Cloud Chasing

You could pretty much say that chasing clouds in my mind is just about my favorite pastime.

Given how much time I've spent on the technical aspects of brushwork over the past year and my recent blockage, I decided it was probably more than high time to get back to cloud chasing.

Imaginative free play is really my bread and butter when it comes to drawing, and it's plenty important to make sure I can do it with the brush, too.

















So I'm going to aim to get to a level of confidence and efficiency that I can quite simply paint as I think. Sure it's important to plan things, but so many serendipitous images crop up when you paint on the fly. You just can't pass these things up ^^

So it's time to get strong at doodling!
This time around I was liking cloudy lines.
Also working on human figures and face. Always good to get smoother at those.

Dancing elephants and things...

OK, so I thought I was ready for spring. Naive!
The air warmed up, and I suddenly found I had so many things to do that I could hardly decide what to do first. No wonder I lost my sense of direction in painting. My head was too full - with a sinus infection, too.
At any rate, things are starting to clear up. My sinuses seem to be getting better, and I'm making progress with landscaping, fabrigami, and all the other brands I've got on the fire. It won't be long before I'm back on track, and my next project seems decided.
A nice painting of a dancing elephant god. Good times ^^

Busy Bee?

OK, ok... so I'm having a little painter's block. It comes at a time when I have a lot of distractions anyway. Coincidence? Maybe. But I'm using the time to try to let my subconscious work out the prob and start up a side project: Fabrigami.

Yeah, I know that's not a real word. It's really just origami done in fabric. Which I like because it feels more permanent that paper even though you can't do everything you would with paper.

At any rate, the above is a bee that I made. As far as I know, I thought it up all by my lonesome, so I'm probably more proud of it that it deserves, but that's ok ^^ I just wish I could have gotten the wings a different color, but that would have been too many pieces of fabric for one little bee.

After this I'm going to applique it to something or other and embroider it some little antennae ^^

And I feel like my blockage is starting to break up little by little, so I had better get this fabrigami thing launched pretty quick.

Wow - I still do oil painting?!

I had just assumed at some point that I was probably just done with oil paint, but it seems it has it's uses after all.
This is my grandmother. It's pretty recognizable, but not photographic. I decided to start working on this with her cause it's such a good excuse to be hanging around, and I really want to do this before, well... she's probably not going to be around that much longer, so seize the chance.
Perhaps you can see some influence of Lucien Freud. Perhaps I would have painted it just the same way regardless. Either way, I guess it's clear I don't have his color sense, but I get by.
I'm just glad it's not a total mess, and with a little luck it will be a nice memento.