9 Weeks till Christmas!

I have been back on the Christmas card designing this week and really enjoying it!

Christmas cards for the paintbox

Busy week at Tigerprint!

With 679 entries into the black and white print competition on Tigerprint, they have been having a busy week judging!  And it's been a busy time for me and my designs too.  I was over the moon when my "Bird" entry got a mention on the Tigerprint competition Facebook page!  But then yesterday i was pleasantly surprised that my "Circle" design has made it into the top 25 entries!!  The winner will be announced on Monday but i'm just delighted that my designs are liked!

Mention for my "Birds" design.

My shortlisted design (Fingers Crossed!!)

Week 4!

I can't believe this is week 4 of my oil painting course!  I would have completed an acrylic painting by now, but as this is all new to me and there are loads of interesting techniques to use with oils, my painting is still incomplete!  I'm still really enjoying it though!  This week i concentrated on the foreground of my painting and got some handy hints for how not to overwork the foreground (which is the direction it was going in before my tutor intervened!) just by using soft delicate brushstrokes to give the appearance of detail rather than making it look too sharp and distracting to the eye!   I'm still not happy with the water or background yet so once the foreground is in i am going to revisit the top of my painting and set some parts even further back.  Unfortunately with it being half term next week you will have to wait two weeks to see the next development!

Black and White Prints

These are my Tigerprint competition entries.  "Birds" was actually one of my screen print designs for a scarf project at college.  I think it works perfectly for the theme!

"Paisley" - Computer generated design

"Trellis - Computer generated design

"Snake" - Computer generated design

"Birds" - Screen print scarf design

"Circles" - Pencil sketch

I love Oil Painting!!

Yes,  I think I'm slowly being converted to the ways of the oils!  This art course is the best thing i could have done in order to better myself as an artist as i am learning all kinds of magical and crazy techniques!  This week i was shown how to knock back the background of my painting using equal amounts of linseed oil with sansodor and then putting slight amounts of colour over the top, creating a glaze!  Amazing, it was like magic!  And the beauty is if i didn't like it i could wipe it off with a cloth and my original paint was still underneath!  I am also really pleased as my teacher likened my work to pointillism!!  As a lover of Georges Seurat's work this has pleased me very much! See what you think...

It's Christmas!!?

Here is a snapshot of a couple of Christmas cards which have just been added to the paintbox's portfolio of designs.  The Poinsettia design is one of my watercolour paintings, scanned in and digitally composed!   And yes... It did feel wrong thinking about Christmas in October!

Oils Week Two!

I am amazed how little i knew about oil paints!!  I know how to draw and obviously how to paint but i'm learning all these new techniques and effects which you just can't achieve in acrylics!  And also by having a limited amount of paints consisting of the primary colours it is also making mix colours again!  A part of painting i had totally become lazy in as i just bought the colours i wanted!  So here it is, the second stage of development!  I concentrated on the top half of the canvas as next week, when the paint is dry, i am being shown how to knock the background further back into the painting using a mix of linseed oil and sansodor.  I can't wait!!