Odin: My Welsh Terrier

Odin was born on December 12, 2010 in a lovely house up in Princeton, California. :) My boyfriend and I traveled 4 hours to pick him up and my little family has been together for about a year now. Ever since he was a little pup he always had these deep inquisitive eyes, so that was one of the most important things to paint. You could just see his natural curiosity for everything through his eyes. He has this habit of just staring at you, whether you're asleep, getting ready for the day, or just laying down...he'll just sit sometimes and stare. I often wonder what in the world he could be thinking of.

This painting was a wonderful request from my boyfriend. I hesitated at first because I knew I had a hard time drawing animals, but I thought hey what's the worst that could happen? I could end up wasting a perfectly good canvas but how will I ever learn if I don't try? So I went for it! :) I first sketched out a rough picture onto the canvas with my handy dandy pencil then proceeded to just go with the flow! I opted to go without a background so that I could stencil in his name/meaning on the top/side in the future. 

This painting took about 3 hours (I'm very meticulous haha) but a lot of the time went into the blending of the colors. I don't have the specific shades of brown that I needed so I had to go through the trial and error of mixing paint. I need to work on my color theory :) Also the hardest part, the eyes, took me quite awhile since it was such a vital part of the painting.

Anyways, hopefully I'm improving! :) One step at a time!

 

Just a little more until spring time

I love spring! I love the blooming flowers, the clear air, the comfortable temperature! I do have allergies though :( so that's a bummer, but I won't let that get in the way of enjoying the most beautiful season :)

We had a sneak peek of spring last week in California when the temperatures reached to a cool and sunny high 70s. I actually made it to the beach and it felt wonderful!

I made this painting last week or so to celebrate the one step closer to capris and bright colors ;] It was quite a tedious job to paint each flower. I started with a pink base, then added white on top, then a darker pink for the filaments then yellow for the anthers (sorry had to biological there :) haha) A couple of the larger flowers have more detailing than others because it's hard to get really small with the brushes I have. Since the canvas board is pretty small already... I'm thinking of starting to use larger canvases so that I can get into more detailing :) I think I'm ready!

Stories Around the Campfire

I don't know about you, but I can't wait until winter is over! (If there was even a winter here in California) It was more like perpetual fall minus the rain. I'm not complaining though because I absolutely don't like the cold :)

One of the things I regret not doing last summer was going camping! So that is a must-do for this coming summer! It's such a shame because I live relatively close to Yosemite National Park so I really have to take advantage of that.

I was real excited to get home last night and start painting. My painting was inspired by a picture of a campfire scene I saw online a few days ago and I couldn't wait to get started. This is the first time I was basing a painting on a picture so I was kind of nervous since I had to use my best judgement.

My canvas wasn't too long so I couldn't really capture the whole starry night scene like in the photograph, but I'm still very happy with the outcome :) I had a hard time with the night time sky color...it took me awhile to get that tinge of blue and lightness. I feel like I'm learning more and more each time though! I used techniques from the tree branch tutorial and techniques that I've read online and in books. Which reminds me! I ordered 4 books on acrylic painting on Amazon yesterday, so excited! I'll write and review them in future posts :) I hope they really help me in this painting adventure.

Anyways, here's my 6th painting entitled Stories Around the Campfire :)

Jelly Time

Last night all I planned to do was pig out on Safeway wings :) but my little brother came into my room looking at my 4 paintings. He was actually interested and I enthusiastically shared how fun it has been for me so far. How it's such a stress reliever. I handed him a canvas panel and the next thing I know everything was set up and I was holding a paint brush with gesso dripping off of it. Usually I spend time looking for a tutorial, but this time I just jumped in and went with the flow. I decided I wanted to paint a Jellyfish (I have a thing for tentacles) and keep it simple and silly. My little brother on the other hand wanted to do something that had snow involved and ended up painting 2 trees covered in snow leaves.

I wasn't able to snap a picture of his though because he immediately took his masterpiece into his room wondering where to hang it. I'm really happy he had fun :) It's a great reminder to share your interests with others! The more the merrier!

The Whimsical Jellyfish

Oh I even practiced putting an initial/signature this time! :) haha

Tree Branches Galore

Ah...the alluring trees. So beautiful. So calming. Although viewing them from the comfort of your backyard is a whole different story compared to painting them on a fresh canvas. I always believed that learning to paint a tree was a big staple to any artist's beginner skills, so I set out on my journey to learn! :) As I was swimming through the tutorials on YouTube ( it's such a practice in decision making skills, I want to try them all!) I finally found the video I was going to stick through for my practice in painting tree branches. In this video, artist Amy Pearce shows us how to paint a pretty spooky looking tree. She's using oil in her tutorial but the same techniques can be applied to acrylics.

I followed the basic form of the tree and then added the branches using thick to thin brushes along the way. This was great practice for using fine strokes, but frustrating too because I have shaky hands. I then did the highlights as shown in the video and that really made it come alive.

In Amy's painting she used a bluish background, but I decided to go for a darker theme and used a pale moon instead as my source of light. I painted my moon by looking at pictures trying to get that dirty white hue to it and trying to add pockets of gray for the craters. I used my fingers a lot to blend it and then gave it a textured look. It came out alright but I'll try to work on my moons! :)

And voila! Here's the result of my 4th painting! I took my first baby step in using a larger canvas this time (instead of the 12x12 canvas panels) and I'm glad it wasn't just blobs of paint because canvases are pretty expensive! :)

The "textured" look I was talking about :)

Overall, it was a great tutorial for learning to paint a tree and its branches! Next time I will definitely be experimenting with adding leaves/flowers :)

Painting Inspired by Philippine Waters

A quickie fact about myself: I lived in the Philippines for 9 years :) As I was stumbling around YouTube for tutorials and random inspirations I came across a video that taught the basics to drawing palm trees. I suddenly felt a pang of longing for the islands that hold so much meaning to me. I basically grew up with an audience of coconut palm trees surrounding me. I can still remember looking out my window at the swaying of seemingly weak trees only to find they had survived over and over the greetings of typhoons. For my 3rd painting it was great to feel that sudden urge to paint out of true inspiration!

I named this painting Sangley Point. Sangley Point is a coastal naval base in the Philippines where a lot of my high school friends lived.

There were plenty of weekends spent there for dance practices, random get togethers, and just hanging around the sea wall. The smell of the sea is so distinctive...fishy but fresh! Manila bay is not known for its cleanliness, but all is forgiven when you're standing by the edge, and the constant hit of the wind along with the sound of water splashing violently on the rocks drowns out all the worries around you.

I wasn't able to take any progress shots because I was too into it! :) Painting this allowed me to familiarize myself with the brushes which was great! Learning to distinguish the brushes that make thick and fine lines really helps. I'm starting to have favorites in my beginner brush collection :) so that's a good sign.

Under the Tuscan Sun

For my second shot at painting, I decided to try to follow a step-by-step tutorial I found online while researching all that is acrylics. You can find the tutorial right here. Julie Shoemaker, the artist and teacher, shows you how to paint a beautiful Tuscan Landscape!

Mine seriously looks nothing like hers sadly, but I'm still happy with my own unique result. It's a great tutorial for teaching beginners like myself about depth. She explains how images (like the hills and background shrubs) are suppose to appear duller and how images in the foreground tend to appear darker. I really enjoyed this tutorial because it really made me dive into my paints. It allowed me to grow more familiar with the colors and how they mix with one another.

And of course I must mention how relaxing it is to come home after a stressful day of work and just splash the paint on that canvas! Playing "La Mer" in the background with a paintbrush in my hand really makes me feel one step closer to becoming an artiste.

I'll be needing more paint soon! Spacing out the paint in the little tubes makes it hard to cover the canvas to my desire. The only thing I didn't follow in the tutorial was putting on Gesso! I had no idea that it was a necessity for painting with acrylics, so I must get some asap :) Beginner's mistake...I bet it would have helped with the blending a lot.

All done! I didn't get to put the little house though! Trust me I tried...but it looked like a odd-shaped disaster with a red roof.