The hay has been turned to gold now the queen must pay

It started with a girl trapped by the lies of her father.  It turned into an unlikely little troll becoming her savior… for a price. Now it is an impossible riddle to search for the name of the demon who demands her child for saving her. There is still hope, but there is nothing sure about her fate unless she can find the name, Rumpelstiltskin.

For more pics of this piece and to see the rest of my Etsy store click here.

I use things that I would like in my own home as the inspiration for much of my art. In this case we have an abstractly beach themed bathroom that we wanted another piece of art for. I also happen to love clouds, the color teal and have fond memories of the beach so this has been a fun project for me.

With no further adieu:

Sky. Sea. Sand.

Showing the texture needed more light than nature was cooperating with at the time.

The color of water in places well south of little ole Columbus.

This ended up reminding me of a more volcanic and less traditional beach, but in a way that ties it back to other pieces of my art.

And some sand colored ribbon to tie it all together.

It was a fun project and I really like how it turned out.  As much as I like it, assuming we didn’t hit the lotto last night, I have to create the Etsy page for it and get it up for sale! The rest of the day after that will be more theme research for the website redesign. I though I had found it yesterday, but there is always something that I don’t like about each of the themes I try.

May the peace and power of the sky and sea be with all who read this,

~B~

The Kitchen!

I made a sign for Lady, my Italian lover of the kitchen. I initially hoped that the addition of gel would help the lettering and accents stand out enough to not have to outline it, but it turned out quite well with the white post production outline. It looks a bit like a blackboard with the dark stained wood… that idea is in the idea vault for later…

La Cucina

Lady wants me to make these available for order in my Etsy store.

Just plugging along with the home creation.  I’m hoping to do a field trip on my newly well foot tomorrow to see about some potential places to sell art or at least get some exposure:)

There is a way, because you have the will,

~B~

The next painting

Lady had mentioned a while ago using glues as part of an texture palette and I always liked the idea, but not for the monochromes I so often saw it done with; but when I combined it with part of another idea that she mentioned I loved it.  I created a panels with the glue and texture with a number of other pastes and gels.  I used an array of colors, paint brushes and other instruments for texture and painting to create this almost complete piece.

9 Panel – The Paths

9 Panel – The Paths: and further exploration of texture, color and a tribute to the options in life.

Gallery Wrapped

This is on a 24″x 24″gallery wrapped canvas and thus us an edge as well. After much consideration I’m going with a paint only burnt sienna edge, like the majority of the center panel. I fell in love with this color when I first started painting because of what happens when it is drying and you continue to paint on it. Here is a perhaps over edited pic that includes the edge.

9 Panel – The Paths from the side

Here you can see the edge a bit.

The light which we share never leaves us darker.

Peace,

~B~

So more work than pictures this time, but I am so happy with how Night Bridge is going.  I finally figured out where the middle had to go and so I set that up.

More Red, that’s what we were missing!

The next bit of work I did I got ahead of my self and the forgot to take pictures :o|  So my apologies, but I worked a spiral of blue back in to the red which you can see next. This phase happened in my guest bath as I had to protect the place from getting sprayed. There were some test runs on other canvases and then I used a tooth brush with some really watered down (50/50-ish) titanium white to lay down the stars.

Plastic wrap and old sheets save the day and look at that spiral:)

And here we are…

There we go, details left for tomorrow with a fresh eye.

The next parts of this will be detail work,  signing off and see how this looks in place!.

Should be done tomorrow.

In every breath possibilities, in ever beat of the heart another chance,

~B~

I had a nasty gout attack that left me mostly foot in the air for the better part of last week.  Not a lot of blogging or progress in that time.  I’m back on the my feet again and the darned toe is just about better.  That all being said here’s the next pieces of Night Bridge.

Blending fail

So I couldn’t stand how the blending had gone and perhaps it was rash, but I whited it out to start again. It did not go well, again.

Almost found out if it could fly, or burn, yes (!), maybe burn would be good for you!

I did consider destroying the painting while getting to this point. The green is ugly to me, I’ve created a lot of make up work on the mountains and again I wonder why I didn’t start with the colors then lay the mountains and black on top…   I need to press on to a win here so I decide to do the sky and start blending my way to black.

Well I like the new green  just not here.

his green I actually like… not for this painting, but at least I don’t want to destroy it anymore.  I like how the fade to black is going, the right side especially needs some work, but I’m pleased with the progress.  After a conference with Lady I’ve decided this needs a new direction totally in the middle, but that is for another day…

May the joy of the hours you spend in a day greet your pocketbook as well as as your heart.  

~B~

More work on Night Bridge has gotten me to here:

I started working on the colors here.

The blending is not what I was hoping for in the middle, but I wanted to see how they would fade into the purple of the sky next.

The plan is to fade this to purple on both sides then to the black of the night sky.

I’m happy with how that has turned out and now I’m hoping to work on the mountains next, to frame the colors in.  We’ll get to that next time.

May the muses be heard by us all and more than that, may we have the courage to listen to them.

~B~

I’m starting a series that will walk readers through a painting that I am going to be working on. I won’t show every step, but I want to at least give a feeling for what doing a painting is like for me. In this particular case I have a very distinct idea and even have a title for the piece before I begin. The title is Night Bridge and it is a painting that will be able to stand on it’s own, but was inspired by this scene from my bed room at the Eagle’s Nest:

The Two Trees:

This is Lady and I’s trees

The beginning of Night Bridge:

I want to bridge the two trees incorporating the colors and the mountains from the original works.  So first I drew in the mountains with a light pencil, then used a pallet knife and textured the mountains in with a fine pumice gel.

Night Bridge 1: The first step was adding the texture to to the canvas

I’m quite happy with how the texturing has turned out and am excited about the next steps:)

As the process continues I’ll keep posting updates and reflection on the process.

May your creativity be ever at the ready,

~B~

I’ve added two new pictures for sale at my Etsy store, Artistic Avenues Explored with Joy.  I’ve sold two similar pieces in the past and they have become one of my favorite things to paint. If you have time, check them out and let me know what you think!

~B~