Saturday, March 24, 2012

Painting Again!

What a huge relief to feel inspired to paint again! 


My friend here in Phoenix bought a bouquet of daffodils - a flower that doesn't grow here naturally but which reminded me of Victoria and the beautiful display of spring flowers that will be blooming there right about now.  In a fit of homesickness, I decided to try and capture their likeness in watercolour.  It's a quick watercolour sketch - done in my art journal.  The pages of the journal are not thick enough to withstand water media without buckling, so I took a glue stick and stuck three pages of the journal together to give me a stronger surface to paint on.  It felt really good to be playing in the paint again!

Doing that little painting made me feel like painting more!  This time I was inspired by a cluster of tomatoes all on a single stem.  They were laying on the kitchen island and lit by a series of overhead lights (hence the multiple shadows).  I really wanted to try and capture the beautiful red glowing colours and am very pleased by how the painting turned out.


I've also found myself feeling curious about other painting media lately.  There have been only two times in my life when I've been brave enough to try painting with oil paints - once at age twelve when I created a huge disappointing mess in an attempt to paint a stormy ocean scene, and once at age seventeen when I painted a colour interpretation of a black and white photo of a landscape from somewhere in Scotland.  I still have that painting. This week I decided to try oil colours for the third time. I'm using them to paint a different interpretation of this tomatoe cluster and so far it's going without incident.  It will be some time before you will see the finished product as it takes so long (compared to watercolours) for the paint to dry between layers.

I think I'd like to try painting with acrylic paints, too.  Watercolour is by far what I am most comfortable with, but if I am so curious to try other things right now.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.

And last, but not least, there's been more fiber art in my life during the past few weeks.  A friend's neice is getting married soon.  My friend had the idea of personalizing some bed linen for the bride with embroidered names or monograms.  That idea fired my imagination.  First I took some of the design elements from the wedding invitation and came up with this design, which my friend embroidered in black thread on blueberry blue coloured pillow cases.


Next I designed another pattern for pillowcases so I could embroider something for the bride, too.


I decided to use dark grey thread on dove grey pillowcases, and here's how they looked when they were finished -



Last week I was out photographing at the ruins of a little place called "Scorpion Gulch", just south of Phoenix at the base of South Mountain. 







It's been a great couple of weeks and I am so thrilled to be feeling creative again!  I can't wait to see where inspiration takes me next!
- Fern

8 comments:

  1. Wow! I came to look at tomatoes and got so much more; even textiles:)
    Glad you have found your mojo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Deborah. I could so easily get 'scattered' creatively because so many different media appeal to me. Here's hoping I can focus on painting and photography for a while.

      Delete
  2. i really love your photography Fern, my favourite is second !!!
    and...are your tomatos real ??? they looks amazing..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Zeynep. I really love the second photo, too. Maybe one day I'll try painting that picture. :)

      Delete
  3. Everything looks beautiful!

    What a great name: Scorpion Gulch! Makes me think of some western movie.

    Miss you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's exactly what I thought of when I saw the name 'Scorpion Gulch'. Actually, being down here makes me think of western type movies/TV shows quite a bit and I haven't even visited any of the wild west ghost towns or old mines yet. Miss you, too.

      Delete
  4. Hi Fern, I have fallen in love with your blog. Your watercolors are amazing, so fresh and clean. Your photography is awesome. Your little hats, well, oh my goodness, what a talented gal you are. Looking forward to following your artful journey. Come on over for a visit, who knows you may decide to follow me too. Have a great day! Your newest follower, Connie :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. WOW I love the daffodil painting. You are very talented. Must not stop painting again :) cheers.

    ReplyDelete