Art Show Time: Super Simple Sketch

painted in Corel Painter using digital water colour

I have this really great idea. This is not a very accurate representation of what the finished painting is going to look like, I'm just working on composition. I'm going to do the finished piece in paint (probably acrylic) on a stretched canvas, but I had a few spare minutes* today so I started thinking about the composition of the painting. Ultimately I decided that super simple was the way to go with this piece, so that the colours and style of painting can really take the spot light.

When I do the actual painting I think I'm going to make the horizon curved slightly on both sides to make it feel like a bigger vista, and I'll obviously work more on the shapes of the hills, but I think this is pretty close to what the finished painting will end up looking like. I'll post a photo of that as soon as it's done, so keep a look out for that sometime within the next few months**.

Do you like super simple composition and complex technique, or does an intricate composition intrigue you more?

Love,
Rosie

*Quite literally.
** Interpret as you like. It probably means that I'll finish it before the end of 2011, but nothing is guaranteed.

Art Show Time: Uninspired

Shot with my Canon Rebel XS

I really wanted to have something real, something worth showing this week, but I just... don't.

It's not that I don't have ideas, because I do. I really do. I guess the main problem is that I can't act on them at the moment. For example, I have this really great series of paintings I'm planning right now, but I can't actually start them because a) I don't have and can't afford 13 medium sized square canvas and the required paints and b) we are leaving soon, so I don't have the time to finish them, and I would have to ship them home. And right now, I feel like if I can't work on the projects I have in mind, I just can't think of anything else to work on either.

What do you do when you feel uninspired?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: Just a Sketch

Shot with Canon Rebel XS, edited in Gimp

Before you look at the photo above and decide that I am the laziest person ever to share artwork on the internet, hear me out. This is not the finished piece. It is a sketch, if you will, for one third of the finished work. Now, I understand if you are still royally annoyed at my halfassedness. I wanted to share the finished work but the world has been conspiring against me to stop me from finishing the project.

Do you consider the sketches made while working on a piece important, or just the final product?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: Musings on Fish

Shot with a Canon Digital Eos Rebel XS, cropped in Aperture

I like fish. That may sound like a rather uninteresting statement, but hear me out.

Fish are pretty much totally different from people, and because of this, I feel like we will never fully understand them. And in a way, I appreciate this. When it comes to fish, I don't feel the need to interpret and think too hard*. Instead, I just enjoy their beauty and, strangely, their company.

I think that's what I was trying to get across with this photo.

Do you like fish? Why or why not?

Love,
Rosie

* Obviously, there is a lot to be said about studying fish. It's just something I don't like to think about too much.

Art Show Time: I like the Colours

I like the colours, ok?

Sidenote: Is this photo more impressive if you know that I took it one-handedly while walking and eating a very precariously balanced ice cream cone?

What silly feats are you inappropriately proud of?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: Sheep

Digital photo taken with a Canon Rebel XS, slightly straightened in Aperture

I'm afraid that I don't actually have anything very exciting to show you, since I have spent the past week tramping through forests and sheep fields. The sheep fields have become rather a nuisance for the rest of my family, since I always want to stop and talk to the sheep. I blame my parents, since my strange habits come from either nature or nurture, so they are responsible either way and can't complain.

If your eyes are glazing over, sorry, but quite frankly, so are mine and I really can't think of anything to say to explain why my piece of art for the week is a picture of a sheep.

Do you like to talk to animals?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: Unreasonable Expectations

Tempera paint on a cotton canvas on a wooden frame.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may remember that late last week I spent a whole bunch of time painting, and that I had my piece up in a gallery*.

This is the painting that ate up about 6 hours of my life to make, and about another 3 to go to the exhibition opening. I haven't painted anything since last May/June, and I had never worked on a canvas before, so it was a pretty steep remembering/learning curve for me, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm slightly annoyed with myself because I think I could have blended with much more subtlety, it's not very fair of me to compare the painting to the pencil sketch though. I have always been far more comfortable in pencil, and this one had turned out spectacularly, so it created pretty huge expectations in my mind.

Do you create unreasonable expectations for yourself?

Love,
Rosie

*For full clarity, my entire class had their project shown, so it's not like I was chosen for it or anything like that.

Art Show Time: Dystopian Literature

Pencil Crayon and Permanent Marker on Drawing Paper

Know what happens when I read dystopian novels (specifically, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) and have too much time to think about them?

I start coming up with ways to represent those novels through my current favourite style of art: vaguely abstract.

Because one of my favourite parts of art is thinking about and drawing conclusions from other people's art*, all I'm going to say about this piece is that I think it would have represented my idea better if the lines of black words where closer together.

How do you help yourself understand books as you read them?

Love,
Rosie

*And I'm really tired and can't form sentences.

Art Show Time: Ghost Rosies

Shot with my Canon Rebel XS using the standard kit lens, edited with Aperture and Corel Painter

I've been experimenting with digitally layering photos lately. I've been lazily considering it since I saw this post by Lisa of Lisa's Likes back in February, but I just didn't get around to actually trying anything.

This first experiment didn't turn out how I planed, but I'm pretty happy with the Ghost Rosies (if you can't see them, try turning out the brightness on your screen). When I went back to find that link to Lisa's post, I came across her tutorial on how to do it, so I think I will be trying this project again very soon.

Do you have a project that didn't turn out as planned but that you liked anyways?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: It's Abstract! Sort of...

Pencil, marker and collage on drawing paper

We had to do a project in art class on sexuality and how we see ourselves, and since mine was sort of related to fashion, sharing time!

I don't want to go too into detail (everyone knows you aren't supposed to share too much online!), but I wanted to represent how I saw myself (the black and white part) and how other people could see me (the collage). I chose to use colour and put it in the center because the outside is what we see first, but it's also not very life like because it doesn't always show who we really are.

I'm thinking about making this a regular feature, would you find that interesting?

Love,
Rosie

Art Show Time: Wings

I was taking some photos of different prints I've done recently, and I thought I would show you them. I've been hesitant to share my non-photography artwork here in the past, since it really doesn't have much to do with fashion, but I realized it is very related to style.

Carved in hard artists linoleum, printed using oil based ink on a special press

This one is actually an auto-portrait, albeit an abstract one. The real explanation for this is a bit too deep and personal for the entire internet to be able to read, but you can take what you want from it.

Carved in soft artist linoleum, printed using water based ink and a wooden spoon

Carved in flooring linoleum, printed with water based ink and a wooden spoon

All the pieces are linocuts, meaning I took a piece of linoleum, carved the mirror image of my design in it, then coated it in ink and printed it on the paper. The first two were done in my art class, and the final one is I did at home. I felt rather starving artist, sitting cross legged on my bed, carving out my design in flooring linoleum because artists linoleum costs a fortune and I can get the flooring stuff free, but then I remembered that I'm only a poor artist (who's still in school and supported by her parents) because I spend all my money on clothing (and save for university) and it sort of ruined the moment.

What do you consider your artistic outlet?

Love,
Rosie