Painting Fascinations

I've been channeling wood grains lately, it may be something my Dad passed on to me, this fascination with trees, exterior and interior.

I love the look of them, the smell of them, the feel of their textures, our home is surrounded with them.  Oak, Black Cherry, Butternut...  My father loved working in the woods, he'd come home covered in pitch and the glorious, musky smell of wood.

Teak

The above piece reminds me of Teak, it's not far off the mark. I've created several pieces with the look of luminous wood grains. Each piece began with lots of texture elements and under painted in a combo of bronze and gold metallic paint. The finished pieces dance with light and life

#135 

This one, the richness of Mahogany with the cracked blue for contrast. 

Mahogany

Love my crackle, though I must say I've been having a terrible time with bottles that won't crackle, I now do a test run on watercolour paper before risking them on my works in progress.

Not sure what's up with Jo Sonja's crackle, I lost 6 bottles this winter due to them getting chilled while waiting in a warehouse for me to pick them up, but two out of four new Spring ordered bottles failed to crackle.  Carefully stored, properly used.  I share this, just so you know sometimes products just don't do what they should, it's not always us that's messing it up :-)

"Intuitive painting stimulates insight...The intelligence of creativity speaks through insights." M Cassou

Studio Stall Out

Not much happening in the studio this week, health issues kept me from it, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.  I rather think it has something to do with wanting to work with the same concepts, techniques and colour palette instead of branching out a little in colour choices and things.  It's put me at odds with myself I expect, and closes down the flow of creative energy.  This is all still so new to me, I started painting in 2011, so I wonder does that happen a lot among creatives, you get 'obsessive' about certain looks, colours, techniques that you find it hard to move on to other things?

This morning I started the process of altering a design problem with a piece that's long over due.  Every time I saw it I knew something was off, my focal point was battling with a design element, so I've laid down cover and will paint and blend it in, at least that's the plan!

So I plan on giving into my current obsession so I can get the paint flowing again, it's all I know to do right now, maybe once I explore a few more pieces I'll be able to move on to other things.  We will see.

In the meantime, my Granddaughters spend a weekend with me and Grace, 13, brought her canvases with the hopes of creating something to put in some of my art shows this summer.  Well she fell for my current obsession with metallics and rust so with some guidance on techniques she created this beauty. As she got working with the paint she looked at me and said "Nanny, I see why you love to work with these colours, they work so well together!" My other granddaughter,  Lyvia, 11, her piece is still in process, we ran into some troubles with colour mixing so will be reworking her's down the line.  Always a learning process.

"Creativity's purpose is to stir back to life what has fallen asleep, to cleanse and clear emotional residues, and to open passageways for blocked energy...Inside each of us is a storage of unfinished and repressed feelings accumulated during a lifetime or more..." Point Zero Michele Cassou