Things have been happening

I'm nearly done with this year's painting for the Portland Audubon Society Fundraiser.

Then as a relief from careful painting, I started painting this.

And there was still a bit of black paint left, so I finished this off. It is #8 from the 100 Paintings Project (I'm up to 12, but a few need a bit more, and I will wait to post them in order).

More Paintings

Here are the ones I didn't post last time, when the internet connection was uncooperative.

This one is kind of a memorial, inspired by my purple opuntia that recently finished giving up the ghost. (acrylic)

Another desert scene. (water soluble colored pencil + water brush)

OMG--straight lines and bilateral symmetry! No! (For whatever reason, the curve is MUCH worse in the photo.) The best part of this one is the association--inspired by a lovely afternoon in the teahouse at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden chatting with Stephanie Anderson Ladd. (If you are interested in the Sacred Feminine or Goddess archetypes, do check out her website!) (watercolor)

This one was inspired by the view from my hotel during the Complex Weavers Seminars--Mt. Rainier. The painting took a fraction of the time it took to do the last one, and is much more satisfying. It is not true to life, but the colors make me feel like I did looking at the mountain, though the photo shows as crazy more orange than the painting. (acrylic)

The mountain itself, in evening and morning guise:

Paintings Proceed

First, documentary evidence of stripy windowsill kitty this afternoon the afternoon of July 6:

(My internet service has been PAINFULLY unresponsive for ages, but tonight it's back! To stay, I hope. Was it because of the World Cup?)

Next, paintings 3-7 of the 100 Paintings project--because I have decided I will publish all of them, even the bad less-appealing ones:

This one was inspired by the henna design I had on my arm a while back. I *really* like the background, but I was initially unenthralled with the painting because it didn't work like I envisioned. After not seeing it for a while I like it better. Acrylic paint with white gel pen for the outline.

This was my henna done by Roving Horse Henna:

...and I guess I'm done tonight after all; despite things generally behaving, pictures are v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. More paintings next time!

More Painting

First, an idealized picture of my workspace, adorned with my beautiful orchid.

Several in-process shots; this one is also watercolor.

And the final version--I actually rather like it overall, and several non-contiguous square inches are pretty good. The decorative things were to keep the brush busy while I figured out what to do in the center, and they ended up being undesirable. Note to self: keep a doodle paper at hand in the future, just in case. The snake wasn't going to get any better; it's pretty cute anyway, and I just stopped before something bad happened.

Finally, here is a bonus snake from my sketchbook in late May. For well over a year I've wanted to do a large, fancy snake painting, but I haven't managed to start--apparently starting with small snakes and working my way up is how it will happen! This painting was inspired by the little garter snake I saw while out walking. No, that snake did not look at all like my painting.

(The dark blue black is watercolor, the texture dots and eyes are gouache, and the shiny stars are acrylic.)

On the (Figurative) Easel

Since this is the first day of the rest of the year, it's really about time I add something new.

I decided a while back that I need to do 100 paintings. I keep wanting to paint, but I'm not actually very good at it, and I feel like these days I don't even know just what my "thing" is--motif, subject, story, symbolism. One good way to improve as an artist and to figure such things out, is to do a lot of things. Practice. It was proven to me a bunch of times at art school--make 15, 25, 30 things, and you WILL, guaranteed, end up with almost 30% good or extremely good things.

Anyway, I've been painting a lot of backgrounds. A couple are still only black gesso, and the rest are painted with acrylics.

And today, I finally got myself to paint one. I had to make it as simple as possible, and apparently that meant watercolor, because acrylic for whatever reason seemed intimidating. So here is painting number one!

99 to go!

Ring out the old...

Just a few pictures so I can squeeze in one more post while it is still 2013! They are things in progress that have been worked on over the past few months.

But first, a kitty picture. As of November 30, Beatrice has lived with me for a whole year. She is truly a different kitty than the one I brought home--she is affectionate and talkative, and has relaxed enough to be curious and sit on pieces of paper, and I can walk over to her and pet her and she doesn't skitter away--unless she has a reason of the sort discernable only to cats. This is the characteristic loungy kitty pose, in which most bathing takes place.

A tapestry sampler and an embroidery, both of which were started several archaeological layers ago:

Happy New Year!

Triangular Tidbit

A number of years back I became enthralled with Central Asian triangular amulets. Where did this all start? Reading "The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush to Razgrad" by the intrepid Sheila Paine, and her book "Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and Protection," not long after. Many of the triangular amulets I have spotted in pictures since then are really simple, barely more than triangles of fabric scraps. Some are more elaborate, and naturally I needed to make an elaborate one. I'm also quite smitten by mirror embroidery, so mine needed a mirror. And, lest the result be too stuffy, a googly eye. (Against the evil eye, get it?)

The mirror and the eye are attached with shisha stitch, and supplemented with smatterings of [uninspired] embroidery. At some point I produced a fingerloop braid to hang it by, and then it went dormant. It was in this stage for at least--yikes, maybe four years? Ladle Bug*** is observing:

(Seriously, Blogger? Why do you insist on rotating this?)

Recently I came across it--still miraculously in concert with its fingerloop braids and its assortment of cloves. Cloves were used on some amulets, and I had cloves, so I thought I should include them. The ones I used I believe I salvaged after making chai. While they were sodden, I stuck them on pins to make holes for eventual sewing purposes, and left them on the pins while they dried to prevent the holes from shrinking so small I couldn't get a threaded needle through them. So there were two or three straight pins full of dried cloves tagging along with the other ingredients.

Here it is--made three dimensional, cloves attached, tassels in progress. I wanted fancy tassel heads, and so I figured a bit of padding was in order (hence the black circles). Each bunch of cloves is on a short piece of wire with a rolled up loop at each end to stitch through. I think I would just use thread another time.

A close-up of buttonholing in progress, and a view of the tassel fringe. It is overtwisted and plied back on itself after a bead was positioned at the bend--so, no cut ends.

Linen is not satisfactory for this, being resistant and not having much body once you get done. Also, there has to be a better way to do it; I would love to watch a Central Asian woman make this kind of twisted fringe--they manage to do the overtwisting and beads AND incorporate that into a woven or twined band. I have to ponder a bit more and maybe do some experimenting. Or maybe I'm on the right track and the reason I used shortish lengths of string is why they change colors frequently...they are also using short pieces of string, because maybe it's just a pain to do.

Here is the amulet, finished:

And one more of the in-process photos, so you get the shiny mirror effect:

I think the only reason this remained unfinished for so long was that I got stuck on what to do with the embroidery. But this summer when I found it I decided--whatever, I just want it done, and I left the embroidery as it was. It is nicer done than waiting in limbo for a solution. It has been hanging by my desk at work for almost two months now; I cannot attest to noticing any effect. I think evil eye may not be a problem in Hillsboro, and this particular amulet doesn't seem to alleviate any normal work irritations--but I enjoy looking at it, so it helps in that way!

***Ladle Bug, aka Spoon Bug, joined my household a few years ago. I have a card saying, "Briana Kaufmann and Peter Neufeld."