October 2, 2008

Peace Begins with Breakfast
2005
acrylic on canvas
48" x 29"

The most depressing thing about being an artist, and I would think this would be the same in most of the arts, is the contrast between the day-to-day creating and exposing your work and yourself to the public.

If I felt there was no redeeming value of art outside of one's studio, I would simply paint those subjects that I feel inspired to paint and fill my house with canvases. Going to a show opening is stressful for an introvert like myself but I feel that I am obligated to show what I have done. I am an artist and it is an artist's job to create art to inspire whether in thought deed or action.

Peace Always

Sharon
P.S. The Smokey the Zombie Bear series is now avaiable for sale on Ebay, Smokey the Zombie Bear I, Smokey the Zombie Bear II, Smokey the Zombie Bear III,Smokey the Zombie Bear IV

May 16, 2008

I finally did it and started my next painting. For one reason or another I had lost my painting momentum and used gardening, cleaning, hiking, yapping on the phone as well as any other distraction to avoid starting a new painting. There's a deadline looming albeit a several month one, but I know once the sun returns to Pennsylvania the outdoors will be beckoning quite loudly and it will be harder to keep myself inside to paint. As promised I will document the painting photographically each time I finish a session, the result being a diary of the progress of this painting. Today I stretched the canvas and painted two layers of white gesso to prepare the canvas surface. Because it is raining outside I will have to leave the canvas alone until tomorrow when the gesso has had a sufficent amount of time to dry. As I indicated in an earlier post (April 18th) My intention for this paint is to paint a vision of my newly departed Vizsla titled "Jackson's Trip to Heaven". The canvas is a hemp canvas from Near Sea Naturals  and the stretchers are from Upper Canada Stretchers.

April 29, 2008

Once the canvas is stretched tight but not too tight I put on the first of acrylic primer. After the first coat is dry (a few hours) I put on a second coat of primer. Now I can assess how taut the canvas is. If the stretchers are bending or there is too much give in the canvas I will take apart and restapple until it has a nice tight bounce to it without torque the stretchers. The next step I do is to do a gesture drawing from the pencil thumbnail that I have created. I can use any color but mostly I choose black, blues or browns, occasionally greens or reds. Once the gesture drawing is dried I start to fill in the solid areas starting with the background spaces then filling in the inside.

Next post I will discuss how I work the negative space and why I chose to work on it first.

April 18, 2008

So today I decide to stretch a canvas and start my next painting "Jackson's Trip to Heaven". Recently I have been painting 48" x 48" as I like this size; it's not too cumbersome to tote around and fits perfectly on the diagonal in the back of my Volvo X-country. Unfortunately once it's framed it will not fit and I have to travel with the painting tied on the roof rack above the car. As far as painting it is a comfortable size for me as I can both stand or sit while painting and it is not too big for my easel to handle. I had a set of stretchers ready, ordered from Upper Canada Stretchers, but found I only had small pieces of canvas left. I have been using a hemp/organic cotton canvas that I order on line from Near Sea Naturals. It has a nice texture and the combination of hemp and cotton makes a strong fabric with a nice hand.