Workshop Success

Our first workshop class was fun and productive. Two art teachers are taking the class which was unexpected and made me feel really good. Many exciting things are happening at MadArts from cooking classes to new whimsical wooden carvings.

Diving Deeper

The author's favorite illustration from last week.

I forgot to teach my workshop this morning, if any students see this I am so sorry. It is all my fault. We went on a trip this weekend and my kids were out of school Monday and Tuesday, it messed my thoughts up. But I shouldn't make excuses, I know it was a big inconvenience. I hope we can still have fun next Wednesday. I can't wait to paint again, really miss it and look forward to the workshop.

Illustrating and Drawing

The best side effect I have seen from doing these illustrations is that I am drawing really well in my sketch book. I want to find a way to capitalize on my drawing ability with my paintings. Painting is a whole different skill set and it doesn't transfer automatically. My Favorite illustration from the week:

Textured Red Wine

Need a little wine for Valentine's Day? "Soft, Spicy Red", 9" x 12", $85.00. I have been working with textures in preparation for teaching an acrylic workshop this Wednesday and Saturday at MAD Arts in Madison, VA.








Also still working on my illustration project. The images are getting more unique and a little psychedelic. This is what I had hoped would happen; I am arriving at something new once I exhaust all the obvious solutions.

New Illustration Project

In a quest for some steady employment to support my painting habit, I have taken on a few part time endeavors. One is doing 62 illustrations for a self-empowerment book. I was intrigued by the subject matter and the freedom it gave to express. One thing I didn't anticipate is that the joyous discover came in the first week and now I am on auto pilot trying to recreate the success and make the book consistent. Maybe I should have made each illustration look unique like it was done by a different person or picked four styles and made it look like it was done by four different illustrators? Anyway it is a learning experience and I am proving to myself that I can be disciplined and stay on a schedule. Another of my endeavors is training to be a floral designer. It is really fun and I enjoy using my knowledge of color and design in a whole new way. I am in need of more practice and having some real failures but my teacher is very encouraging and optimistic. My third venture is going to be teaching an acrylic workshop to adults in February at MadArts. I am very excited about this. I have never taught painting to adults and I am interested in how it will go. I will also be anxious to get back to painting. I am pining for it which is a good thing; absence makes the heart grow fonder.

My illustrations are a combination of painting, drawing and digital methods.

Puppy Love

Acrylic on paper

More Joy

These are two more attempts at the "Joy" illustration. I am scanning the line drawing separate from a painted layer and I like the way the colors look this way much better.

Commercial Illustration

Working to bring my art full circle from digital illustration, to fine art painting back to a method of combing the two for commercial work.
Here are a few samples I am working on.
Connected
Joy
Grateful

I'm in Love

I'm in love with these colors, in love with working small and in love with working on paper. It's wonderful to be in love. Maybe I'm just happy to be painting again after taking some time to set up my store and a freelance account. But it's a great time to be happy and I'll take it.

New Giclee Prints

I am so pleased with the reproduction quality of my new giclee prints created at American Printing, check them out at my new online store: http://carolbarber.bigcartel.com

Blue or not to Blue? That is the question.

I have had customers on more than one occasion and in different states say "I love it but I don't have any blue in my house". So I took the blue out of the scanned painting images in Photoshop and am going to invest in making 8" x 10" giclee prints of them. What do you think? Do you like the originals better?
From the comments on facebook I am leaning towards making the prints from the color manipulated images, no one seems to care or really notice that they are not the original painted colors.

Painting a Verb

Rising, acrylic on paper, 11.5 " x 14.25"

I wanted to take a break from the "how" of painting and focus on the "why". I followed the workshop leader, Bob Burridges', advice and did some journaling to determine a verb I wanted to paint. I was surprised by the verbs I chose: thriving, evolving and morphing. Thinking of verbs really snapped my mind into focus. I wonder why? Because painting is an action also? Or verbs are more abstract and stops your mind from thinking about concrete objects? This was fun and pure freedom.

Color Placement

I feel like I finally got the color placement going how I wanted in attempts 5 and 6. Can you see the difference? I am also glad that I stuck with the same subject so I could more easily see the progression. After this exercise, I also feel more confident in tackling a commercial illustration project in this style. If anyone knows of any such opportunities let me know.

There is still lots of experimentation to be done like varying the mark making. Let me know if you would like to see any of these available as prints. Thank you for your input.

Color Blocks

I have observed from some of my favorite artists like Marc Chagall and Jose Merello that color is independently blocked onto the painting and is not tied to foreground and background or positive and negative shapes in the picture. That seems so simple but hard for me to overcome. Here are a few of my latest attempts.

Works on Paper

‎"My Painted Pony", acrylic on paper
Carol Barber @ 2011

Carol Barber@2011, "Foraging Red", acrylic on paper, 8"x 10"

I started to do some works on paper last week, hoping to do some spontaneous experimental work. But started making a lot of tight, over worked messes. Maybe it was the medium, maybe it is my reference or starting points? Anyway I was thankful to complete this piece on paper yesterday. Not as loose as I anticipated but I think it is an interesting image.

Fall Color is Inspiring

What a fabulous weekend it was to take photos!

Robert Joyner

I watched a tutorial by Robert Joyner last night: http://www.robertjoynerartist.com/fine-art-painting-tutorials/ and then did this large painting today. I love Robert Joyner's abstract cows especially. I am pretty happy with my painting, I wish that I would have left the layers more open. I don't know why I have that urge to fill in the canvas. Joyner's are definitely looser but I will keep working at it. Boy I really need to sell a painting so I can buy more canvases. I know you will enjoy looking at Joyner's work, let me know if you try out his tutorials. They are all free, what a nice guy.

Five New Paintings

I was able to complete five new paintings this past week. The way I did it was to work on four of them at one time. I like that process and really feel like creativity can fly. I was flipping back and forth through my sketch book and not even really "seeing" what I was painting sometimes. That is the way I sketch, I hardly look down at the paper. I used Liquitex brand light modeling paste instead of Golden brand and I thought it behaved differently. Golden's paste stays grainy in texture even after mixing it with water. What I got with Liquitex reminds me of gouache paint. I like the soft matte look on canvas but prefer Golden's thickness. The one painting with the blue road and fluffy clouds was done by itself and I used Golden's regular modeling paste full strength. It has a shiny finish rather than matte. I would really like to hear your opinions about the paintings and which one you like best. I am missing the Fall art festivals and that is the best place to get feed back. I left some of the backgrounds from taking the pictures. I thought it was interesting how much they matched my new surroundings. Also the paintings are from sketches I did on Grave's Mill Road in Madison County. It is such a pretty road, like visiting another country or going back in time. A very special place.

Mad Arts

I am very excited to have some paintings for sale at Mad Arts on Route 29 North of Ruckersville, just in Madison county. I love the enthusiasm of the owner and I really enjoy the process of selling paintings. Who wouldn't right?

Getting Warmed UP

"Barn Shadows"




"Have Barn. Let's Play."

Fun with wall colors

The most creative thing I have done lately is choose paintings to go with the existing wall colors in our new home. I love the strong colors on the walls and they surprisingly really make the art pop. I left numerous paintings for sale in Gainesville at MT's Chop House and Paddiwhack. Chuck at Paddiwhack will let you take the paintings home and try them with your wall colors to see how you like them before purchasing. Try a little color today!

Commissioned Chair

Three siblings commissioned me to paint a chair for their Mother's Birthday. As a Mom, I knew she would be touched by her childrens' thoughtful efforts no matter how it turned out, so I took on the project. For me I wanted to paint the chair to get me through our move and the idle time between waiting for the first closing to happen and getting our moving truck. But that first closing didn't happen and we have decided to take on two mortgage payments as we wait for a buyer down in Florida and keep our house in Virginia. Now I am thankful for the money I made on the project and will carefully spend each dollar. How quickly things can change but it makes you appreciate every opportunity.