Spray paints

I'm taking you all over the place with these work-desk shots. :)) We're infront of the house this time on the floor again because I'm spray painting and I cannot do it inside.

I tried it on the terrace and even though I used newspaper for protection I now have a black spot on the tiles. I haven't yet tried to clean it but I guess some turpentine would do the trick, right?

I made some ATC's that are up for a trade so let me know if you want any of them. :) You can find them over at my Mad Tea Party and you can enter a giveaway to win an ATC of Alice, too. I'll announce the winner on Friday.

That's it for me. Go check on WOYWW. :)

Spray paints

Pink like Cotton Candy

Pink is for Summer of Color. When someone tells you to think of "pink" what is the first thing that pops into your mind?

My first association was Pink Panther. :) But I wasn't up for drawing Pink Panther. The second thing I thought of was cotton candy. So this little Cotton Candy came for a visit. Isn't she adorable?

I'm into these bright colors lately apparently. :) I made some Mad Tea Party ATC's that are screaming color and they are up for a trade so let me know if you want any of them. :) You can find them over at my Mad Tea Party and you can enter a giveaway to win an ATC of Alice, too.

So this pretty lady is a mixed media piece. There is a book page glued on top of a poker playing card, I used acrylics and Faber Castell's india ink pens for the image and the dress is collaged with scrapbook paper.

I'm off to see what else is pink today in Blogland. :) Have a fantastic Monday!

P.s. I need to add this. :) Awesome Amy teamed up with Mel and they created this new blog called The Butterfly Effect where you can link up your Mixed Media projects. So I'm entering this piece over there too. Check it out!

Pink like Cotton Candy

Mad Tea Party

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it.

“No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.
“There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

ATC "Alice"
“Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

ATC "March Hare"
Alice looked around the table, but there was nothing on it but tea.
“I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.
“I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice: “it’s laid for a great many more than three.”

ATC "Mad Hatter"
“Your hair needs cutting,” said the Hatter.
“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity: ”it’s very rude.”
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was:
Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket.

ATC "Pocket Watch"
“What a funny watch! Alice remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”

It was at a great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at!” said the Hatter.
“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said Hatter,”when the Queen bawled out “He’s murdering the time!”

“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.
And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “Time won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”
A bright idea came into Alice’s head, “Is that the reason so many tea things are put out here?” she asked.
“Yes, that’s it”, said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning.
“Wake up, Dormouse!

ATC "Dormouse"
The Dormouse slowly opened its eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” it said in a hoarse, feeble voice, “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”
Tell us a story!” said March Hare.

“Once upon a time there were three sisters,” the Dormouse begun in a great hurry: “and their names were Elsie, Lacie and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well __”
“They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of things __ everything that begins with an M __”
“Why with an M?” said Alice.
“Why not” said the March Hare.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with shriek, and went on; “__ that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness __ you know you say things are “much of muchness” __ did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness”!
“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think __”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off.
“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said Alice, as she picked her way through the wood.
“It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it.

ATC "Tree"
“That’s very curious!” she thought. “But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.”
And in she went.

If you want to see where Alice went head over here.

As for a special treat I'm giving away the first ATC titled Alice. If you would like to win it, leave a comment on this post by next Friday. I'll be using random.org to do the magic. :)

The rest of the ATC's are up for a trade. If you want to trade give me a shout in the comments or e-mail me. :)

Quotes taken from Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Mad Tea Party

Inspired by famours paintings - Matisse

Welcome to my "Inspired by famous paintings" series! :)

A while back I had an idea to paint famous paintings in my style. So I picked out some of my favorites and went for it. :) I first thought I was gonna do it on paper but it turned out I had some wood that needed painting. :) Here is my first from the series.

Inspired by Henri Matisse and Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya.

Acrylics on wood. Size 20x30 cm (8x12 in) and 2 cm thick.

Original:

(Image Source)

You'll need to head over to PPF to see what everyone else is creating this Friday. :) And don't forget about the Mad Tea Party tomorrow. Stop by and you might get some tea. :)

Inspired by famours paintings - Matisse

What are you up to this Wednesday?

I have wood prepped for painting. It's cut 20x30 cm (let's say it's 8x12 inches) and gessoed twice. And yes, I'm still using this wee little table. Somehow buying a bigger work desk is not my priority. But it should be.

My parents are moving within a month and are getting new furniture for the apartment. Maybe I should tag along and throw the desk in the shopping cart while they're looking for a sofa or something. :) Of course I'll disappear just before we hit the cash register. My parents are great like that. :)))

And if you come back on Friday, I'll show you the first finished painting on one of these wood thingies. Are they called a wood panel? Cause panel suggests a thin panel of wood to me. This one is 2 cm thick. I don't know how much that is in inches.

I mentioned some time ago that I want to do some paintings inspired by famous paintings. Not artists per say but the paintings themselves. You know. Like Mona Lisa and stuff. :) Only I won't be doing Mona Lisa but other stuff. So come check it out on Friday. :)

For now go check on WOYWW. :)

What are you up to this Wednesday?

A single tree

Summer of Color's second prompt was GREEN with a CITRON as a bonus challenge. This one was tricky. :) I had to google citron. :)) Is that more of a lime or more of a lemon? Google is giving me confusing messages. :) Anyways, I didn't go for it.

I used a poker card as a base, glued a book page on it and then collaged a tree. I used water-soluble oil pastels for the background and Faber Castell's india ink pens for the tree.

I'll be posting an ATC every Monday and if you want to trade just give me a shout in the comments or my e-mail. :)

I know there are different types of trades but this one is going like this. Basically you'll get to see what ATC you're going to get cause I'll be blogging about them. :) I can go for a surprise or you can show me pics and I'll chose one I like best. :) Your call.

I'd love to have these little works of art as a memory of my blogging pals. :)

A single tree

Free your heart

First of all I'd like to thank everybody who had e-mailed me to let me know that you cannot leave a comment. I noticed it's been a problem for some time now. I figured out that only a certain comment section settings are troublesome so I changed it to a pop out window which did the trick and all is well now. :) I though I might mention it here if anyobody sees it as helpful.

This is my last rambling about my painting process so you can relax after now. :) I won't bore you anymore. If you'd like to read the whole series of How I paint posts go HERE.

Last Friday I was wondering what is there to do?

Of course I paint over the whole background that I so adored just a minute ago. Yes, that does happen and the statistics for that happening are high. :) But do not fear. I still have my “little spirit” that will guide me through this background as it did through previous one.

And the lesson I’m learning right now is to not get too attached. Because if I get too attached to a background, shape or color, I block my creativity. I’m stuck there with a pretty background and a divine angel face but with a painting that totally sucks. And then I get frustrated at myself for making the choices I made. I need to let it go!

I need to go where the painting is leading me. I take a moment and do the envisioning thing again. The whole time remembering that everything is going to turn out just the way I like it.

By now you might be asking me “when do you know you’re finished?” Just like I said before. I make a decision and I live with it.

I often get asked how long it takes me to paint a particular painting. And I honestly cannot answer that question unless I have timed myself painting. With making my first video of "Holes in my Universe" I can tell you it took more than 3 hours of active painting to complete it. But in fact I was working on it for 14 days. So which one counts?

"Free your heart" painting in today's video took me 30 min of active painting but I acctually started it 3 weeks ago. :)

It all depends on the painting process that I go through. Decisions might be happening quickly and I can finish a painting within hours or I might have to wait for an inspiration for a couple of days. :)

I managed to put together a PDF of this painting process. If you're interested, sign up for my newsletter to get it. The link will be in the welcoming e-mail. :)


Have a fabulous weekend! And if you want to see what outstanding art is there in Blogland go check on PPF-ers. :)

Free your heart

Filming again

I'm on the floor again. :) I'm filming my second video and hopefully I get to show it to you on Friday. :)

That's Flip camera if anyone is wondering. I bought it as a gift for my Dad but as usually I'm the one using it. :)

Happy WOYWW! :)

Filming again

Why so blue?

Summer of Color's first promt was BLUE. And here is my first ATC for this summer. :)

It's mixed media on a poker playing card. :)) Backround is spray painted then the girl is collaged basically because I couldn't see pencil lines on the background and then I added trees with acylics. All very blue. :)

What I have learned is that spray paint does not stick to a glossy poker card. So this ATC was ruined after the whole layer of paint peeled off like a glove. From now on I'm glueing paper on first. So far it's still sticking to the card. :) I have to try if gesso will work though.

Have a lovely Monday! :)

Why so blue?

Home is my haven

If you just popped in and have no idea what I’m babbling about, go check out this series of blog posts where I talk about how I paint and what it all means to me.

You’re probably wondering how to know which vision of a painting is the right one. I find it it’s the one I keep coming back to. I make it a goal to envision at least five different possibilities for my painting even though the first one is totally awesome. I sometimes write it down not to forget but I don’t stop at the first one. I keep searching. I imagine different stuff I usually paint then I go even further and envision funny or odd looking things.

Remember, I’m not committing to anything here so I’m not afraid to explore my imagination. But what almost always happens is that I will keep coming back to one single idea. That doesn’t mean that the other ones totally suck. It means they are not the “soul” of this particular painting. And those ideas will probably get me excited about an amazing second painting that I will start right after I’m done painting this one or even while waiting for some paint to dry in between.

And I try not to get discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away. I, more times than not, have to look at the painting for a couple of days to “get the picture”.

And you won’t believe it but when I do find “the soul” of the painting it just might happen that the background doesn’t match the soul. And what is there to do? You’ll find out in my next blog post. :)

Today's painting is titled "Home is my haven". When the wind is blowing and the rain is pouring down, you can always rely on home sweet home.

Again the background is spray painted and the rest is collaged. For the house I used one of the beautiful tags that Sandie from itchyfingers sent me after I won her first giveaway. Thank you Sandie! :)

Have an awesome weekend and don't forget to stop by the rest of the PPF-ers! :)))

Home is my haven

Some plans on a Wednesday

Hello Wednesday Peeps! :) How are you all doing?

I have several projects in mind that's why my work desk looks a mess. There are backgrounds waiting to be painted on, sketchbook is ready for my ideas and I need to listen to some music while doing it all. :) I have white and pink head phones. :) Jellous??

I'm attending Mad Tea Party so I'm looking into some ATC ideas for it. I have some photos in mind as well and I hope it will all come out as I envisioned. And since I'm gonna be up to my ears in ATC's I'm probably going to enter the ATC swap on Willowing.ning.

I don't know if I mentioned it here, I know I was bragging over on my FB page. :) I'm having my first exhibition in September so I'm painting like mad. :)

Oh, and I did some sketches interpreting some of famous paintings and I'm planning on making them into paintings only not on canvas but on paper but I need to buy it first cause I'm all out. :)

I have one painting that I'm in the middle of filming. So watch out for that. :) It's not as complicated so you might enjoy it more. This time I'm gonna film it from start to finish and edit it before I show it here cause the first one was a little stressful to do. :) And I might do some PDF's of the process if you're interested in. I'm still thinking about that one.

And since it's summer coming up I'll be participating in The Summer of Color challenge every Monday. And if I wasn't clear enough I'll be working with ATC's. :) I found that you can use Poker cards as a base since they're just the right size. So I confiscated my Dad's and here they are. :)


That's it for me. Now, go check out all the other WOYWW players. :)

Some plans on a Wednesday

Searching for a soul

In my previous blog posts I’ve been talking about my painting process. Last time I mentioned I stop painting when I feel like it’s enough. Now you’re probably asking, when do you know when it’s enough? The truth is there are no rules and it’s different for everyone. Ten people could be looking at the same painting process and each would feel “the enough” at a different time.

Here is where my “little spirit” comes to play once again. And it’s a little trickster this “little spirit” because it won’t whisper a clear message in my ear like, “You’re done! Go out and play or celebrate with that chocolate you’ve been hiding from yourself the whole week. ” No, it won’t.

But it might tell me, “wow this looks awesome let’ just look at it for a while!” Or “I don’t wanna do this anymore. It’s boring!” Or I go blank. My “little spirit” is gone to play with someone else and I’m left there standing and wondering what to do next.

The fact is I’ll probably never get a clear message that I’m done. I just have to make that decision and live with it. It’s that simple.

Another lesson I’ve learned that works for me is to step away. If I’m making too many choices that don’t end up working on the canvas, I just step away and I’m done painting for that day. Sometimes all it takes is one wrong choice for me to back off. If my “little spirit” is messing with me I leave it alone to get some rest. I come back the next day or even next week with fresh eyes and see where the painting will take me.

The soul searching for me is looking at a painting and searching for something. Anything. You can “see” anything in the painting, for me it’s usually a face. It doesn’t have to be the whole face. It could be just a round shape or an outline of an eye or a lock of hair. The painting is usually the one that tells me where I have to put something. I can even have a spot on the painting that I dislike and want to cover up. I look around it and try to imagine the figure in that place and decide if I like it there or not.

At this stage I have to think a little as before I told you I don’t have to. :) I have a background that I like and now I need to envision the possibilities it holds. And I do the same if I don’t find anything in the shapes of the background. I don’t get hung up on “seeing” something. I try and if it’s nothing there I imagine it. I can look at it for 3 days or 3 minutes. It doesn’t matter.

I play with possibilities in my mind and envision each one. The “little spirit” will tell me which one is right. I’ll need to name this “little spirit” as it keeps popping up. :) Any suggestions?

And now let me introduce Mrs. Perfect to you. :) You've seen her as a work in progress past Wednesday. The painting is titled “I watched her blossom”.

She started as an innocent child like soul and then she transformed into this beautiful young lady that follows her heart and reaches for her dreams. I watched her blossom from a bud to this breathtaking flower that grew past everyone’s expectations. But I knew she was perfect all along. :)

The background is spray painted and then the rest is collaged on top. The ruffles or whatever that might be are made with Golden’s coarse molding paste which gives it a nice texture. The rest is magic.:)

Searching for a soul

Painting intuitively

I promised you an explanation in the previous post. So let me explain what “painting intuitively” means to me.

We all have it in us. That “little spirit” that makes our hand reach for red color and not blue and that “little spirit” that pops a certain image into our mind and that “little spirit” that guides our hand with brush strokes. We all have it. I really, really believe this and you all need to believe this, too. :) But the reason why some people get better results or seem like they do it with ease is because they don’t over think it.

I used to complain about this, "but how can I paint intuitively when I don't even know what to paint? I don't even know where to start." But that's just it.

When I'm faced with a blank canvas and I don’t know what to do next the probable reason is I'm thinking too much. I'm trying to envision the end result. And I don’t have to.

What I do is I just take the first color that pops into my mind and I go with it. I don’t go searching for a reason why that color. And I don’t talk myself out of using that color either.

I don’t say to myself, “but why pink? I wanted some trees on this painting, I can’t make pink trees!”

And I don’t say to myself, “I’m always using blue, let’s go for green this time.”

No! The first color I think of I go with it.

And this is coming from a person that has trouble putting together a matching color scheme. :) Seriously! Some are born with this natural ability to mix and match colors and I’m not one of them. But I still somehow manage to do it by listening to my “little spirit”.

And once my base color is on my canvas I go from there. Again I don’t think too much. I just look at the painting and I go with the first thing that pops into my mind. It needs drips in purple? I go for it! Too dark, needs some white? I go for it!

I'm playing right now. I'm not “making a painting”, I'm playing. And there is no right or wrong. I try it and if I don’t like it I can still change it. I truly believe this! This is so important for anyone's creativity.

At this point you might say, "but what if my "little spirit" is color blind?" :) Well, I'm telling you it rarely is. The thing is, you're questioning your color choices. You pick up red and pink and go, "wait, this doesn't go together. I don't know what I'm doing!" Then you probably search for a better combination and get frustrated because it's so hard and other make it look so easy. I know. I've been there. :)

I go with my instinct. I'm playing, remember?! Who cares if it ends up being not so pretty. What I need is to open my mind and go with the flow because it will take me further. If I start to over think my decisions I'll slow myself down to a hault.

I need to believe that everything is going to turn out just the way I like it. And I need to believe it the most at the painting’s ugly stage.

At a later stage in my painting process I will search for “the soul” of my painting. First I just play around to make a base then when I feel like it’s enough I stop and look at it. About that in my next blog post. :)

For now, here is final Part 3 of my painting Holes which I renamed into Holes in my Universe. :)

Holes symbolize those future adventures that we are yet to embark. They look like little windows into the future which we’re peaking in to see what lies ahead. We’re terrified of the unknown but at the same time excited to see what awaits us on the other side. Enjoy the ride! :)


Don't forget to give some love to the PPF players as well! Thanks for stopping by!

Painting intuitively

Mad Tea Party and a Newsletter

I wasn't going to blog today but I have some exciting news for everyone. :))

First, there is a party coming soon called Mad Tea Party 2011 and I'm joining in. :) Here is an official invitation for all of you. It starts on 25. June so you have plenty of time to get organized.

And second, I have a newsletter for you. :) Well not yet but you know the drill. Sign up for Natasha May Art World newsletter and I'll keep you up to date with what's going on so you don't miss anything. :) I'm so excited I can't wait to start sending out newsletters. :))

Sign up below or on the top left side.

Mad Tea Party and a Newsletter

Miss Perfect on my workdesk

I had an urge to use some spray paints again. :) I love messing with them. A couple of backgrounds emerged and I went back to my trusty drawings on paper.

Because I can. :)

So I did.

This one I named Miss Perfect because she has a perfect face. If she will stay this way I don’t know yet. We’ll see how and where she ends up.

Yeah. You don't really believe me I actually paint on this wee little table, do you? :) No, I just put stuff on it so I don't trip over them on the floor. :)

Happy second anniversary to WOYWW ! And not to confuse anyone I wish I could take part in the PIF but I'm not since I didn't have time to make anything. Happy blog hopping to everyone. :)

Miss Perfect on my workdesk