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!

Floaters

Floaters
8" X 10"
oil on canvas board

This is what I ended up with. There is a bit more variation between the fish and vase.

All the red was starting to block together.

The hermit crab inspires me to knit hansigurumi's hermit crab. I am always amazed how people can make something out of "nothing." In hansigurumi's case, she can turn string into sculpture... and then map out the entire process so others can do the same. Check out the link. She makes all sorts of critters. Most of which are sea creatures, which drew me to her in the first place.

Amazing stuff!

Starfish

Starfish
8" x 10" oil on canvas board

Here is yesterday's painting. I was debating on letting it dry and then adding some dark washes, but right now I am leaning toward leaving it alone.

This is how ideas work:

I stayed up half the night many moons ago daydreaming about a big fat goldfish floating in front of purple striped wallpaper. But I was having trouble giving the image in my head a pleasing composition, so it sat and stewed for a bit.

Then I tried to figure out how to make the fish in a 3-dimensional form, started doodling on it in the sketches and came up with this star-sided fish. I started a felt fish sculpture in gray. I knew I wanted to eventually do this fish in color because the body wanted to be red with a yellow star and black and white fins and tail.

I initially did not know what color to make the face, but daydreaming about my new blue decided it for me.

The wall paper was bland, so I drew some circles in there which turned into bubbles. And the baseboard looked bland, so I swirled it up with the wrong end of my paintbrush.
I wanted the fish to be grounded, so I put some quasi-newspapers down so he would not pee on the carpet.

What can I say? It was fun. I was glad the fish was already sketched out because I really wanted to paint something and was not quite feeling up to slapping something down and hoping it would come out ok.

I wonder if I am leaning more and more toward extreme color saturation because the world outside is so very white and gray... I guess we shall see come springtime with its explosions of color in flowers, grass, leaves on shrubs and trees, and all the college kids sporting new spring fashions.

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.