Not so easy....

I've been working on this one from my head really, ie not looking at another painting for guidance. It was quite hard and I am not happy with the shading. In the end I added some pastels for shading on top of the acrylics but I had already sealed the painting so it was really hard to get the shading to show as I wanted it too. I need to re-define some of it but here it is so far.... Still....good experience, just keeping on learning! :-)

"Girl in a red scarf"

After a long lull in my painting I finally got back to trying out my portrait painting in acrylics again. I am afraid I cannot remember which artist I was looking at when I was inspired to paint this girl. Although I can see several errors and places I need to tidy up, I am pleased with her. I like her expression and I felt really pleased with the overall effect of her scarf, which I really thought I would not be able to do.

Just a painting I really like....

Isn't this a wonderful painting? It's called "Three girls" by Amrita Shergill. I really love it.

Have had a mega lull.....

Well....I haven't had any time at all over the last month to do my painting and it is leaving me feeling a bit bereft but life is life and that is that....so I shall not worry. I have too many "makey-things" on the go now for Christmas so I think my paintbrushes will have to stay in the cupboard for a while.... but that doesn't mean my blogspot will have to stay empty. I shall enjoy myself by posting some nice festive pictures and maybe some poems for the next few weeks. I think I will start with this one....

Isn't that lovely?

My first nude!

This is working from a beautiful painting by Wladyslaw Slewinski, a Polish artist who lived from 1854 to 1918. Another real challenge but such a brilliant way to learn how many different colours there are in what appears to the normal eye to be just one....pink!

Finished painting

Well she is finished. I loved painting this lady. I am learning so much from this course. (A Diary of Faces - Sharon Tomlinson) Always learning.... but that is what I love and I do feel like I am getting somewhere. :-)

A new painting

I am working on another painting from Sharon Tomlinson's course "A Diary of Faces"
(www.allnorahsart.ning.com). This one is part of a painting called "Innocentia" by a German artist called Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). For this one Sharon encouraged us to work entirely on the background first before even sketching in the girl. That made it slightly harder to work with the charcoal but that was ok. It was harder too to paint directly onto acrylic rather than a gesso-ed background and I panicked a bit at first! :-) Then it slowly starting coming together a bit. I haven't finished but thought I would record it at this stage as I usually record the sketch and earlier stages but I forgot this time. A while ago I treated myself to a set of six small tubes of Golden acrylics. Up to now I have only used student quality paints. Now, of course, I am spoiled. They are so beautiful but stocking up on Golden generally will take a long time....a tube at a time, so expensive but goodness I really see the difference.

Anyway here she is so far......not sure what else I need to do yet but am really tired now and need to put her away and look again another day.....

Got to say that collar bone is harrrrd........ :-)

ATCs for the Freeing Your Wings Autumn ATC Swap

Our theme for this swap was "Lavender Loveliness".....only restriction was to use all shades of lavender.