The Journey

I have started a new series of acrylic paintings that will involve texture, glazing, limited color palette and a more abstract feel. I’m starting with thumbnail sketches until I get pleasing shapes and a composition that works. Then I work out a quick value study to start the painting off. Often what happens is I just end up using my original sketch and value study as a basic framework to get the shapes and values down but from that point the painting takes off. Sometimes the finished piece has only a few recognizable connections to my original sketch! That is part of the challenge and the fun in painting for me – to see where I end up.

I just finished this piece that I call “The Journey” and I found the tall vertical format of the MDF board to be fun to work with.

 

Finished Oil Pastel

I have finished my oil pastel piece from last week. I’m pleased with the way it came out, it captures the warmth of the afternoon sun shining down on the umbrellas. This was such an inviting outdoor dining spot we walked by in Maui.

I’m planning on alternating between oil pastel and acrylics this year. So, on to an acrylic piece now!

Oil Pastel in Progress

I’ve been working on a new oil pastel piece this past couple of weeks. I’m doing this one on a piece of MDF board which I painted with black gesso. I’m not going for a smooth application of the black but I like to leave some texture for the oil pastels to pick up on. I’m using as a reference a photo I took in Maui of an outdoor dining place near the beach. I sketched out my composition on the board with white conte crayon and then started working with my oil pastels. I like the look it gives with the black showing through the pastels.

Here is an in-progress photo:

We have just finished updating our GivensStudios website, take a look.

Watercolor/Acrylic Demo

This morning Rick and I attended a painting demo by Portland area artist Randall Tipton. He did a demo on Yupo paper showing us how he paints combining watercolors and acrylics. It is always so great to watch how other artists go about starting and composing a new painting. The group of us watching came away inspired and ready to try something on Yupo. I have not painted on Yupo yet but I think I will give it a try!

Happy New Year!

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to start and make weekly posts to a blog which will be linked to our Givens Studios website – so . . . here it goes! I am an artist and would like to share the process of creating my art and any other interesting life happenings.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year and are eagerly looking forward to what 2012 will bring. The year 2011 brought some unexpected changes for us – our house (for 13yrs.) in Canby sold in December. The unexpected part was that we didn’t have our house on the market. A realtor that we worked with several years ago when we were trying to sell our house called out of the blue and said she had a couple that was looking to buy a house in Canby and would we be interested in letting them look at ours. We had the grandkids & granddog over at the time but loaded everyone in the car and let them come look. An hour later we had an offer on our house. So the New Year finds us renting a house for the time being until we decide what the next step is for us.