Thursday, April 28, 2016

newest canvas and sketching

i started working with an older canvas i had started a while ago.  i loved the background, and had sketched a face onto it.  as i worked on bringing the face to life i fell in love with what she was telling me.


i felt she called for dreadlocks, beads and feathers, a mother nature figure.




here she is with even more personality and her dreads coming in.




i then shaded her dreads and added some more details.  she is now waiting for fixative to dry before attempting more detail work as i'm afraid to move forward without that added protection.  if i do something i'm not in love with it can more easily be wiped away now.

in the meantime i'm practicing.  sketching some ideas that i have.  a friend suggested i work on mermaids which is a great leap for me but one i'm thrilled to make.  i also searched for some feathers to learn the shape and nature of them.  and hands.  hands are an important skill.  (they also are a very strange looking shape if you are studying them).


these hands i found on google, seperately, and i just sketched them any old way, not thinking about how they looked on the paper.  i was intending to draw more hands in different sizes, filling the paper up with different hand gestures.  however, when i finished the second hand i noticed there was magic brewing in the sketchbook, and another canvas idea is born!



i'm questioning where i am going in my artwork.  where does my style lie?  i seem to waver between wanting to be more realistic and then wanting to be more abstract.  i enjoy the energy of the female figure, the goddess.  i just want to bring light to others as well as my own home.  but where do i go from here?  i'm afraid of the realistic figure.  am i good enough?  i don't want to compare because that takes away my own joy.  i think it's fun to bounce between going for a more realistic figure- not going for hyper-realism, because i know my limits- and the more fantasy/abstract/from the heart style.  i suppose it's fine for me to bounce like that, no rules in my house for my own artwork and what brings me joy.  it's just that i wonder if i will ever get to the point where someone will look at a painting and go "well, that right there is a jenny gabrenas painting if i ever saw one!"  there are some artists that you just know a painting is theirs or else someone is studying under them.  oh well, its my A.D.D, i can't concentrate on one style, i must bounce!  call me tigger.




until later,
jenny

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Faith canvas, finished!

well, i signed her this afternoon.  she may decide she wants a few more finishing touches, but today she only whispered a few little things.

here she is, Faith;

my hubby likes her, "even the LED lights in her cloak".  silly man.

i really like her but wish my glaze didn't make her all shiny.  it creates glare and you can't see all her details as well as i wish.  

i worked on her eyes a bit more, and put some contrasting eyeshadow on her.  i made the dots on her face a different color, fixed an area of her neck that bothered me, and darkened parts of her cloak.


here is her earlier incarnation;



hubby went to the flea market this morning alone and found an amazing art treasure!


he wasn't sure of the products but knew i love the golden brand, so took a photo for me and mentioned it was mostly airbrush medium.  i told him YES.  these were items i wanted to play with in a brand that is the best.  i'm so excited to thin my acrylics to a drippy consistency without making the paint unstable which is what happens with water.  there were several happy surprises in there, and i was giddy with excitement when i opened the box and dived in.  he just saved himself some big money for me to experiment!

i can't walk outside when it's too cold out as i am allergic to the cold and break out into itchy hives, so i joked with mark before flea market season began that if he went without me that he must 'bring back trinkets to appease his goddess".  he has done well this outing!

until later,
jenny

Thursday, April 7, 2016

more canvas work

this was her before





and again after some tweaking




the lighting is different, sorry.

i've worked on the flower in her hair, and am happier with that now.  darkened the dots in the rays behind her, added highlights to her face and cloak.  changed the darkness around her eyes and will continue working that area.  she's still speaking to me, so i will keep listening.

until later,
jenny