREE! Thanks to everyone who reads and comments...you provide valuable feedback, insights and confirmation that I am not a voice alone in the wilderness of the internet! Hooray for all of you! Thanks a million! xo
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And in that moment of emotional bombardment, in the wave of feeling and even potential overwhelm, we just may see clearly that we are hitched to everything. We think of ourselves as separate, as individual, as apart. But we are deeply interconnected with all of it. All of it. With this may come the realization, and the acceptance, that the present moment is truly all we can reasonably handle. It is all we can feel, all we can see, all we can process. It is a relief to set aside the future and the past for the small (tiny, infinitesimal) now. Oh oh OH! There it is. All I can handle. All I can be. About the art: this is a paint-over of a piece I was quite dissatisfied with. But as with so many things, that underpainting became the foundation and texture of something else. Moving intuitively with a rubber wedge and palette knife, creating a meandering wander through a landscape of bare trees, laying on paint and carving back through it with the wedge to create texture and to expose the under layers. Resisting the urge to overly define. Allowing the eye to fill in the blanks. Have I been here before? The May Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE! I'm curious this month - how many of you listen to the blog? How many read? Is there something more (or less) you'd like to see? Thanks in advance for your feedback - this community of readers is exquisitely wise and insightful, and your thoughts matter to me greatly. xo
And though our explorations are nothing like Colonel Percy Fawcett's many journeys to the Amazon jungle, I can see and understand why his inner self became more inward facing even as his body became more outward exploring. Fawcett disappeared in the jungle, never to be heard from again. Now, rest assured that is not our plan. No, no, no! But it would be ok if some of my mental thought habits were left behind in the tides or suspended from a cliff. I wouldn't miss those one bit. About the art: the wickedly glorious copper panel makes a return here, with a portrait embracing a limited color palette. Beginning with a quick sketch with a brush laden with thinned oil paint, then working from the sunglasses outward. Resisting the urge to overly separate shoulder and hair (right side) from background so the focus remains on those dazzling spectacles and the adornment on her neck. The sunglasses suggest she is outside, while her hidden eyes point to her inward focus. The hair was created by carving back through wet paint with a tiny rubber wedge, allowing the copper substrate to come through as hair highlights. The May Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE! And thanks so much to everyone who reads, comments and shares this blog. I so appreciate each and everyone of you! xo
My impatience makes me feel awkward, clumsy, like this character perhaps. It isn't the first time I've painted a young werewolf with a balloon. It symbolizes something to me...in this case, I think the balloons might be joy, and the werewolf doesn't want to look at them in case they may disappear. Joy can be elusive, especially since our brains are primed to look for trouble instead. Perhaps joy is yet a book written in a foreign language on some days. But I plan to sit and wait, as patiently as one can, for the words to make sense. About the art: Something new for me this week. Of course I have painted on wood panel before, but not with the objective of making the wood itself part of the art. Beginning with a high quality wood panel (this one from Jacksons), I covered it with a good coat of clear varnish. Once dry, I sketched the character on the wood, taped off the center section and added a coat of black gesso for the background. The rest was a very patient labor of love with the smaller Uni Posca Paint Pens used in the same way as Rotring Tikky pens for pen and ink drawings. Just black and white, simplicity and a bit of innocence. The wood tone comes through in parts of the garment and body, warming up what might otherwise be a bit too stark. This one makes me smile. Congratulations to Julie (aka Mighty Athena on Bluesky)! Wonder Mike drew your name at random as winner of the April Reader Giveaway! Send your mailing address to [email protected] and your prize will be in the mail!
Thank you to everyone who commented in April. Your participation means the world to me! A new contest begins today - leave a comment on any blog post in the month of May to be automatically entered.
Staccato signals of constant information are overloading my brain. Keeping up with the daily chaos and search for good news, places to take action, things to be aware of, ways to protect ourselves, our finances, our friends, our neighbors, our freedoms....it is a big bundle of download complicated by a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires. Though Simon's song was intended to communicate other issues of the time, it applies now. Timeless, in a way, as so many great songs, books and works of art can be. The art of seeing one another through this miasma of information is key, I think. We have our public, social media faces and our private thoughts, sufferings and celebrations. Seeing one another, seeing past the movie versions, connecting in an authentic way whenever and wherever we safely can will help us through this. My brain is more and more often like that of a simple goldfish trapped in a helmet bowl. It is the overwhelm, the chaos, the mis- and dis-information. I'd love to hear how you're handling the information of the world, dear reader! About the art: oh, copper panel, it's so lovely, so dreamy, such a warm undertone to every new painting. This one began with a simple sketch with very thinned oil paint and a brush. I painted away the surroundings from the figure knowing the red would require many layers to achieve the depth I wanted. I then moved to the inside, spending the most time on that unknowable fish - the details, the layers, those subtle soft shadows of blue/violet. By placing the details largely in the center of the fish bowl, the eye is drawn into the painting. Helmet and figure painted more abstractly, allowing the eye to complete those details all on its own. This piece is actually a very limited color palette painting, using green, red and white to create the bulk of the colors. A bit of Gamblin Radiant Blue and a bit of Indian Yellow were added to finish out the details. The April Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE!
Blogger and blog will be off on a big adventure next week! The blog will return April 28th. The winner for this month will be announced on May 5th, right here in the blog. Hooray!
The April Reader Giveaway begins today! Leave a comment on any blog post in the month of April to be automatically entered to win an original piece of art - FREE!
Congratulations to Charlynn T.! Wonder Mike chose your name at random as winner of the March Reader Giveaway! Thank you to everyone who commented - your participation, feedback, community and encouragement are a bright light in a wild world! Thanks hugely! A new contest begins next month.
I'd love to hear what you're relentlessly pursuing! Leave a comment below. About the art: beginning with a gesso-primed gallery-wrapped canvas, I pressed leftover wet paint palettes against the canvas over a period of weeks, never mind color, consistency or pattern. This creates a lovely uncontrived texture and pops of unexpected color coming through the final piece. Once thoroughly dry, I drew a rough sketch with a wet brush covered in thinned dark paint. At this point I am not wedded to the composition, just exploring. Working top to bottom with a palette knife, I applied paint in thick layers, allowing the colors to blend in some places and making sure to preserve a thin line of the dark under sketch at the border of each shape. Once the neutral base layers were in, some drying time and then the pops of pinks and reds were added. I carved back through the nearly dry paint with a chopstick, creating trails meandering down the canvas. Walking away before my neat and tidy side can overwork the textures. It's the final week to enter the March Reader Giveaway! Leave a comment on any (or many) blog post (s) this month to be automatically entered. Someone will win a piece of original art - FREE!
Sam Yamauchi ( www.samyamauchiart.com ) said it perfectly in a recent social media post - we need to keep the door to what can be open. And Maria Popova, quoting the book Miss Leoparda, wrote shaken with disbelief but knowing that the most valiant way to complain is to create... OH! I'd love to know what you're doing to complain valiantly, to open the door to what can be. Leave a comment! About the art: beginning with a pristine piece of yupo, and setting down washes of thinned paint. I added thicker layers, then carved back through with a small rubber wedge and let those layers dry thoroughly. The layers allow some excellent textures and raised patterns, something yupo is very good at enabling. An entirely intuitive piece, painted with rubber wedge, chopsticks, fingers and paper towels. Responding to color against color, harsh lines against softness, darks against lights. Allowing the upside-downiness of it (sky below, oppressive heaviness above) to remain. This one moves me. The March Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE!
About the art: copper panel makes exploration deeply satisfying, and this piece was no exception. Beginning with a rough sketch with an acrylic paint pen directly on the copper, and slowly adding thinned layers of oil paint. Working from that single eye outward and keeping the color palette very limited, I followed the paint as it moved. With my perfectionist's hand tied behind my back, I pursued scratchy, rough emotion with chopsticks, rubber wedge, fingers and dripping brush. Keeping the paint wet allows the copper to be easily exposed by dripping paint and by scratching/carving techniques. This one moves me.
The March Reader Giveaway continues! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art absolutely free! Winner will be announced on March 31st right here in the blog. Ready? Set? GO!
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AuthorLola Jovan
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