Botanic Cameo

Here's one I had "on hold' forever.  Since this challenge is about combating that feeling, I thought it apropos that I would jump in and finish it, and not worry about "messing it up" or it not coming out as imagined.  

In the end, I still worked on the details a lot, and maybe am still working on leaving it, rather than over workings something, but I finished it and am happy with her!  She's sweet and surrounded by nature.

Wishing you the same this week!

Billowing Magenta

This one's a piece of subtle happiness.  It's almost monochromatic, but then I felt the green was in order.  The silver over grey is interesting in person, with different play in various lighting.

Again, I struggled a bit with not wanting to "mess it up", since the pink and white cloudiness came so easily and I liked it as is!  I don't know if I would have gone bolder with the botanics, but I still like the effect.  These cloud-scapes keep coming out of my paintbrush, and the inky releases are so much fun to watch and leave be...

I used symbols from a favourite deck- Animal Spirit By Kim Krans.  Somehow I wanted all entities represented- earth, water, fire, air and spirit.  Plus, I've been loving incorporating triangles lately, so this just felt right!

Enjoy your week!

Magenta Mountains

This one is very hard to photography, so we'll just have to know that it's more special in person!  It seems to be shining on the collage pieces below, but where the actual shine is- the copper sun- it seems dull... Hmm.  (Someday maybe I'll have a good scanner/printer for this work.)

Anyway- my process.  I always keep gessoed pages ready to capture excess paint while I'm painting. This page began to immerge as oranges, pinks and purples and blacks, but it was very busy with lots of cool marks...  So I decided to cut it for collage.  I've  been thinking about triangles a lot.  First I played with making an all over pattern on the brayed wood panel, but then I decided to use these in a more abstract mountain way.  (Go figure- me and mountain lines!)

Even though I still almost over worked it- stop while you're ahead and before you do something you will be bummed about!!!- it came out pretty nicely.  ;)  I am enjoying sitting down and creating and then finalizing without so much hemming and hawing and putting things on hold.  So this challenge seems to be working.

Enjoy your week!

Carefree Courage

Hello!  This was one of those days where I went through a range of emotions- excitement, interest, despair, disgust, courageous, carefree, curious, unsure, almost stuck, brave and then happy and proud!

If you look on the Palmsprout Facebook feed, you'll see how this painting unfolded- how it had a beautiful warm background and then a beautiful little face, then a painting fiasco continue, and I did what I often envy other artists for- I bravely covered it almost entirely over with more ink...  In the end there are a bit here and there peaking through, but a totally new layer of darkness changed the direction.  

Interestingly, I made almost the exact face as a practice in my art journal, and she came out to be a lovely piece.  I guess it was all meant to be. 

Wishing you carefree courage in what ever you are trying (and failing) at this week!