For The Love Of Art...



What does loving someone mean to you? For many people it can mean the joy and bittersweet sorrow of being a parent. For some, love has brought heartache and tears. Love lifts us up and inspires countless songs and works of art. Wars have been fought and lives have been lost in the name of love.
The writing on this painting says "When you love someone with all your heart, you give it away." So true. We can loose ourselves in love. How many women have lost themselves in a bad relationship - only to rediscover their own essence upon becoming single again. How many mothers have wearily looked up when their toddler turns two and ask themselves in a sleep deprived haze - where did the last two years of my life go? Where did I go?
When we love with the ferocity of a mother, a lover, a friend, or a family... we give our hearts away.
(Mixed media acrylics using a masking tape technique!)
Due to recent flooding, we had to move my office to a temporary location. It is in the basement of an office building, typically used as a tornado shelter. I hadn't paid any attention to the fact that we didn't have windows until one of my team members put up a piece of paper with taped off "window panes" and stuck a sunshine in it. It gave me the creative inspiration to make windows for everyone!
I started dreaming about what I would love to wake up and see outside my window. A tropical beach? A flower garden? The streets of a foreign village? Once I started dreaming...I started painting!
Here is the first of the windows - a vintage scene from Paris!
This is a closeup of the women in the window. I used an image transfer technique to add them.
Lastly here is a close in shot of the upper part so you can see the many layers of paint, collage, crackle paint, image transfer, stamping, gesso and oil pastel shading fun!
Today I wanted to get my hand dirty on a project I am working on that has a number of steps to it. I will post more as I complete it, but here are a few snippets!
First, I took a blank canvas and stenciled a flower pattern with gesso. The gesso will act as a resist to color when it is applied.
Secondly, I added some color with my Stabilo water soluble Woody's. I envisioned a fower garden and just randomly colored spots on the canvas.
You can see in this little subsection how the gesso flower pattern shines through.
The artists tools...
Then I took a wet paintbrush and began to blend the water soluble colors together to make a pretty flower palette.
I have an idea of what this will eventually turn into...it will be fun to see if what I start out to create ends up being anything like the finished product!!!