Tag Archive for 'painting'

Chugging along on my latest artomat series

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robayre
on February 5, 2012
in Artomat, General Update, My Artwork and Projects
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I mentioned before, how I was inspired to start a new Artomat series in a new style. I decided, instead of practicing and perfecting it before beginning, that I would just start playing on real canvases.

Well, the new style I’m trying to move towards for this series is just really loose and more painterly. I want to use lots of color, but also that they shouldn’t be mixed thoroughly and should be streaky. More expressive and abstract. I’m having to jump some hurdles with this.

I always remember my friend Bri sharing advice from a teacher of hers that you should NEVER use paint straight out of a tube, you should always mix your own colors. It’s great advice that I agree with, but normally my method for painting has always been to mix colors on my palette so that they are very consistent, no streaks. The same with watercolor. Even when I was trying to loosen up, I realized putting paint on my palette and mixing minimally caused the color to be too uniform by the time I spread it on my canvas. So, I jumped this hurdle and have started just applying paint straight to the canvas and not using a palette at all. No mixing colors, until I’m already painting. It’s new to me and kind of cool. I like to work super fast, and going for this painterly approach is causing me to speed up even more. Granted, my canvas is the size of my palm. I’m sure it would be very different if I was painting a huge, or even average sized canvas.

I’m not exactly sure where this will take me, but I’m having fun playing.

Painting of Nikki

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robayre
on April 5, 2011
in General Update, My Artwork and life
. 9 Comments

A long time ago my friend Nikki asked me to make a painting for her. It’s been so long so I can’t remember the details, but it was either for a painting of just her, or a painting of she and Tom (her husband). I was so honored, but as I thought about it more, I got really stressed. Whenever I make something upon request I get really anxious, stressed that I’m going to ruin it, and that the person will be dissatisfied with the final outcome. Finally, I told her thanks for thinking of me so highly, but I’m not really a portrait artist and I had to decline her offer.

Nikki was one of those people who was always so supportive of her friends and family in their creative areas. It really meant a lot to me that she thought that I’d be able to tackle something like that.

Once she passed away, one of the things that I kept thinking about was how I needed to do that painting now. I had to do something to honor her and I wanted to give it to her mom to let her know how much Nikki meant to me. I knew exactly what picture it would be based off of too.

Back in the day of our first camera phones, we were at Michael’s and Nikki picked up one of those small decorative twig-wreaths that people place around the base of candles or on table center pieces. It had white “berries” and she put it on her head like some fairy princess and proceeded to take a picture of herself. I asked her if she wanted me to snap it for her and she said she got it. You can see the composition of her shot cut the picture off in such an interesting way. I loved that picture. On a side note, she LOVED photography as well as film-making, and had a flickr here, but was often intimidated about sharing her pictures there. Years ago I asked her for a copy of that picture, and I think she only had a download of it from her old Textamerica moblog site, so it’s super tiny.

That’s all I had to go off of. Like I said before, I’m no representative portrait artist, but it came out decent. I cried near the end when I realized it would come out okay, and that I felt it actually looked like her and that it would be good enough to present to her mother. I changed the wreath to a kind-of-halo. Nikki loved sparkly things, so I gave all the white orbs a silvery shimmer.

This week I’m going to pack it up and send it to her mom. I hope she likes it.

Day 16 - painting

Published
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robayre
on February 17, 2011
in General Update, My Artwork and Projects
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Day 16 Thing-a-Day

I’ve been eying these deep square wooden cradle boards from Michaels. They are unprimed and the kind of beautiful thing that you buy and just fondle and never want to make a mark on it, for fear of ruining it’s potential. You could use them for painting, or encaustic or flip it backwards and create a shadowbox from it. Well, yesterday I found this 50% off (yes, that’s FIFTY PERCENT) coupon online. It’s good through Saturday. Please, click it and print one out for yourself. I was like Robyn-Hood of Michaels and handed out a couple of them to random strangers in the store. Anyway, I finally bought one of the cradle boards and started a painting I’ve had in mind for a while.

It’s only 8″ squared, but this is still huge compared to how big I usually paint (thank you business card sized artomat canvas paintings).

If it’s not obvious, this is a work in progress shot. I haven’t destroyed it yet, but there is still plenty of time for that :O

Documenting the fall

Published
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robayre
on November 2, 2010
in General Update, My Artwork, etsy and lists
. 1 Comment

In the last week Matt and I have been doing some rearranging. We moved our “living room” which was previously in the finished basement, up to the actual living room area. The office, which was previously in the “living room” is now in the finished basement. Matt’s brother and sister-in-law were so kind to give us their 61″ HDTV and there was no way we were carrying that down the stairs, so instead we just did a switch-a-roo. The reason they gave us their amazing HDTV was because they decided to upgrade to a 3D-HDTV! and it is amazing! I’ve never been too keen for 3D movies, but they had us watch a 3D Imax movie about the bottom of the ocean and it was the first time ever where I felt like things were actually coming out of the screen at me.

Then this weekend we carved pumpkins with our friends Tom and Nikki. It’s something we do every year.  I only have Matt and my pumpkins pictured here because the full group shot is on my other camera and I left that in my best friend’s car. My pumpkin is on the left. Usually I always carve the same pumpkin ever year, but this year I was inspired by this link from Martha Stewart via  The Dainty Squid.

Last week this painting arrived in the mail. It was actually a painting I made and sent out for a top secret project. I loved the finished product so much, and I was so afraid that it would end up getting lost or tossed and just unappreciated, so I was thrilled to have it back in my possession. It’s based on a collage that I shared earlier this year.

And lastly, today I made this Etsy treasury.

Please click on over and view it. I love all the pieces I featured and think they deserve some attention :)

Blades of Grass No. 7

Published
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robayre
on October 18, 2010
in General Update, My Artwork, etsy and shop update
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I just added this new painting to my Etsy shop, AND I listed it for a mere $30 because I really hope that it finds a loving home soon. Scoop it up while you can.

I made this piece in the same style as the larger piece (No. 4) for my sister. I really liked that piece so much that I had to make another to put in my shop. This piece is smaller, but much bolder in color and has a red edge all around it.

Here is a progress picture, mostly because I loved the color palette.The piece uses my favorite color combinations, red and green, without being Christmasy. I love the energy that these complementary colors create.

The piece is a petite 3.875″ x 4.875″ and if you click on the link to the shop listing, you can see it in size relation to a pencil.

Painting In Progress - and some other stuff

Published
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robayre
on October 12, 2010
in Cool Links, General Update and My Artwork
. 2 Comments

I’m working on a new painting. I’m at that point where I have a few more ideas, but I’m afraid to continue for fear of ruining it. One thing I was going to do was a semi transparent layer of white over the clouds. The other thing was to give the blades of grass a border shadow so that it makes them pop out more against the background. I think this picture deceivingly makes the grass look like it stands out more than they actually do in most light.

While I’m posting, I might as well share a couple other inspiring items.


The evening of the hot air balloon flight my brother had a bonfire and it made me think of floating paper lanterns that I’ve seen online before. Now I want to make some myself. They are so beautiful, but don’t you think that is a little scary to send a paper and fire “package” up into the sky? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for some forest fire. Smokey taught me well. There was a girl at the bonfire that said they made paper lanterns in elementary school and if one started on fire it would just burn up but be put out before it would land. I guess it makes sense. I’ve witnessed dozens and dozens of bonfires, and they are on the ground and you see embers constantly fly off, but never have I seen another fire started somewhere else. There are several tutorials online, and they all seem to use flame retardant papers or spray.

Check out this article on Design Sponge about hosting your own “design swap”. I thought that was a great idea, as I’ve been recently wanting to get rid of the extra stuff that I don’t need. I filled up a couple garbage bags full of clothes and shoes, but there were plenty of things in there that were still in great shape. But, the thing I liked about the article is the idea to swap not just clothes but home items like home decor or kitchen items as well.

My first official Encaustic piece

Published
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robayre
on June 26, 2010
in General Update
. 4 Comments

Encaustic means “to burn in”: An art form where you use hot wax to paint and/or encase layers.

For years I’ve been wanting to explore more into encaustic. I remember being jealous of my friend Bethany who took an encaustic class, or maybe it was a painting class, but they got to work in encaustic for part of it. I’ve always loved the dreamy quality encaustic pieces have from the layers and opacity of the beeswax. I played around with beeswax on my own before and used it over a few of my collage/mixed media mailart pieces, but I really didn’t know what I was doing and worried that it would just crack off the piece eventually.

Today I finally got the opportunity to officially learn more and experiment with encaustic at a workshop. I had such a good time. The finished piece is basically 2D, but you work in a 3D manner to get the results. You layer flat as well as dimensional items, and play with texture and surface in layer after layer of encaustic medium. It was so exciting and freeing to have to think in entirely different ways than I’m used to working.

Here are pictures of the pieces I created today. The top one was my first piece and the second one was more a last minute piece and I think I might work on it some more. At the workshop someone mentioned the idea of creating a series and displaying them all together, so that was the idea of the second piece. I’d like to make a third or fourth to go with these.

Here are a few good references for working in encaustic:
Book: The Encaustic Workshop by Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch

Video: Getting Started in Encaustic with Kathryn Bevier

Supplies: Apparently if you live in the Northern Illinois area the Blick store in Schaumberg has a variety of supplies, but they also seem to carry a bit online as well.

A special day

Published
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robayre
on May 26, 2010
in Fun, General Update, My Artwork, goals and life
. 2 Comments

Last week was my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday Chris! I hope you had a great birthday and will have an AMAZING year ahead! She has always been a supporter of my artwork and is ALWAYS there for me when I need help, or an opinion and guidance.

For her birthday she wanted to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was an awesome day. I haven’t been there since I was in elementary school and could have spent a couple days there before reaching everything they have to offer.

Unexpectedly, I was also able to (semi) cross off two items on my To-Do-List for 2010. At the MSI now, your tickets to get in become a “sci-pass” where you can record the activities you participate in and then access them online later. They had a sound booth that was similar to the storycorp idea, where you could go in and interview other people. I went in and recorded a short interview with my sister, which was one part of number 23 on my list.

Number 12 on my to-do list was to get an old-timey picture done. In my mind, that meant REAL old photograph techniques, like daguerreotypes, as mentioned in a few posts ago, rather than some quick digital pics that have been converted to grayscale or sepia tone. That being said…  MSI had a photo studio set up where you can take quick digital old-timey pics in an old car, so we played.

I’m the one in the back with the straw hat on, my sister is next to me and my brother in front of me, and his friend Chad next to him. The portrait woman was cracking up at Chad’s leg sticking out.

I have some art to share, as usual. This was the fourth grass painting in the series. I know I always say it, but it has to be said again. I LOVED this painting. It has a watercolor look to it, but it’s acrylic on canvas. It went to my sister for her birthday. I also made her the brooch in the above picture (orange and aqua at the top right).

I also made her a ring, and then made this one for myself. I used this tutorial  from Makeitdo, that I found through the craft blog.

It’s Tuesday and that means…

Published
by
robayre
on May 25, 2010
in Found Art, General Update and My Artwork
. 2 Comments

FOUND ART TUESDAY! As usual, I wait until last moment and then frantically try to think of a place to leave my artwork. A place where it will be safe from the elements, not too populous so that I’m watched, and not too vacant so that the piece goes un-found.

Last week I was in Chicago, but could I be prepared enough to create a piece beforehand AND bring it along? Of course not. So, where did I leave today’s piece? Well, I had to run to the post office and drop off a package, so I figured I’d make it a two for one and leave my artwork in the lobby. As I left it I started worrying I could get in trouble for leaving my artwork. Hope not.

I hope the person who finds and keeps the painting enjoys it. As usual.

Join the Found Art Tuesday fun at facebook and flickr

new grass painting

Published
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robayre
on May 18, 2010
in General Update and My Artwork
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I finished that painting from the sneak peak the other day. I really love how it came out. This is painting 3 in the series so far. While I was working on the background I wasn’t sure if it would be as I imagined it, but I set it down for a little bit, walked away, and when I came back and saw it with fresh eyes I was in love.

This canvas painting series is kind of based on this old series of silk screen pieces of mine that never went anywhere. As in, I loved them, but no one else apparently did. Wah, wah, wah, I know tiniest violin. Anyway, I had the idea of the watercolored background on this silk screened print in mind when doing the top painting. It really didn’t end up looking anything like that, BUT I realized it looked a lot like the “pattern” I made recently.

It’s now available in my Etsy shop, and I’m on to a new canvas and a new painting in this series. I’m still having so much fun with the series and wish I could be cranking ‘em out quicker, but the rest of my life calls.

I didn’t do a Found Art Tuesday piece today. Tuesday snuck up on me too quickly, but perhaps I will do one later this week.

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