Happy Holidays- More Ornaments

 

More Ornaments

 

Ornaments

 A little bit of holiday fun, some ornaments my mom and I created. I'll do a couple posts on these. It turns out it's more work than one would imagine. Be sure to get florotel- that's how the paint sticks to the plastic. 

A Moment of Zen

PNW Fall- Painting Some 'Shroomz

I am not sure if the dry painting is going to hold the image, so this is another painting that may move from this moment. This one is so fun.

The original photo:

Also, my husband says we have too many paintings! LOL. 

PNW Fall

Having a little trouble photographing this. I definitely need better lighting. Still thoroughly enjoying pours... they are tough though!

And, a bit of a close up to show the depth.

Zen of the Thermal at Yellowstone

 I like how this turned out. For some reason the photos I took from when I visited Yellowstone didn't really turn out, but this tells the story. It was really beautiful to see the water, with basically no one else around. A great trip, and classic visit to the mountain west. 

Commission for a ... Bathroom

My mom picked a very demanding wallpaper for the guest bathroom at my parents house, and has been struggling to decorate the room, so I wanted to paint something that would calm the space down a bit.

This is very abstract, but it really seems to go quite well in the bathroom. When I thought about the design I realized it the room needed a very specific red. I also thought about a relief of vegetation from another world or from the tropics as the style. 

And with this second photo, you can tell I'm not a home-style expert. Though, I suppose that might have been given away some time ago. 

Skyline of Moran, Wyoming

I enjoyed doing a pour for the skyline. Real colors, too! However... this painting is not going to last. I was being experiential and used paperboard, which is not going to last. 

Early Fall, PNW

This painting no longer exists in real life, and was moving a bit even when the photo was taken so this is a moment captured and gone. I tried on trick too many and put some real plant matter onto it, to try to get leaf impressions. Instead, it glopped into a sticky mess. I also got green paint on the rug in the dining room, don't tell anyone! Anyway, I did love it for this brief moment. 
 

Spooky... Frog?

 I was aiming for a haunted building, but fluid acrylics are interesting in that they keep moving after you are done and want them to just look like what you did. Any subtle kant to the surface you are working on and all things change. This ended up looking a bit like a spooky frog, rather than an abstract of a spooky building, which is what I was going for. Interesting that it came away strange regardless. 

Grand Tetons Skyline At Night

I got back over to the mountain west again this year, in late summer. It was gorgeous. This is another fluid acrylics painting, this time on cardboard. This is the skyline of the Grand Tetons late in the evening. 

Really enjoying this style of painting, it reminds me more of watercolor in how the pain behaves. 

Summer Dahlias, Fluid Art

This isn't done, but it's been fun to play with. There are moments of this that are really lovely, and other moments I may need to play with more.  But it's a fun, gloopy project I highly recommend. I was inspired by golden pair fluid, which I highly recommend people watch and play with.

It's just abstract and playful. 

The sheen and gold was really hard to photograph. This photo is straight in the sun. It didn't seem to turn out as well as the one (above) shot at an angle. 

 

Moment of Zen, Mountain Lake

 

Mountains, The Magic of - Just sketchin'

 

Not for Me Part 2

 Going through some really emotional stuff and trying to paint through it. Turns out despair is pretty common in our modern society, but I can't recommend it to anyone. 

Olympic Mountains

 I live near such a special place; Washington is truly beautiful.

Green flowers.

Joyful lake. 

The Lane

I have absolutely no recollection of painting this, but I recognize the leaves- that is a style based on the wisteria bush outside of my childhood bedroom that I've painted for many years. I don't think I liked it when it was completed, but I think it's quite pretty now. Interesting the odd things you learn about yourself. 

 

Moments of Summer Zen

 

Moments of Summer Zen

 

Moments of Summer Zen

 

Hawai'i Fires

 As someone who lived on the Big Island for a little while,  I'm so sorry about the tragic incident on Maui. My heart goes out to everyone living there. The devastation is overwhelming. 

Kona Coast- Just Sketchin'

 

A little messy of a painting, but a pretty little spot in real life. 

But Not For Me, Part 1

 

Rest Now. Kona Coast 2023

Having lived for a short while on the Big Island, I had grand intentions of visiting friends... going to the beach and seeing the volcano. But instead it was quiet times working, walking, enjoying the beach and just resting. 

Grand Tetons, Spectacular Storm

 I had an incredible opportunity to go backpacking in the Grand Tetons last year and witnessed a storm that shone gold on the Tetons, rainbows, and poured forth the rain of the gods on my friend and I while we were camping. It's weirdly difficult to paint a scene that spectacular, as the colors of purple, molten gold, and rainbows are not ones that come up a lot in our lives... and thus it looks kind of fake. 

Not sure if this is close to done or not, need to sit with it and see what it and see if any parts of it start to bother me, or if I end up loving it as-is.

This is my second oil painting. It's interesting working with oil... it certainly forces you to go slowly which works well with my very busy work schedule. But, I have trained myself to work with acrylic so long that it's oddly difficult for me to paint with what is largely an 'easier' media for more professional artists... or so I've been made to understand. 

One interesting and random facet I've learned is that because acrylic dries so fast you have to do all of something in one paint setting. So it takes me a lot of build up to do a sky, for example. For oil you have to pre plan the layers meticulously because it takes so long to dry, it just needs to be done correctly from back to front. So both require a lot of planning, but in different ways. It's a nice flex. 

Kohala Coast, Hawai'i

 Recently got a chance to head over to Hawai'i which got me painting again. I got a few small watercolors out of the trip and figured I'd start posting again a bit.

This is from a spot along the Kohala Coast on a windy, wild feeling day at an old settlement along the coast. Probably one of the more beautiful spots we visited on a trip that was a largely lazy beach trip.