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!

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.


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

Purchase

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

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

 

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donnavinesart.blogspot.com

 

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.

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


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donnavinesart.blogspot.com
 

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!