As you can imagine from my experiments with pour paintings I had some left over paint and canvas, and as much as I love doing them they aren’t much of a challenge, and I like to try new things all the time. I want to discover what I can do and what I can come up with. So, I pulled out my acrylic paints, paint brushes and canvas and sat down staring at the empty, white expanse of canvas.
From drawing digitally I knew that I’m not very good in drawing animals, people or buildings free hand. And on a canvas with a paint brush there is no undo button and no guides or other helps I could use when drawing on my computer. What do paint/draw well free hand is nature related scenes. Landscapes, trees and water areas. So that what I decided to go for.
Just to make this clear, I have never before painted on canvas or anything else before. The last time I held a paint brush in order to create a painting was in school, some 25 years ago and then it was with water colors. When I think of a painter I have this traditional picture in my head, of a man or woman sitting on a chair in front of an easel with a palette in one hand a paint brush in the other.
I do have an easel, but about five minutes into creating my first painting I threw that picture out of my head. My hands are to shaky, my hand-eye coordination not good enough or who knows what else, but I simply can’t paint in this oh so traditional position. I like to put the canvas flat on the table or cradle it in my arm. I like to turn it and sometimes hold it upside down depending on what I am painting.
I’m not the organized and prepared kind of artist. I don’t do courses or read books about what I want to do. At best I pull up a YouTube video to learn the basics. Which I didn’t have to do since I did painting on the computer already and the basics are essentially the same. Only on a canvas any mistakes made are harder to correct.
As for my subject, I don’t really have one. I paint what I see in my head, and what I like. In my case I love landscapes. I love to be outside with my pup and just watch clouds slide over the blue sky, watch trees move in a breeze, or stare up at the star filled night sky. I love the colors the rising or sinking sun is painting in the sky and how trees become shadows and light paints nature in different kinds of colors. But I also like fantasy based worlds where leafs are to big, flowers to bright or trees grown in unusual forms. I like using colors like gold and silver, to use sparkles and gloss. In short I like to experiment around and combine what I see outside with what I can dream up in my mind.
The first painting I did was a this one.
This is supposed to be a late evening scene, just when night is falling but the sun has still a small hold on the sky. Once it was dry I painted a frame around it and used spray gloss to finish it.
Doing this painting I learned a few things. First of all, I needed better lighting where I worked. The lights I had where making colors look wrong. I also realized that I needed better paint brushes, especially for detail work. The ones I had where simply to big to draw small branches or waves in the water.
Most importantly I realized that I really liked this kind of scenes, but that late evening scenes also where hard to see unless the lighting was perfect. What made me really like to try more was that soon after I hung it in my office, my son came and stole it for his room. To me, that’s a lot of praise since my son usually doesn’t like my art that much and more often criticizes it. Something I encourage, since honesty is more helpful to developing my skills in any kind of creation than hollow praise.
Now since this painting I have done several more, some of them I will have with me at the farmers market and other events for sale. You can check them out here…
This is a 16″x12″ stretched canvas painting. Bright and sunny was one thing I wanted to create, and the trees where inspired by a picture I saw some time ago. It’s the first one I liked enough to decide to offer it to whoever likes it. Obviously I do need to cover my cost at least and maybe some of the time that went into creating it. So If you would like to have it, it can be yours for $30.00 CAD plus shipping if needed. Once farmers markets start up again you can of course take a closer look and buy it right at my booth. As well as some of my other painting that have turned out well.
Obviously I’m no Michael Angelo or Picasso. Honestly I probably don’t even measure up with some of the local artists, which is why I don’t charge much.
With this 11″x14″ painting I started out with a flaming evening sky with a mountain range. I didn’t plan on a tree but once the mountain range was done I could just see it in my mind. In addition to that I also just had gotten a set of detail brushes. The result is a very large tree and a painting that I liked a lot. This one also will be for sale. It can be yours for $30.00 CAD plus shipping if needed.
By now I have about a dozen paintings in various sizes, all landscapes of some kind. You can check them out in my album and find which ones are for sale and which I kept. I don’t know about other artists but I usually keep the ones that show me a mistake I made. Only the ones that turn out really bad end up being painted over.