Monday, February 21, 2011

More Paintings From My Sister

My sister sent me this new painting over the weekend.  She is a real inspiration to me. 
The subject is my niece Paige who is just beautiful anyway. 

 This is the original photo that she worked from
 And the finished piece.  Note the added details on the side

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Portraits Of Our Valentines Day Guests

I have been having so much fun painting black and white prints on small canvases.  I was never good at getting a portrait likeness but with this technique I don't have to and everybody thinks it was a big deal to do.  I especially like adding detail to the sides of the canvas and adding some whimsey with fun details. 

Tomorrow we are having some good friends over for a Valentines dinner and I was able to get some photos of them to paint.  Here are the results.  I will give them the canvases as gifts before they leave.  .

Monday, February 7, 2011

Little Canvas Portraits, I Give It A Try

Well as I said in my last post, my sister would be coming over to show us how to paint these little canvases.  She did and we had a blast.  Here are pictures of some of the pieces we worked on. 







Thursday, February 3, 2011

Little Canvas Portraits

 
 This is a craft my sister does and she sent me the following pictures and instructions.  We are going to do some of these this weekend, can't wait.  She has been taking old family photos and giving them a modern twist.  Who wouldn't want to receive one of these?  Very cool.

The process isn't difficult or very time consuming. Deciding on paint colors is what takes the most time for me.

As you can see, I make black and white copies on the computer and cut them to fit onto the canvases. I don't worry about precise cutting. I use Gel Medium and a paintbrush to adhere it.


To give the finished pieces "depth", I start by painting around the images in charcoal grey liquid acrylic paint. 



The paint dries quickly, but even more quickly with a blow drier.  Takes about a minute.
The only one of these I've somewhat finished, is the one of Rob's mom.  I still plan to add a little detail to the one of her on the edges.
The second coat of paint after the grey, I add by thinning with water, sometimes. It's obviously more translucent with the water.

I paint over the grey in sections and then smear the paint around with my finger to let some of the grey show through in places.

I paint on the clothes, and I use cotton swabs to add color to the face and hair with artist's chalks. I use a charcoal pencil to outline or add details and then smudge it with a dry or slightly dampened finger. It's a fun, messy process but I keep a rag nearby to keep the mess on my hands a little controlled without running to wash up all the time.

You can also use the colored chalks to add more dimension to the background at the end, or to tone down or adjust colors if you don't like the shade the paint dried. Then it's fun to add details around the edge of the canvases. Or you can glue on other dimensional details like paper, fabric or whatnots.

The canvases can sit on a flat surface to display, or you can hang them without any need for adding anything to the backs.

Today, I picked up a couple of 5-inch square, and a couple 5 x 7-inch canvases, but I also have plenty of the 4-inchers we could use.


You can see on this one of Zacky, especially (he's a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, we decided), you can see the outline of where I cut the paper.  I don't think of that as a flaw, but more the beauty of the handmade imperfect look.  You can lessen it if you cut the paper more the size of the canvas.  You can also see that there's a darker color showing through the top layer of paint.  I actually have 3 layers going on with this one.  After the grey, I painted a color of orange that dried unattractively.  So I added one more color.  But it gives you an idea of the different look of using other colors as a base.


I paint the bottom side to extend the photo, freehand.  So simple.