Purple flowers

I'm still experimenting here and there with knife painting with oil colors. Here is my recent painting... I think I'm going to try this again but painting more flowers. 

In the Holiday Spirit

The tree is up, the decorations are set and I had one table with just a little too much room. Naturally, the solution for that must involve Pinterest and my abundant collection of empty wine bottles. I had seen a picture of a beautiful centerpiece and decided to investigate further. It was a little messier than what I thought it would be but it turned out great!

I used:

Ivory Indoor/Outdoor paint

Three wine bottles

spray adhesive (next time, I'll use Modpodge.... the spray adhesive turned out to be quite messy and one time use)

Epsom salt

A pretty tray

First, I made sure the wine bottles were clean. I tried taking the labels off using a kitchen knife to scrape but I quickly abandoned that idea when I nearly sliced off the tip of my middle finger. That is an important finger, afterall.

Then, since it has been unseasonably warm, I was able to spray paint the bottles outside with the indoor/outdoor paint. I made sure that the can specified the paint was safe to use on glass without a primer. I think I applied 3 or 4 coats, making sure that the paint dried in between applications. Also, it doesn't have to cover perfectly and smoothly. I used a paint with a satin finish and I, even though there were some thine and rough patches, it turns out fine in the end. I then allowed it to dry for another 24 hours.

Next, I laid news paper all over my work space and grabbed a large paper plate from our tailgating supplies. I poured a good amount of epsom salt into the plate. I grabbed my dried wine bottles and sprayed one down with adhesive... very messy business and I'm glad I had plenty of news paper. I then rolled the wine bottle in the salt. 

It makes for a very frosty look... I finished by placing the bottles in a silver tray, adding a tall, Christmas scented candle and putting little holiday sprigs in them ($0.50 at Michaels). I also used more epsom salt in the bottom of the tray. It turned out great!

December Already?

Blogger is being a little butt while I try to write and upload a post about painting a picture step by step... so we'll save that for another time. 

I can't believe its been nearly a month since my last post! But I promise that I have been really busy since then with work events, football games,and holiday stuff. Fortunately, I did take advantage of some spare time I've had after work and on the weekends to paint and do some crafts.

One thing I tried and loved was making coasters. I did a trial run with some old scrap book paper and really liked how it turned out. So, soon after, I made these for a friend's birthday:

They turned out so well, that I decided to make some for our house! Here is how I did it, step by step:

1. Your supplies:

• Paper: I used scrapbook paper that I really liked at Michaels.
• Tile: shower tile is the perfect size. My parents were kind enough to give me some of their extras from when they installed a shower a few years ago. 
• Modpodge... yep!
• Sponge brush
• Felt: I used the little felt buttons that have a sitcky side.
• Hot glue gun: used to reinforce the felt buttons.
• Sand paper: just to make sure everything is smooth before you put on the sealer.
• A gloss sealer. 

2. Modpodge the paper on to the clean tile after cutting it to the proper size. 

First apply a coat of modpodge to the tile.

Give the paper some time to dry until it is stable and won't move around when you modpodge on top of the tile and paper. 

Apply 4 to 5 coats, allowing it to dry for about 15 minutes in between applications. 

3. After I applied those 4 to 5 coats (quite liberally) I allowed it plenty of time to dry over night. Then, I sanded the edges, making sure they were nice and smooth before wiping them down with a damp cloth.

Rough edges are inevitable. Just use sand paper to smooth them out. 

4. Once they are smooth and dry, move the tiles on a cardboard surface outside or in a well ventilated room/area. I applied 3 coats of enamel to my tiles, allowing them to dry for about 30 minutes in between coats. 

Here is the brand the nice lady at Lowes recommended... It can be used on essentially any surface. 

5. Putting on the feet: Once the enamal has dried completely (about an hour), bring it back inside and plug in the hot glue gun!

And that's pretty much it! The only thing left to do is sit back, enjoy a brew and enjoy not damaging your furniture!

Lately

Things have been busier than usual and I haven't been able to paint as much as I'd like. Here are some recent paintings that I'v scrounged the time to do. 

I painted this one after seeing a similar one that  Wilson Bickford painted. I'd like to try it again with some more blending.

Here is a flowery meadow type impressionistic painting that I did next.

Here is another similar painting... I love the colors but I feel they aren't as vivid through my crappy camera's lens. 

I actually did take some step by step pictures of this last painting that I will add in my next post. 

Yarn + Old Glass Bottles

I really do not like throwing away empty glass bottles. I feel like there should be so many fun things out there that you can do with them. Recently, my collection of wine bottles started getting a little out of control so I started some hard core pinteresting and found something that seemed simple and fun... actually I found several different projects that look fun and I pinned them (http://pinterest.com/sweetlacy/crafty/). 

Here is the project I did using clean empty glass bottles, some cheap yarn and a hot glue gun. 

I used a beer bottle, a wine bottle and a rum bottle, all different sizes.

Just the typical hot glue gun. 

I found that it was easier starting at the top and working my way down.

It doesn't have to be perfect because you can fill in those holes later.

Use extra hot glue at the bottom to make sure the yarn doesn't start to unwind. Then just start going back up the bottle to fill in the gaps.

For this bottle, I added some black. 

Also, wine helps the creative juices flow.

Here are the finished products. Different sizes, different looks. I might accent the solid bottles with the other color of yarn just because I really like how the little bottle looked. Otherwise, I think they look great!

Cool Jewelry Cleaning Trick

This doesn't really have to do with painting but I haven't had much time for painting lately - hopefully that will change this afternoon. However, I did uncover a cool little trick a few weeks ago about cleaning silver and I thought I would share my success! 

Now, beware, this only worked with my silver jewelry that has a higher silver content. Most of my other silver has a lower content and lower quality. On those, I was able to remove some of the tarnish but not all of it. 

So, the science behind this is really cool - basically, when we wear our silver a lot, our oils from our skin protect it from the hydrogen sulfide that causes tarnish. Conversely, when we have silver that we don't wear often, hydrogen sulfide is able to chemically bond to our silver, forming a top layer of tarnish. Only the top bit of silver is affected and, from what I read, the tarnish can actually act as a barrier to protect the silver underneath from more harsh chemical reactions. 

So, to remove tarnish, you simply ask the sulfur to bond to something more alluring... like aluminum!

Just follow these easy steps to clean your jewelry:

1. Line a dish with aluminum foil. Add about a teaspoon of baking soda to the bowl in the center of the dish. Add in your tarnished silver.

2. Bring water to a boil. Pour over silver and baking soda in aluminum lined dish. There will be some fizzing and, I'll warn you, it doesn't smell great. 

As you can see from this picture, the tarnish immediately starts bonding to the aluminum. 

3. When the water cools, dry your silver with a paper towel - make sure to wipe all of it down as there is usually some baking soda residual. Use a polishing cloth to really bring out the shine. 

Here are some before photos and photos of my silver after I dried it with a paper towel. I was very impressed!

These are earrings my mother gave me a few years ago. I think they are really pretty and I used to wear them pretty often but they are heavy. They became tarnished really quickly and I didn't know how to clean them so I haven't worn them in a long time!

And voila! All clean :)

Another little ring given to me by my mom.

All clean!

Clean silver!

Painting with Painting Knives: The Adventure Continues

I went home yesterday and spent the entire evening working on this painting. It took much longer than I thought it would but it ended up working out. I had a thought in my head of what I wanted it to look like. The only thing I couldn't clearly envision was the background so I winged that. If I paint it again I will probably try to do a different color in the background. 

Regardless, I think it turned out pretty good! 

It is somewhat abstract but I learned so much while painting this. I don't think I'll have another chance to paint until next week as we have quite a busy weekend coming up but I'm definitely excited for the next time!

Flowers painted on 10/2/2012

Learning Some New Tricks

I'm a YouTube painter. I follow along with artists as they have lessons. I've talked about the main person that I consider to be my "Cyber Mentor," if you will - Wilson Bickford. Well, Wilson has a lesson on knife painting. I had watched it a couple times before I decided to tackle it. I was a little hesitant at first - the painting was of a winter scene and, honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of winter or snow. I much prefer Fall. 

Mostly what convinced me was the beauty of other knife paintings that I see. Seriously, you should Google "Oil Paintings Palette Knife" or something like that and you will see images of these beautiful bright paintings by artists like Leonid Afremov (who also paints on YouTube though I don't think he does lessons). I was blown away. I wanted to be a part of it... or at least try and fail miserably and know I was meant for other techniques with oil painting. 

So here is my finished painting when I did the lesson with Wilson:

If you are thinking "not too shabby!" that's what I thought too... really the same rules apply for knife painting as does for painting with brushes but it just doesn't have to be as perfect. The strokes do matter more because they are what gives the true impression if you are painting something specific but they are bigger and deeper and you use a ton of paint so there is some awesome texture involved too. I think it just makes it so much more interesting to look at! 

So last night, I figured I would practice some knife moves on my own after browsing some pictures online that others had done. I decided to tackle a sunflower-like flower and just tried painting them on a piece of canvas board, expecting them to look terrible the first couple times. However, I liked the flowers that I did so much that I actually ended up just painting the rest of the canvas to make it a true painting. Here it is:

And here is a close up of that awesome flower:

So I was pretty impressed with myself, to say the least, and I am excited to practice more tonight! 

The Power of Tutorials

Most of the paintings that I've done so far have been from tutorials that I've found on YouTube. Let me tell you, even if you don't try every single painting that you see posted by an art instructor, it really helps just watching their different techniques and listening to their advice. Here are some samples of paintings that I did based on tutorials: 

Shooting star night scene over the water.

Waterfall

These were both lessons that were posted on YouTube by professional artist and art instructor Wilson Bickford. He has a ton of advice to give when it comes to painting and starting out painting and he makes the paintings quick and simple. 

I've done paintings with other tutorials, as well, but these are two recent attempts and I think they both turned out pretty good. These only require the basic colors that would come in any student set (except perhaps the purple in the top picture - but that wouldn't be too difficult to mix). 

So, if you feel so inclined, I encourage you to give it a try. As Mr. Bickford advises, anyone can pick up a brush and learn the proper strokes to make a beautiful picture - it isn't always about having a talent from birth. Feel free to ask me questions, too - I might not know the answers but I certainly know where you could find them :)

My Current Obsession

Election season is stressful. So are work, weather, relationships and decisions. So, this summer I decided to dig up an old past time of mine – oil painting.

I do not consider myself to be a particularly artistic individual but I do enjoy making pretty things that I can use around the house. Most of the time, it is really easy projects like framing a sponge painting or letting the hot wax drip down a wine bottle.

However, when I was in early high school (I’m thinking 8^th or 9^th Grade) my mother went through an oil painting craze and stocked up on canvas, paints, books and brushes. I had a couple projects at school that had an option of using a creative outlet rather than writing reports. It sounded like the perfect excuse not to do research on Greek mythology or Spanish culture. So, with the help of my enthusiastic mother, I painted a picture of sirens/mermaids beckoning the ship of Odysseus for my English class and of a Matador for my Spanish Class. Awesome, right?! I got to paint, have a different project than the rest of the class (#teacherspet), AND I didn’t have to write silly reports on our ancient computer that would then be printed on our even more ancient printer. Or, as was often the case, staying late at school so that I could type it and print it on the library equipment which, despite being overused, was much more reliable than the machines at home base.

I digress.

So this summer, Alex and I moved into a lovely house. It is the first real and semi-permanent place I’ve lived in since I left home to come to JMU seven years ago. I suppose that I could psychoanalyze further but I’m just going to say that I felt the need to decorate my walls… I won’t go into the fact that I was feeling a little “restless soul syndrome,” as happens from time to time. Perhaps we shall delve into that later.

Again, I apologize for my digressions.

I was becoming frustrated looking for decorating ideas… even in my favorite thrift store it was hard to find a piece of art that was both “me” and a reasonable price. I started my search online and found that it was still difficult to find something meaningful: everything was in bulk and it is so hard to judge sizes and colors when looking at a computer screen. Finally, I ran across a wonderful website: www.fineartamerica.com. On there I discovered a painting that I thought captured something I wanted in our house. It was loving, whimsical and delicate. I suppose all of those words translate to feminine… oh well. Anyway, it too exceeded my small budget. So I clicked on another link and tried to put that oil painting behind me.

But I couldn’t. For about two weeks, I thought about how I would paint it if I had the equipment. I drew it out in my old drawing book that I had carted with me through numerous moves. I hadn’t drawn anything in years and I’m not really sure what had kept me from throwing it out long before. Finally, one weekend I made myself a deal: Alex was going away for a couple of days and my goals were to clean the house and unpack the final boxes that remained. I decided that if I accomplished those two not-so-small tasks, I would reward myself by splurging on a set of student paints, some cheap paint brushes and canvas.

I didn’t realize at the time that Michaels was the expensive place to go for art supplies… but while there I decided that I would just deal with spending so much on supplies that I had really thought I would only use once. Walking up to the counter, I already could feel the buyer’s remorse forming in my stomach and spreading across my gut. However, when I got to the counter and the nice cashier asked me if I would like a 20% discount that remorse quickly turned to excitement – it was meant to be!

That very night I painted what my version of the painting I had seen online. I thought I did very well considering that I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in about 10 years, give or take some. The painting was dark and I over blended the colors but I still really liked it.

Now, almost two months later, I’m using our guest bedroom as a drying room and have converted the dining area into a studio. Thanks to YouTube, I’ve watched countless hours worth of tutorials online and have learned even more than I knew before. I still struggle with over blending but now I know how to fix my problem and what I’m doing wrong. I see improvements in myself and I analyze my paintings – if I think of a way to improve it, I paint it again.

Yesterday was the first day that I came home from work and I didn’t feel the need to paint. I felt its draw and I was still tempted… but I did not feel the emotional need to. Other days, I think about painting all through the day and wonder what I should paint and how I should change an old painting or I look for pictures online to try to inspire a certain setting.

I don’t paint everyday… life and chores do get in the way. But if I had it my way, I probably would. It is a release that I just can’t describe. It can be stressful when making a big decision for a landscape but usually it is just calming putting the paint on the canvas and knowing that the direction of my brush strokes is the only thing determining what it will turn into.

And on the plus side – it is helping to decorate my house!

My first painting! More to come soon, I'm sure...