"The Poppy II" in Acrylic

Phase 3 complete.  From my original image, to the prismacolor rendering, and finally to an acrylic painting.  As with most things on this blog, this was my first attempt at anything like this.  I completed "The Poppy II" in two stages.  I did the background palm frond first.  I really surprised myself with my color mixing.  Like I had mentioned in the prisma drawing the palm frond is more of a dusty greenish-blue.  I was able to achieve the color I wanted and it's variations by mixing titanium white, thalo blue and cadmium yellow medium.  It's going to sound so silly, but I was really impressed with myself to achieve those colors and I was ecstatic when I finished it.  Lastly I completed the poppy.  Again using primarily cadmium yellow medium and cadmium red light.  The purple-reddish shadowing was a mix of cadmium red light, thalo blue, and alizarin red and thinned out.  The poppy's center was alizarin red and thalo blue.  After everything was initially completed I decided to go back and give a little more definition to the palm.  Using the same mixture of thalo blue, titanium white and cadmium yellow medium I lined along each of the strands.  This was all completed on 16 x 20 gallery wrapped stretched canvas which I painted along the edges so it doesn't require framing.  Thank for looking and I hope you enjoy my interpretation of a poppy.

Phase 1: Background



"The Poppy II"
Acrylic on 16x20 Canvas





Side by side comparison of the acrylic painting and prismacolor drawing.











FolioTwist and an Update

I've started a FolioTwist site. FolioTwist.com is a site and service that provides professional personal artist websites.  It's designed by the same guys who are responsible for EmptyEasel.com (a personal fave of mine).  They have a 10 day Free Trial where it allows you to start, design, and upload your own work for display.  It can even link a Paypal account to make the purchase of your works a whole heck of a lot easier.  I'm still in my trial window, but I think I may make it permanent. 

Their current promotion is what peaked my interest.  They state that in light of the economy and the fact that many artists really love FolioTwist but can't afford the $45/mo fee for the site, they are doing a pricing experiment.  So what they've come up with is, start the free trial, decide if you like it, and then submit a REASONABLE offer as to how much you'd be willing to pay per month.  They also send a weekly how-to email that tells you all about site promotion and how to really optimize the site and its feature to your full advantage.   

By the way, totally posting this because I wanted too and under absolutely no coercion from the website.  I just think it's pretty cool!

Quick note about what's happening with me.

I've been on vacation for pretty much the past 3 weeks, and driving took up at least 2 of them.  Needless to say, not a lot of work getting done.  However, I plan to pick it back up this week (sometime).  I've received some pretty positive feedback about my painting, in particular Landscape #2.  So that is quite encouraging.  I was starting to feel that my painting just wasn't worth the bulk of my time.  I switched back to Prismacolor Color Pencils because I feel "safe" with them.  I felt I could produce more finished and successful pieces with this medium, and I think I did.  With all of the positive comments though, I think I might give the paints another try. 

I really just want to feel validated as an artist.  I'm not "formally" trained nor have any fancy art degrees.  I have the confidence from my friends and family and some past successes to keep trying.  I may even submit some more work to another contest, because why the hell not!?

All in due time I guess...

New Works!

Yeay! Finally have some pieces completed!  This first was taken from a book I mentioned earlier (100 Creative Drawing Ideas).  Take an object and focus on a single point that does not represent the object as a whole.  Since I'm surrounded by toys, I decided to use what's around.  Can you tell what it is?  I intend to transfer this into an acrylic painting on a larger canvas. 

Which brings me to my next piece. I finally did it. I bought paints (Golden brand) and some new brushes.  I watched a YouTube video of an artist.  Her segments are called Karrie on Canvas.  She's really fun to watch.  One of her videos was an abstracted flower piece.  Now, I didn't follow her 100% but I used it as a source of inspiration.  The whole point of the exercise was to loosen up and just paint. So that's what I did!

It took some additional time since I am quite rusty with my color theory.  For example, the background was a much brighter red at one point, the table was purple, and the vase was yellow.  I think the end product is more than acceptable. Especially  since it's the first acrylic painting I've done in over 10 years. 

Speaking of color theory, I REALLY need to brush up on it.  I have an exercise I found in "Acrylic Painting for Dummies".  You paint the same scene, but the first one is in one color only.  The colors are to range from pure white to black with the color gradation in between.  The second piece uses 2 complimentary colors, and third with either 3 colors for the full color wheel.  I think I'm going to paint a really large color wheel that can double not only as a reference piece but also as an art piece I can hang in my living room/dining room and it wont look out of place (our house is full of bright colors). Since I don't have a work space, I work at the dining room table so it would be nice to have it right there.  

In conclusion, Yeay! I finished two pieces!! Feel darn right proud of myself.  I hope you enjoy them too.

PS. If you haven't go to the Google Art Project yet, you must go, go now! :)


Colors 1: Prisma Colored Pencils, Strathmore 80#
Colors 2: Golden Acrylics, canvas board



Colors 1



Colors 2