Meet Pinhead

Do These Shoes Make My Butt Look Big?
8" x 10"
Oil on canvas board

Sketch books are wonderful things. They are a treasury of inspiration and ideas.

Several years ago I did a sketch of a funny looking chicken out of one of those chicken identifier books. The other day I ran across it and imagined it in a huge pair of high heels- looking ridiculous- but feeling beautiful. I woke up around 3 am last night and started this painting.

It felt good to just plop the paint wherever I wanted without having to refer to reality. A good break after the boats.

Painting with Wool... Part II

Man, I love needle felting. This time I put down the main colors with roving and then came back and doodled with yarn. It is like paint, but dry. Virtually no mess. And so satisfying! Wool is truly amazing.
Better view of the right side...


Left side.... I take this chicken hat to its new owner this weekend. Its about time. Took me close to 3 weeks to finish it... keep in mind, that is not 3 straight weeks. I wait until the little man goes to sleep before whipping out those super sharp needles. He is like a little ninja. He is everywhere at once. And into everything... at once. A thousand fingers on two pudgy little hands...

dot dot dot.

Do you see the red canvas in the upper left hand corner of the last picture? (I'm so excited!) I picked up a couple 16x20 inch canvases and painted them red. The Archival brand red I got the other day turned out to be a fantastic paint for a base. I initially didn't like it because it dried so stinking fast. Now I love it because it dries so stinking fast. Both of those canvases are set and ready to go, I have a new batch of reference photos hanging all over the walls and my first subject is picked out, and I am so ready to begin I can hardly stand it!

But, unfortunately, it will have to wait until I get back from Texas next week. I still have some packing and repacking to do tomorrow..... maybe I can squeeze in some painting time and get the basic structure drawn in. Ooooo! The anticipation is killing me!

Those canvases became instantly alluring as soon as they were painted red. Somehow just having things set up and ready to start is inspiring. I like to leave paint on my palette all the time because just seeing those colorful globs of potential there makes me want to paint.

Kind of like how cake just calls out to be eaten. Especially a big fat fluffy moist piece of double layered goodness with whipped icing and fresh strawberries....

Mmmmmm!

Socks on a Chicken

Socks on a Chicken

16" x 20" Oil on Canvas

Ta-Daaaaa! He's finally finished. This one had some washes, which I do not normally do, but I like how it turned out. And guess what?!?!?! It was fun to paint! Holy cow!

I just put in an order for some new paint... Ooooo! I'm going to play with some Cobalt blue and a different red. I usually use Ultramarine blue, but am having trouble getting a really vibrant blue.

Several years ago I painted a picture of my father-in-law's Boston terrier, Princess Priscilla Pe-pe (pay-pay), and used Cobalt blue and white for the light parts of the dog. I really liked the look of it, but was soon distracted by landscapes and forgot all about that lively blue.

I have been trying to find pictures of that painting because I really liked it at the time, but I cannot find any. I would have loved to show it to you. It was similar to this one in ways. She was sitting on a gaudy throne-like chair, but I don't remember much more of it. Funny how a painting can be all-encompassing while in progress, but send it off into the world and it is quickly forgotten.

I haven't seen it since it went to its new home. I wonder what I would see in it now that I didn't see then.

Time and distance have a way of showing us the reality of things.... or just blurring them out in our memories until they are gone.

Chequered Chicken... or Go-Fish

Chequered Chicken
8" x 10" Oil on canvas board

I love this one!
I love the colors. I love the contrast. I love the subject matter. I love the feeling left behind after expelling it onto the canvas.

I had fun. Can you tell?

This one started a lot like the Sea Chicken. Doodling with dark purple to give me that oh-so-luscious coloring book feeling. Except this time the canvas was plain old white. Red is fun, but it takes so long to dry.

Realism is very difficult for me, but painting like this is just plain fun! Brad said, "Forget realism. That is why we have cameras."

This does not feel like so much of a struggle. I can just play and really get into a groove. But then, I wonder if it seems easier just because my hands and fingers and eyes are starting to wake up and remember how to manipulate the paint.

My Imagination is certainly waking up a bit. Last night it kept me up for a couple of extra hours daydreaming about a fat bug-eyed goldfish floating in front of purple striped wallpaper.

I think there are rainy seasons and droughts for ideas. Sometimes they flow and scramble over one another just to be heard, and other times they are scraggly and indifferent.

I love Monsoon season!

WIP- Socks on a Chicken and Etsy!

Work In Progress- Socks on a Chicken

I have made some changes!

I started by outlining everything in a deep deep purple and then giving it all a fresh wash of color and detail. I think it takes some of the stuffy seriousness out of it... If you can call that serious.

Oh! I opened up my very own little shop on Etsy.com today! It is called SaraWinters. The Sea Chicken is there, and the Grand Opening will be whenever you pop in to take a look. Have some cybercookies...

I am looking for an Etsy gadget to put on this blog, so if anybody knows anything about that I would be very grateful for the info.

In the meantime, here is the address: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6469172

I hope it works.

Sea Chicken

Sea Chicken I
8"x 10" oil on canvas board

I had fun with this one. I had a dream a long long time ago that I lived in the sea, and my Sea Chickens were blooming. I have always wanted to paint one of them. My chickens always have a pigeon-ish quality about them... Hubby says its the thick neck. I think he is right.

It was still fun. And I still like the finished piece.

I worked this one in a very different way than I usually do. I started out with a canvas board painted red. I mixed a very dark color to draw with and started doodling. I had to make some minor changes to the drawing during the painting process, but I think it worked because I liked the overall composition. Having everything drawn out in big dark lines just begged the kid in me to color it!

It was fun.

Like Socks on a Chicken

Like Socks on a Chicken
16"x20" oil on canvas

My last employer said that once. "Like socks on a chicken." I had never heard it before and was struck, forcibly, with a mental image of a very serious chicken in socks.

This painting is several years old, but I plan on bringing it back to life. It is still somewhat in the underpainting stage. I sanded and oiled it up to give the new paint something to hang on to, and hopefully tomorrow I can start slathering it with deep reds, shiny golds, luscious purples and feathery whites.

Bok-BAWK!