heatherdawnfineart

Letting Go with Joy, Love & Peace.

It is said that an artist is their own worse critic…well I certainly have been. I know it is a good thing to take pride in my work and always push the boundaries in order to achieve the level of painting that I want to achieve; not comparing myself but to be better than I was yesterday. So with that in mind I have realized that while I am painting and pushing my boundaries, I am developing; but in the process I am also advancing which can be somewhat crippling at times because I then am dissatisfied with a painting not long after it is finished. I have an idea, an image in my head that I want to attain…therefore I often don’t appreciate the beauty of a piece that I just painted.

I have been going through my studio getting organized for new clients and new work. In the process I came across some older paintings that I did on watercolor paper. I have a new appreciation for them; absence makes the heart grow fonder. 🙂

It reminds me of when I go to my sister, Charlene`s, home. She has collected many pieces of my work: a handmade, lidded ceramic box with intricate carving and a soft moss green, sugary glaze, little leaf print dishes with tiny coiled feet, an ornately carved tile piece, and (among other works) paintings which I made so many years ago. When I see them I can`t help but gaze a little longer at them and wonder why did I not appreciate these before? I am thankful that she has kept them safe. It is like old friends that someone has taken care of for my return visit.

These flower paintings do have a charm of their own and I can see that they can be loved and appreciated by someone as much as I have come to love them. If my work brings joy to one person it will have been worth it.

I can imagine them all being framed and hung as a group on one large wall or even in some small, precious, sitting nook to be enjoyed while relaxing for the day. I can imagine that they will be quietly speaking peace to the home where they will live.

Well today I have decided that in order for this “river” to flow I will let these paintings fly away to rest in whichever home they are meant for.

I am letting go with love, joy and peace …sending these out to their new families. My hope is that once they have been framed and placed in their perfect nest, that the owner would take a photograph of themselves with the painting (or just the painting if you wish) and allow me to have a digital copy for my portfolio. It would be such a good memory for me.

Each one, no matter the size, is CAD $60.00 each (plus shipping).

Thank you for your kindness in liking and sharing this post around the world.
Hugs to all.
I am including larger, individual images with the size and description underneath each one….keep scrolling. 🙂

flowers

group

large flower watercolour
giant poppies

Ink and Watercolor on YUPO – 26 inches x 16.5 inches.

big pink poppy

Big Pink Poppy – Watercolor on Paper. 16 x 20 inches.

iris

Irises – Watercolor of paper. 11 x 15 inches.

Flowers

Red Poppies – Watercolor of paper. 11 x 15 inches

pink poppies

Pink Poppies Watercolor on Canson Painting Board 16 x 20 inches.
red poppy

Poppy – Watercolor on paper. 11 x 15 inches.

red_100826

Red Poppy- Watercolor on paper. 11 x 15

red and orange poppies

Orange and Red Poppies – Watercolor on paper. 11 x 15 inches
tulips

Tulips – Watercolor on Canson Paint Board. 16 x 20 inches

red poppies blowing

Poppies in the Breeze. – Watercolor on paper. 11 x 15 inches

still life

Blue Vase. Acrylic on Windsor Newton 140 Lb paper. 22 x 30 inches.

wht fl

Love, Joy Peace- Watercolor on Windsor Newton 140 Lb- 7 x 10 inches.

Red Blouse

Impressionist Painter.

My latest portrait is titled Red Blouse. What I so love about this painting is that the red from the blouse has reflected onto my model (Cheryl) not only under her chin, but also the lower lip, the nose and eyes. This was so appealing to me and I am very happy with the results.

20160224_204153cropped final

I am including two progress images.

Until next time, thank you for stopping by, please feel free to share this post.

latter stage

mi-stage

Helping Children Escape…or is it Discovering Life?

Impressionist Painter.

I love children. I have my children who are all grown up now, and my grandchildren plus a new baby granddaughter on the way and I am happy about that. When the last of my 5 children were younger I decided that I needed to home school them for various reasons. The sheer joy I got from seeing them learn something new was phenomenal; the satisfaction that I felt was bursting inside of me.
I taught art classes in schools, at art centers and in my own studio for several years, that was another time period where I was filled with that deep sense of accomplishment when these students soared in their creativity and at that time I felt that my life was so meaningful…(yes there are times that I lose sight of that).

When I saw this article that a friend of mine shared, I felt confirmed that what I chose to do in teaching my own children academics and art at home as well as art for other children, had possibly been quite an important commitment that I made for over 19 years. I often imagine (especially when I needed a boost) that the children I taught would grow up and remember the good things that they learned from me and that they would have fond memories or felt inspired by something that I may have brought their way…well perhaps that is the case and maybe I will find out one day, if I am meant to.

Here are some images of some art students.
D still life painting _2792

Here is the article.
View at Medium.com

Enjoy and have fun creating, happy painting.

Pink Ink

Impressionist Painter.

Pink is a colour that I have lots of fun creating with and associate with so many joyful and positive things such as, believe it or not, serenity (although I know most people think of blue or purple for serenity); love; babies :D; beauty; softness; happiness; health and life in general. So it is understandable that I chose Pink Ink as the name for my latest adventure at “Society 6”!

Yes, I am venturing into this online store and having so much fun putting some of my creations in prints and on items such as tote bags and pillows. It takes significant time to work on a piece, upload, size, and price it but then VOILA! It’s a terrific way for many to get original artwork to grace their homes or to give as gifts, either in a print or on a canvas or some other useful item.

I feel so humbled by all of your love and support over the years and I wanted to thank you by making my artwork available to anyone and everyone!

Have fun going to the site and sharing it with your family and friends! I hope you will like what you see and will offer me suggestions about other things you would like to see my artwork on!

Thank you again and I look forward to serving you and sharing our love of all things pink! (And blue and green and yellow … )
Please click on the link to see it.
https://society6.com/pinkink

Pink Lady line drawing5829

Scars With a Purpose

Impressionist Painter.

Scars With a Purpose

We attract to ourselves the people, things and experiences that we are drawn to. I know it seems cliche to say this, but I don’t know how else to explain it. I had seen a portrait of a Nuer man on a friend’s Facebook page. I’ve seen him share this photo before and I found it to be so stunning. As a photographer and painter of portraits, it drew me in, the intensity of this portrait and the light was so stunning. I made a comment that I wanted to paint that portrait, my friend was more than happy about that. I searched the internet to see if it was a copyright image and I couldn’t find the source. I did paint it and of course posted the painting on my Facebook page. When all was said and done I discovered the source/photographer of the portrait. The very day that I had spoken to my sister about it, she asked me if I had given him credit, I was feeling apprehensive because when I painted it I had no idea who it belonged to. Then he (the photographer) sent me a message, he is kind to say the least, I did include his link on my post of the painting but in case you don’t see it there, here is the website of this photographer; all I can say is WOW his work is so amazing. http://www.mario-gerth.de/ I am certain that you will like his work.

Here is the information about the significance of the scars.
The pattern of the scarification takes the form of 6 lines across the forehead. They are given to a youth as an initiation into manhood and each stands for a code of behaviour that the youth is supposed to perfect as a man. Line 1: You are no longer a boy. You are now a man and should not entangle yourself with childish things. Line 2: You are now a man, you are to fear no one and are now independent of your parents. Line 3: You must participate in the defense of the public without fear of death, and you must take care of your household with as much vigour as you would take in the defense of the public. You must not steal, or take part in any scandalous activities. Line 4: You must exercise honour and dignity; being especially careful to not eat at inappropriate places and times. Line 5: You are never to be gluttonous, or covetous. Line 6: You are never to commit adultery, especially with the wife of a man near of kin to you, or to have sexual relations with a girl that is related to you, in particular those that have some sort of blood relation to you. To do so is a violation of the incest taboo and will result in disgrace and death.

Paintings in Photography – Inspired by Gustav Klimt.

Impressionist Painter.

Here are the results of my paintings that were inspired by Gustav Klimt. This is an awesome and very involved project. I feel as though there is a whole world that lies underneath this inspiration and my finished product cannot keep up with all of my ideas. Once I get a refined flow happening, I’m sure that even though it will still be very involved, I will be able to reach the finish line much quicker (hoping so anyway.)

In the last months I have been fine tuning my portrait studio with some painting and organizing, meeting with clients and models, learning new work flow techniques, tending to my dad who has been quite ill and just regular everyday life. Speaking of a busy life did I mention I am going to be a grandma (gramma) again? I’m so excited about that cute little bundle of joy arriving.

About this painting / portrait. In stage one I painted the two canvases as you may have seen in my other post, if not here is the link https://agentbluewhale.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/blue-and-blue-two/

I then had set up a photo session with my daughter Cheryl, I had Carolina one of my make-up artists come in and my friend/assistant Kathy come in to help with this shoot. It was so much fun!

Here are two of the photos that I was satisfied with and I intend to paint both of them…yes that is the intention. I create paintings to incorporate into my photography and then use them as my subjects for paintings. This is an elaborate way to get to the finished piece, but to me it is more satisfying knowing the process. I understand that all of this could have been accomplished in a program such as Photoshop, and I love Photoshop for many reasons, but I had to paint the props / backgrounds myself that is just who I am.

C GC2 BL_5763

C2-5780

Andrea

Impressionist Painter.

Have you ever been in a sleep and had such a vivid dream that you see it so clearly…and in color? I have them all the time, sometimes I may even take the time to write them down; I find it helps to bring them back to life when I read about them months or years down the road.

I had another such dream last night and I am so excited to paint that one…but for now let me tell you about this one.
As you all know I am working on my two passions, painting and photography. I had a lovely lady that was scheduled to come in for a portrait session. About 12 days before the session I saw, in my dream, that I needed to paint her profile photo on a giant canvas and shoot her portrait in front of it. The idea was that I wanted it to be like a painted wall, well it isn’t as big as a wall, maybe next time I can do that.
I have to say I am so happy with this one and her portraits turned out great, I have some post work to do and after she views them, then I will post some on here.
For now, I get to share the painting.

Enjoy. Thanks for stopping by and for all of your patient support and love.

Blue and Blue Two

Impressionist Painter.

It has been so exciting and inspirational to paint these two beauties. They came about because of my desire to create stunning portraits by using hand painted canvases as backdrops….marrying two art forms that I am deeply involved with.

I have so many ideas of making unique fine art portraits using beautiful paintings running through my head…I just need to get all the other work done first so that I can free up some time to do it.

I will keep you posted as to my progress and am eagerly waiting to bring to life my portraits using these two canvases.

Thanks for your continued support and encouragement and thank you all for sharing my experiences.

Blue Two
24″ x 48″

Blue
24″ x 48″

Rare Hand-Painted Canvases

Impressionist Painter.

I was invited to show some of my work last summer at an annual art show in Inglewood. It was so much fun to set up my work and see people’s responses. My friend who invited me had pointed out that she saw similarities in my work and the work of Gustav Klimt.

Above you can see some of my work from 2012 and 2008

Gustav Klimt’s work …I know mine is not to be compared, but the idea of the small dabs of paint is what I find so beautiful one day I may be able to reach the quality of Gustav’s work.

I had no idea that he did tiny dots and tress…oooo his trees are so beautiful to me. So 1 year later it sinks in and I am inspired 🙂 Here is my goal.

I am no stranger to painting on a large format. Walls were one of my favorite surfaces to paint on. I discovered that I absolutely love the smooth surface for some paintings and for other types of paintings my preference is texture.

The purple wall is one that I did some years ago. It has 7 layers of paint and all of the textural quality was done using only my hands…no brushes, sponges or rollers. I did, however, wear cloves to protect my skin.

This image has different lighting and that is why the colors look different.

Below you can see some close up shots of the wall, these shots were taken with natural light.

Well I am at it again, yesterday I did a couple of sample miniature paintings just to get the feel of the layers, you can see those here.

These two images below are test shots.

I have this huge desire to paint giant unique backdrops which I will use for some photography sessions.

I am looking for the perfect outfits to develop my idea for these backdrops. They are inspired by Gustav Klimt…I think I will do a blue/purple one on two 24 x 48 panels, but for the gold I imagine it will be a six or seven foot by 5 feet. I am so excited to do that one. As for the lighter blue, I’m not sure how I want to create that one or one similar to it. I have a dream …I see these not so much as backdrops but paintings themselves. I see cobblestone, pebbles, ripples in water…stars…petals floating in the air…raindrops. Oh how lovely this is going to be fun.

Blue 12 gold-11

A Record of Life Captured on Canvas.

Impressionist Painter.

Painting

…the experience
…the effort
…the time
…the growth
…the beauty
…the heart
…the love
all of these treasured elements and much more are the priceless attributes that form the finished piece of art.

I have been working on this 24″ x 24″ oil painting for several weeks, to be fair some of that time was inner work and not the actual applying paint to the canvas, some of the time was invested in recording and editing to create this video, some of the time (3 days) was spent creating and setting up the still life and of course time is also invested in developing this blog.

Someone asked me once “Why paint a still life?” The best explanation is this, when painting from a photograph the subject is no longer in a three dimensional space, the camera has done most of the work for you. When painting from life, one sharpens the creative skills needed in order to capture life onto a canvas, that is why I value painting from life. I love these challenges, in addition conquering the challenge of bringing life onto a two dimensional plain to be preserved forever, that is what I find so satisfying.