Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Pieces of Eight Art Challenge - The Raven

This month's challenge is for everyone to paint a black bird without using any black paint. I never really thought about how many black birds there are--blackbirds, ravens, grackles, crows--but I called this challenge The Raven because I simply like the way he quoth "Nevermore." However, any black bird will get the job done. Here is mine:
Sold

I used French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson for my blacks, with a touch of Burnt Sienna now and then. This bird was in bright sunlight that caught the beautiful colors on top of his body and tail.

Carmen

https://carmenbeecher.com
https://carmensart.etsy.com

-----------------
Kathy Garvey
I've been working on the crow challenge, a lot! But not so much with paint. Here's my favorite - showing the original photo (taken by my brother Pat when we visited the Everglades several years ago) and the final after a little trip through Photoshop. I'll post some of the others at a later time.


----------------------

For our Raven challenge this month I did two pieces.  My first piece was a collage and that will be posted on Saturday.  At the last minute I decided to do an oil.  I haven't done any real painting in quite a while and  thought it was about time. So...here is my first attempt to jump back into oils.
 My crow is little abstract, a little bluer then I would have liked but that is because I forgot to bring a rich purple with me but that's o.k.  The whole point is to get in there again and just do. He is also a little undone and that is o.k. too.  I would rather he be undone than overworked. 
He does have a dilemma though.  That is a peanut M&M in his beak.  It is dissolving oh so slowly but what happens when he gets to the peanut?

oh oh




Donnavinesart.Etsy.com
Donnavinesart.blogspot.com
                     
                                                                    ************

Fay Picardi

Although I don't know how to tell the male Raven from the female, I have decided that my raven is definitely a female, mainly because she has such beautiful colors and she sparkles. I am happy with her, but I am not crazy about her background. I tried to use yellow-bright green as they are opposite colors on the color chart but I really didn't have the right materials on hand. So I am calling the collage Nothing to Crow About because I chose to do a raven instead of a crow and I am not so happy about her background. 



Nothing to Crow About  by Fay Picardi


--------------------

For this little portrait of a Florida anhinga, I used purple and dark green for my blacks.
Mary Warnick










The Challenge of a Challenge


by Kathy Garvey

The Pieces spent the month of February, when we weren't preoccupied with our show and sale, working on crows and other black birds. That's because our February blog challenge set up by member Carmen was to paint a black bird without using black.  It could be a raven, crow, anhinga, cormorant…you get the idea…any black bird. And we don't always paint, so I interpreted that as create because some of us collage and Photoshop and fiddle around with other media.

I gathered some crow images. Here's a few.  Click on any image to enlarge it.






I looked up the difference between crows and ravens. Here's a good link if you are curious: How to Tell a Crow from a Raven.

I sketched up a dozen ideas in my sketchbook.




I fell into playing with my photos in Photoshop, making sure not to use black for my crows.







Then I started to feel like maybe I should have painted, not Photoshopped. So I sketched some more and tried a watercolor of one of my thumbnail sketches. 

It was a childish idea that turned out to be a childish watercolor. But, it was fun to do, and I didn't use black!

But, then back to Photoshop for another round.



The challenge of a challenge is to finish it with something you are happy with, even if it took the whole darn month. On the last day for the blog challenge, I had to decide which one of these to post. It will post tomorrow morning with all of the others.

Hope you all enjoy our post tomorrow seeing everyone's crows! The challenge resulted in lots of crows! Something to crow about!

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Alcohol Inks

One of the best things about art is that it has many forms and mediums.  I came across a medium new to me called alcohol inks.  They were so much fun and quite a welcome change from oils or collage.  I found the experience frustrating but very freeing.  You really cannot control much except for the colors you use.
The paint has to used on a smooth surface so it slips and slides.  You can control where it goes by moving the tile or using alcohol to try and direct the flow.  Sort of like herding cats.  I really enjoyed it once I realized that most of it was out of my hands.  It was fun putting colors together than trying to guess what I had created.  You can also use stamps or anything else you have lying around to give it interest.
Here are three very different tiles.

I used a music stamp on this tile.
 


This tile reminded me of a landscape with trees and water.

This was just pouring and moving the tile around.


Donnavinesart.blogspot.com
Donnavinesart.etsy.com

Monday, February 19, 2018

Watercolor Painting, "Terns," 5x7 in 8x10 mat, bird painting


On rare occasions I do watercolors, usually in my journal. However, this is a little daily painting of some cute terns I saw on the beach, and I really enjoyed doing it in watercolor. The problem for me is knowing when to stop, so I stopped before I was ready and I like the result.

Carmen

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Block by Block

 I love taking photos of buildings of all kinds, especially older ones with lots of angles, interesting rooflines, in different stages of upkeep and repair.  So, I was intrigued by this old church in an old Florida neighborhood.  It looked like several buildings were put down and then attached to each other.  I couldn't help think of a child's set of wooden blocks. 
 I have a hard time translating all the wonderful nooks, crannies and lived in character that I see in buildings onto my canvas.   I usually paint farm houses, out buildings, sheds, or barns that are not the main focus of the painting.  I decided to just paint the wonderful shapes and see what happened.
The church was all white but I liked the idea of having each section a different color just to see what kind of vibe it would give off.
The result isn't to everyone's taste but I am happy.


Block by Block
 
donnavinesart.etsy.com
donnavinesart.blogspot.com
 

Friday, February 16, 2018

Raffle Winner

This very lovely lady name Jane won our basket full of art at our recent sale. Congratulations, Jane!
Thank you to everyone who came out to support us. And thank you to River Run Christian Church for the use of their beautiful lobby for our event.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Almost Home

During one of my trips back home to Gloucester, MA I took lots of photos of the harbor some with boats and some without.  Because Gloucester is such a busy place in the summer there always seem to be boats so getting photos without a boat or two or three is rare. 
Gloucester has an interesting harbor because there is an island pretty close to land called Ten Pound Island.   Legend has it the island got it's name because that is how much the settlers paid the local Indians for it or that is how many sheep pens or pounds it could hold.  There has been a Lighthouse on the island since the early 1800's and one of it's claims to fame is that Winslow Homer stayed with the Lighthouse keeper and his family one summer producing about 50 paintings of the harbor. 
I took this photo of some small sailboats racing towards the island.   It was very windy and the boats looked so small heading towards those big rocks but yet it did not seem dangerous.  I could not help painting this photo in a whimsical way.
On the bottom right of the photo is the Lighthouse.

Almost Home


donnavinesart.etsy.com
donnavinesart.blogspot.com
 

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Art Sale Saturday, Feb 10, 9-4

We will have a free raffle for a gift basket full of artsy items. We also will have oil paintings, watercolors, clay art, fabric art, pine needle baskets and smiling faces! Come on down!






Saturday, February 3, 2018

Bye Bye LIonfish

Do you have a piece you have done that you really love.  Something that is somehow a little special, maybe even so special you hope no one buys it?  And, if no one buys it for long enough you can keep it? 
My little collage Lionfish was just like that.  I don't know what it was but I just loved it.  I loved planning it, creating it, looking at it, showing it off and having it in the house.  I was very sad to see it go and I may have not let it go if a special person hadn't asked to buy it.  So, even though I did not want to sell it I did part with it as a gift because I knew the person who wanted it loved it as much as I did.  Besides he is residing in The Keys!!


Lionfish


donnavinesart.etsy.com
donnavinesart.blogspot.com
 

Ballard Park, Original Oil on Canvas

  I had not painted outside in two years, so this was quite a challenge. It was one of those paintings I had to improve upon in the studio. ...