New Freebies!

I had been waiting on this order for awhile and they finally came: my new freebies! These are to replace my business cards – since postcards can be used to send well-wishes to friends and family; instead of my business cards collecting dust or being thrown out.

Since I had gotten such a wonderful response from my “Full Moon” artwork, I thought it would be a good choice to grace the glossy front (and isn’t it just so deliciously glossy!!!). The back – for a wonderful surprise – is a sweet pink and pale-pink candy stripe. It is not coated with the glossiness – so it is very easy to write on.

A postcard is going to be included in every order until I run out (there’s lots, so it will be awhile). And suffice to say, it will be limited edition to the number that I have. Once these run out, I will be creating a new design, and this design will never resurface again.

If you really like them – you can purchase them in sets of 5 here. You will still get the free one as well – so it’s like getting 6 in a set :o)

Monday Art Class Cont… : The Kitchen Chair 2b: Complimentary Colours and a Painting Demo

Thank you all for coming back for the last portion of the lesson! Let’s get right to the painting!

And then paint it up. I’ve decided to use the purple-yellow complimentary. I will be painting in acrylic paint. First sketch it out. I’m not too worried about getting the perspective right – I like the feel that a tampered perspective gives, it makes it sort of funky, and puts some emotion into it.

Paint in the background:

Blocking in the solid of the chair with cadium yellow:

Adding details:

And done!

The Kitchen Chair – 6x8” Acrylic on Canvas Board.

Available here

Can you see what other complimentary pair I snuck in? If you followed this exercise, please do post your link, I would love to see!

Monday Art Class: The Kitchen Chair 2a–Complimentary Colours

For this class we are going to cover complimentary colours, and there will be a painting demo. You are going to need some colours (paint, markers, pastels, ect…), and the sketches that you made last week of your chair, stool – or whatever you had on hand.

First, let’s talk about complimentary colours. We know from our colour-wheel session that red, yellow and blue are primary colours, and orange, green and violet are secondary colours. When we start pairing these up in a specific way, we get complimentary colour pairs.

To make a pair: pick up your colour wheel, and pick any colour. Let’s say, green. Now, look straight across to see what colour is on the other side. You will find that it’s red. Red + Green = complimentary colour (and Christmas, but that’s off topic…).

You will find that when you mix these two colours together you’ll get a muddy brown. A trick to keeping your colours bright when mixing colours: try to stay away from putting complimentary colours together. Then again, if you want to tone down a colour: adding a touch of it’s complimentary will do that perfectly!

Complimentary colours are like a perfect pair – they bring the best out of each other. Used together in a raw form, they may hurt the eyes a little. But if you have a red object that you want to stand out well – using some shade of green in the background will in fact help that red stand out best, according to colour theory.

So, according to this theory if Green makes Red pop, then Blue should make Orange pop. And it does. But if you have that red object, and you use blue in it’s immediate surrounding – it may make your red look like there’s a tint of orange in it. So if you want a cooler red (more of a red-purple than a red-orange), you should try to avoid blue in it’s immediate surrounding. It’s hard to illustrate this with scanned paint, as the computer changes the colours..but they look a little different.

Well, that’s a lot to take in…and I’m sorry to say that it’s not even the tip of the ice burg; but I am stopping there. I just wanted you to get an idea of how these things work.

So let’s go back to last week. Looking at the picture I had presented by Van Gogh, you can see that it uses a complimentary pairing in its colours:

There is definitely an orange-blue combination going on here. This is also a perfect example, where it shows that you can use bright colours to show the pairing – but you don’t need to go to extremes…that’s when your pictures will start hurting your eyes to look at it. Now we’re going to paint / colour a picture based on Van Gogh’s painting.

Take a look at your sketches from last week, and pick the one that you like most. I’m going to pick the one at the top left.

Tomorrow I will show you my chair. This way, it gives you time and space to interpret things in your own perspective, and have your own take on it without influence :o) And, since I was working the weekend, I didn’t have enough time to completely finish mine in between cleaning, packing orders and answering emails.*blushes* Happy Painting / Drawing / Colouring!

Doodling Heaven

I recently received an order in the mail, and what did I find in the box as well: a crazy long piece of Kraft paper. Of course, I am going to recycle it.

But, first I thought that I might doodle on it for a little bit…why not? How often are you presented with the opportunity to doodle on such a large piece of paper without pressure or drawing something ‘worthy of attention"’…you know what I mean, you always save your more careful drawings / paintings for your better quality papers.

Here is a peak at some of the doodling that I had completed before it got too dark to take decent pictures:

I was playing with some various coloured conté and some charcoal. It was lots of fun and very relaxing to just sprawl on the floor and let loose with the drawing materials.

My Creative Space: Getting Folk-sy

Upon getting some new painting brushes (two Princeton Neptune brushes, and two Princeton Snap! brushes, which I absolutely love by the way, and will be getting one of these two brands again for sure), I wanted to great a ‘fun’ painting. With Halloween around the corner, I thought why not:

So that is where the painting stands now. It was a lot of fun getting to this point. The costumes that the four children are wearing, are costumes that my brothers and I have worn when we were young that my mom made for us: a lion, a cowboy (thanks to lots of dads old cowboy stuff), a princess and a dragon / dino. There are a lot of pumpkins by the house, and a trick-or-treating ghost on the lawn that are masked out.

I’ve sort of hit a ‘block’ with it though. I want to add some more scary things, but I’m not sure what. And I’m not 100% sure what I’m doing with the house, that’s why so much of it is left unpainted. A bunch more shadows…who knows.

You can see more creative spaces here.

The 2012 Sketchbook Project: A Love Like Sunflowers.

Last week was my 25th birthday, and James got me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. They were so lovely, especially the sunflowers – which he knows that I love!

A Love Like Sunflowers – ink and watercolour, sketchbook project 2012

So, I thought that I would create a spread in my sketchbook for the sketchbook project with a sketch of them.

James also gifts me a KOBO – which I have been reading on almost non-stop since! It’s perfect for me, since I often bring books to read during breaks / lunch at work and now I don’t have to lug them around, and I can flip between books if I want very easily. All my wonderful friends gave me quite the jump at a surprise dinner as well. I love them all so much! It was a very wonderful and special birthday.

Monday Art Class: The Kitchen Chair– Part One

This Monday, we are going to get a little messy. Grab some charcoal, some newsprint paper (or your sketchbook, but you can get pads of newsprint for dirt cheap), and your kitchen chair, stool, bench – whatever you sit on. I choose this subject, since most people will have some sort of chair at their disposal.

This exercise was inspired by one of Vincent Van Gogh’s chairs:

You are going to draw the chair you have chosen in many ways. You’re not going to be super detailed about it…this exercise is just to loosen your hand up a little bit and warm you up.

So place the chair in front of you and draw it as you see it. Use the charcoal very lightly to get outlines, and apply it more darkly as you zone into detail. When you are done, move the chair and draw it again. Move it again, draw again. Keep doing this until your page is filled up (or if you have a small page, until many pages are filled up).

It is a good idea to have the chair is some ‘not-so-usual’ angles as well – it makes you let go of the fact that it is a chair, and forces you to focus on the shape elements of it.

Here is my page of chairs:


Keep this page for next week. We are going to continue to use the chair in another exercise, and these drawings will help you choose how you wish to approach it.