Hello new friends (well at least I hope there will be friends, and that it is not just my husband and son reading this).
My ambition is to create a forum where people like me who love to paint for painting’s sake can share their artwork with other like-minded people. We can discuss tips and techniques – how to mix colours, which brushes are best, I hope that friends will attach a picture to their comments. Tell us how they chose the subject, how they achieved desired (or undesired) effects.
Since this is my blog and I am a bossy old thing I get to set ground rules:
This blog is friendly – nasty comments will not be posted (If there is nothing nice to say, don’t say anything)
This blog is funny – humour will be tolerated
This blog is clean – no foul language will be posted
This blog is moral – pornographic art will not be posted (I will be the sole arbiter of this)
This blog is nice – no text or pictures inciting or depicting war, abuse, hatred or cruelty to man or beast will be posted
This blog is honest – only send in your OWN work. If it is someone else’s, please say so. All posters will be responsible for any copyright infringement on their post. Likewise your copyright belongs to you. I will not use it other than on this blog without your express permission.
How I got started
I enjoyed drawing as a child, but dropped it in my teens. About 15 years ago I got sick and my husband bought me some oil paints to play with while I was convalescing. I found the oils frustrating because of the length of time they take to dry. My colours were all muddy and the outlines smudged. Those paints are still hardening in their tubes. My brother and sister-in-law bought my son a great bar mitzvah present of an easel and a collection of paints and canvases. he hasn’t used it much, but I discovered acrylics – wow! paint that you could paint over! I’ll post some of my early attempts soon.
Limits
Personally I am at present most interested in painting pictures, but that doesn’t restrict the medium we will discuss at all – oil, acrylics, water colours, vegetable dye, pencil, charcoal, crayons, sand painting, mud smearing, paperbark pasting, wood burning, anything that is a two dimensional piece of art. I love to look at pottery and sculpture but have yet to get around to three dimensional stuff.
For example, I am attaching a drawing of my goldfish (sadly my late goldfish) which I did on my Android phone using virtual crayons. I drew his outine from observation. He would only pose long enough for me to count his fins.The neatest thing I discovered was the blending effect that I could get by playing with the transparency button. Another thing I discovered during this painting was the magnifying feature which I used to draw the thin black circle around his eye. I hope you like it.
Cheers
Keren