Finished My Selfy

My first portrait is finished. There's a lot that could be better but I will improve with more practice. I learnt a lot! I also know my concept works. I can't wait to start the next one and put in practice what I learnt from this one. With the holiday celebrations looming I'm not sure how much studio time I can fit in. My list is so long I really shouldn't be in the studio at all :(

the painting

the photograph

Selfy - Stage 2

Its Thursday and that means art day with my friend Mignon. A bit more done to my selfy. Some washes of colour and some stamping. I'm just slowly building up the layers. Next stage will be a little detail I think.

Art at the Hart Artists Market on this weekend at Port Adelaide. On the banks of the Port River down near the old Hart Mill. Saturday and Sunday 11am till 6pm. No studio time for me this weekend.

A Tentative Start

I'm sitting here with the pics uploaded, trying to get up enough courage to post them. Deep breath in ... and out ... Its just the very start even though it took me all afternoon to do. I'm on new ground here and really don't know what I'm doing. I just have these ideas and I want to give them a try.

The first pic is the original photo cropped to get rid of some of the background. Its a photo from last year and I haven't got my new glasses yet.

In the second pic I've used the cutout filter on Photoshop to get the shapes that the shadows (and wrinkles) make. This is what I'm working from in the underpainting stage.

And the third pic is my tentative scary start. The canvas is my usual size of 60.9x50.8cm (24"x20") so its rather confronting working on my face to this scale. Deep breath and click ...

Self Portrait

With all your lovely comments I thought I'd better report on my progress of 'the selfy'. Been playing grandma all weekend so I didn't have any studio time till today. As portraiture is relatively new to me its very slow going. I still want to use text and I still want to do all my layering and of course it has to be BIG. I want to put text and stamping etc in the shapes made by shadows etc and this will be like my underpainting (if that makes sense) and then I will paint a more realistic (ha hopefully) portrait on top. Well today I played around with the shapes that fit together and make me look like me. Still not entirely happy with what I've got but its getting there. I haven't started on the canvas yet. Still experimenting and playing around. I will share more with you when I have something to share. Anyway I have made a start and its so exciting and fun and scary all at once. I just love making art **insert big cheesy grin here**

Life Happens

Phew! That's all I've got to say. Life just hit me all at once. Its just been such a busy time lately and I'm hoping its not going to get any worse as the holidays loom before me. I have the Art at the Hart Artists Market coming up next weekend so I've been busy designing business cards and working out the layout of my 3 metre x 3 metre space. Trying to work out the best way to cram in as much work as I can and it still look nice. I also had to finish off some work for the market. Below is yet another shoe painting. Its the last. I think I got them out of my system now. I am now starting to experiment with portraiture. So as not to insult any unsuspecting friends and family members I decided to try a self portrait. That way I can try out some techniques without someone waiting and looking over my shoulder to see if I have captured their likeness. Yes I'm doing a selfy and who knows I might be doing self portraits for quite some time to come. I'm totally out of my comfort zone and I'm hoping to be brave enough to show you all my progress. In saying that my progress is expected to be slow due to the holiday season and all the responsibilities that seem to connected to it. That's it for now. Got grandma duties to perform as Zoe is having a sleep over at our place. It means many cuddles but Zoe's also has control of my laptop hehehe.

Dancing Shoes

mixed media on canvas

60.9x50.8cm (24"x20")