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"CHAIN AND ROPE" 

by Denette Schweikert

8" X 10" 

This has been really fun painting.  I think I took the picture on a family trip in the coast of New England twenty years ago. Going over old photos, I have found so old gems that I am starting to paint. 

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July's Challenge: Wild and Crazy Colors

This month's challenge is to paint something with wild colors that totally do not sync with the subject. Examples: Landscapes, a furry animal, a face - in vibrant unrealistic colors.

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Cindy's Purple Cows

This is acrylic with oil on cradled board. Using unexpected colors made me really pay attention to the shadows and shapes, it had to read “cow”....

Cindy Michaud

cindymichaudart.blogspot.com

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from Carmen

About ten years ago I painted a giraffe triptych (see below), and I used that image to do my wild and crazy giraffe above on the computer. That was fun.

I also had fun doing a tiny painting of a bird in a mask, using brush pens.

This is so much fun I can't stop. This one is oil on canvas. I took a painting I had and reworked it with wild colors.

Carmen Beecher

carmenbeecher.com

carmensart.etsy.com

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This little pleinaire painting was dull as a dormouse.  I painted over it with brighter colors to meet the challenge, red over dark green, orange over light green, yellow over blue, purple over gray and blue over light brown.

Mary Warnick

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I really had fun with this one.  I have always been fascinated with the beautiful Henna drawings that Indian brides have done so I traced by hand and tried one with colors to see how it would look.

I also wanted to paint an animal a different color so I decided on a rooster.  It is amazing how color changes everything.

Donna Vines


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I have cheated a bit.  This is the picture I am painting for my granddaughter for her room in her new house in Seattle.  I am a fan of Photoshop Elements that changed the colors to purple and green.  You will see the real one next week.  

by Denette Schweikert

http://denette.net

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Since we have all been affected by having to “stay in,” I have been taking some courses online. I do much better when I have a deadline. This is one of the course exercises. My goal was to be colorful and paint more loosely. It was fun to try and get my mind off all of the unusual goings-on. What is our new normal? Don’t know yet. Painting is still my happy place.

by Jean Thomas

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Kathy's challenge painting: 

"Color Does Not Define Us" 

22"x30" Acrylic on Heavy Textured Rice Paper

Detail

I love this heavy textured rice paper from Ralph's Art Supply. It's a little hard to paint on, but the lines and textures influence and inspire some of my designs and I enjoy that. Since the paper is quite large, and split leaf Philodendron's are so complex, this took me almost two weeks to draw and paint the basic shapes. I then spent another five days adding small designs in a variety of fun colors. 

It's most likely not finished as I need a place to rest my eyes. I'll probably put in some solid background shapes eventually. Despite the major reds and oranges, this split leaf philodendron is still completely recognizable. Thus the title "Color Does Not Define Us" (which I applies to the human race way more than this painting).

See Kathy's Watercolors and Home Decor on Etsy

The Challenge for June: Turn Your Back

This month we are challenged to pick a subject, study it carefully, then turn our back on it and draw or paint it. With no peeking.

Kathy's response to the challenge:
Source Photo: Grabbed this photo found on one of my favorite Facebook sites: "Birds." 

Process: Studied it. Turned my back.  Drew with some fun Tombow Dual Headed Brush Pens on 6"x4" Strathmore Toned Blue paper ... all from Ralph's Art Supply.
This is pretty much my default behavior. I usually study a plant, animal, etc. and then stylize without looking at the source, especially if it's a photo. Since I put him a little too close to the right of the paper, added a few weedy stems for him to add to his nest.

Kathy Garvey 

For more little birds, visit my Etsy shop. 

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"Adeline and Jake"

by Denette Schweikert

This is a "painting" of my grandchildren who live in Seattle.  As you tell, I don't do well painting without seeing a photo right next to me.   

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Carmen's response to the challenge:

I stared at this photo and thought I could remember all the elements in it, but in looking at my painting, I was surprised that I forgot all about the proportions of the building and the tree. Both are too tall! Also, I didn't remember that the treeline tapers down to the left of the tree. 

It's amazing what you don't remember even though you were concentrating. It can shake one's belief in eyewitness testimony!

Carmen Beecher

carmensart.etsy.com

carmenbeecher.com

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 Mary answer to the Challenge.  I loved this challenge as it really teaches one to be more observant.
I didn’t love my result, I need more practice.  For some reason the pictures will not upload.

Shady Cows 10x8 Original Oil on Canvas Landscape

Click to Buy

It's been a while since I posted. I've been very busy working on a book that will be coming out in April. You will be hearing more about that later.

This painting is all about the light. I love the shade in the foreground, with a tiny couple of slivers of light on the pasture.

Carmen

Robots and Paintings

On First Friday, August 2nd, Kathy Garvey and I will be exhibiting our art at Highland Art Studio, 1425 Highland Avenue in Melbourne. I'll have my oil paintings on display.

Storm's Coming

Kathy has been making ingenious little robots out of clay and luggage tags.  Foreign object removal on the runway at the airport constantly turns up the metal tags off luggage, and only Kathy would see them as potential robots. They are so darn cute!

Carmen

June Challenge, Black and White Art

The challenge for June was to do a piece in black and white.

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Donna: When I heard Black and White my mind immediately thought "collage".   Hmm... black and white, penguins, tuxedos, pianos, people, words, photos???   No, songbirds, musical notes, sheet music and of course polka dots.

Song Bird 8x10 collage

Donnavinesart.Etsy.com

Donnavinesart.blogspot.com

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Carmen: I love roots and the patterns they make. I was just in the Smoky Mountains and saw these beautiful roots spreading across a ledge. This challenge gave me an excuse to draw them in pen and ink.

Carmen Beecher

https://www.etsy.com/shop/carmensart

https://carmenbeecher.com/ 

Then I decided to do a black-and-white oil painting, so I chose a subject that had little color to begin with, Ruby Beach on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. This is a tiny 5x7 painting.

Carmen Beecher

https://www.etsy.com/shop/carmensart

https://carmenbeecher.com/  

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Carol:  For this challenge, I chose three small paintings, done in black and white on a red support.  I allowed small amounts of the red to show through, which I believe, gives an interesting warmth to the paintings.

These paintings were all done from photographs of flapper movie stars.

Carol Schiff

www.CarolASchiff.com

www.CarolSchiffStudio.etsy.com

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Fay: Several years ago, a distant cousin sent me this picture of the old Dressler family homestead. My great, great, great grandfather, Thomas Wilson Richardson, married Margaret Dressler in this house in 1860. My great, great grandfather was born here. I was inspired.

I started drawing the cabin free hand. REALLY free hand.

I decided it wasn't dark enough, so I darkened it up a little and added some sparse trees.

The final sketch below is a try at graphite transfer. I wish I had known about this technique BEFORE I spent hours trying get the cabin above in proper prospective. This discovery may have change my whole approach to art!

Fay Picardi

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Kathy: Below is my response to the challenge. I love drawing with Micron Pens on good watercolor paper. This drawing was inspired by a leaf found in a cluster of similar leaves in an open field. I was on a one month artist's vacation in a beautiful cabin at the Furnace Mountain Zen Center in Kentucky. Surrounded by woods, I got to hike, paint and draw every day. I thought the leaf was just a beautiful dandelion leaf. There was no stalk or flower. But later I checked online and through several field guides, and it is most likely a young leaf from a milk or bull thistle.

Kathy Garvey

etsy.com/shop/snailflower

spoonflower.com/profiles/kgarvey


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Jean: I love black and white. My sketchbooks are full of ink/Pitt pen drawings. Black and white forces you to simplify to achieve tonal variation. The drawing below is of my son Chris, underwater. He loved swimming. I found an old snapshot of him from one of those throwaway, underwater cameras. So I sketched him!

Jeanie Thomas
ozworks22@cfl.rr.com 

 Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Pieces of Eight!

The August Challenge, Paint on Black

The challenge this month is more simple than previous ones: 

do a piece of art on a black background.

I actually love painting on black and wonder why I do not do so more often. There is a bit of an adjustment as any color will be heightened in intensity when used on a black background.  But the good news is that you have a "magic eraser" - a tube of black paint.  I start my black art with acrylic and finish with oil.

Mint Tea, 10 x 10, sold

Sweet Tea, 7 x 5, available

It's fun to see how many places you can leave the black canvas as part of the painting...maybe that is the "magic brush" part.  Cindy Michaud   -  questions? art@cindymichaud.com

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One of my favorite paintings is Van Gogh's The Starry Night. Not a unique choice, but certainly an explosive one. When I originally saw time lapse photos of the Perseid Meteor Shower,  I could not erase Van Gogh's painting from my mind.

The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh 1889

My Inspiration: A Perseid Meteor Shower

Time Lapse Photo 

 

Perseid: Homage to Van Gogh

Mixed media collage on black paper 5x8

I had fun with this challenge. After I was happy with my composition, I played around with the photo and increased the contrast before I posted it. 

Fay Picardi

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I almost always paint on a black surface.  At first, I had difficulty starting with such a dark support, but it is now second nature to me.

SOLD

Purchase here

There are always tiny areas of black, showing through the other colors, which helps to intensify
the hues.

Carol Schiff
www.CarolASchiff.com
www.CarolSchiffStudio.etsy.com

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I so enjoyed the "half-face" challenge that I used the same technique that I used on that one to paint my picture on black.

 #Me Too

This is my homage to the #MeToo Movement. Her experience has broken her into little pieces and given her a haunted look, but she will gather strength from knowing that she is not alone. The sheer force and energy of her fellow victims are bringing about change. Predators, beware!

Carmen

www.carmenbeecher.blogspot.com

www.carmensart.etsy.com

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Doing this challenge reminded me that I had not painted on black for awhile, just for a change.  I had almost forgotten how dramatic the effect could be and how much your colors were affected by such a dark background. 

Even though this is not a photo of an overcast day, I could not seem to get the sky or ocean light enough.  If I really wanted to be as light as the photo I would have had to use a pallet knife to add layers of lighter color.
This was a painting I did about a year ago.  Look at how thick the paint is to add lighter color and highlights.

www.donnavinesart.blogspot.com
www.donnavinesart.etsy.com

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BLACK BIRD
By Jean Thomas

I created a gel print on black paper a month or so, ago. This uses a gel plate and you roll acrylic paint on it and add shapes or draw into it. Then you lay a sheet of paper on it. It is like a mono-print without the press.(Look up gel prints on YouTube to see the technique.)  I was going through the prints and this one grabbed my attention. It had potential, but it needed something. Added the blackbird and a bit more color. Voila! 

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POPPY ON BLACK

When Denette suggested painting on black for the August Challenge, I remembered a one day workshop I attended several years ago with the delightful and talented Kaye Shannon on painting with watercolor crayons on black canvas.  Her paintings were beautiful and I tried her methods for awhile, then moved on to other things.  Well, time to try again.  It was more difficult than I remembered, but I kept going.

I was having trouble getting what I wanted with the crayons alone, so I added some watercolor inks and Arches liquid watercolor paper.

Mary Warnick

 Pink and Palm

 

I made a lot of mistakes when I painted this. I put black oil rather than acrylic for the background so it took forever to dry. Then I had to put a heavy layer of pink and green oil colors and then let it dry. A week later I started to add to the rest of the colors. I like it. However, the surface is bumpy, which I don't like. Oh well. 

Denette Schweikert

 

http://denette.net/

 

Kathy Garvey

I love to paint on black, but this month I have a little too much on my plate so the 12 x 16 inch acrylic I started on a gallery wrapped canvas is still not finished. I'm posting it below at it's current stage and if I magically get it painted before the deadline, I'll update this entry.