Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Little Yellow House

 I have finally started working on my little yellow house painting, but the going is slow. This is a pretty large canvas, and painting the poppies is going to take forever! I know, it looks like crap right now, but it will get better. The green will be lightened up a bit once I start putting in the detail. I just wanted some color there so that I could start mapping in my flowers. Since red just turns to brown when it's put over green, I have to map out my flowers in white first. I started mapping out my poppies before I put the green down, and decided that wasn't going to work. Like I've said in previous posts, most of the time I just wing it, and I haven't painted in acrylic (my preferred medium is oils) in such a long time that it's usually trial and error in the beginning. And lord knows I make lots of errors! The whole painting still needs a lot of work. The clouds, the sky, the house, but I'll get there eventually. I am pretty pleased with how it is going so far. Especially considering how frustrating the last few weeks have been.


For awhile there I was kind of in a slump, and growing increasingly frustrated at my inability to create anything. It's not that I haven't had any good ideas, I just couldn't make myself focus enough to take my time. I have a tendency to rush things, and it was making it difficult to do anything halfway right. I decided that I really needed to practice without the pressure of  creating something to sell. So, I decided to start on this waterlily drawing. It needs a lot of work too, but I am just doing it for practice. If it turns out pretty good, then maybe I can do something with it. If not then, oh well. (I didn't really take my time in taking the pictures either. I think they look a whole lot better in person.) I am doing this on cardstock. I absolutely hate, hate, hate expensive art materials! I have tried all the fancy papers and pencils, and I just don't like them. I can't get the look that I want and I am not about to spend astronomical amounts of money on name brand hot press watercolor paper. This cardstock is smooth, bright white, and archival. To me, it's just as good as anything else. 


I will attempt to take much better pictures when they are finished. I know I can do it if I just take my time and stop trying to rush so much. I took this picture of a graphite drawing that I did of my husband, so I know it can be done. Or, maybe it was just a much better drawing. Actually, I don't think it looks all that great on the computer either, but it look fantabulous when I printed it out on photo paper. Anyway, let's see where we can go from here!




2 comments:

urban decay said...

Im loving the yellow house. It looks like an Edward Hopper, just a few more shadows and it will be amazing. Very isolated. Cant wait to see when its done, but what a great start.

Lisa Snyder said...

Thanks Urban Decay! I don't usually work in acrylic, because it's too hard for me, but this one is turning out pretty good.