A Field of Iris

Sunday afternoon I got out the paints again and worked up a bigger canvas 24 by 30.

I am finding that I love painting with acrylics. There is so much more I can do with them than watercolor. I wish I had just left watercolor and gone over to acrylics years ago when I gave up painting altogether because I couldn't do what I wanted with the watercolors and found painting frustrating and stressful. I couldn't achieve the depth and richness of texture. And the paints were so unforgiving and uncontrollable.

The acrylics are fast, which is how I tend to paint, and can layer, which I love. I am discovering that the process of painting - drawing the wet paints into each other and across the canvas - is exhilarating. Pure joy.

I did this painting a bit different, going in to the background first and then the iris at the end. I am pleased with the result which I'm calling A Field of Iris, although I can't seem to get a good picture of it. My flash keeps bleeding into the painting. Without the flash, the color is wrong. I guess I need to now figure out how to use my camera better.

I continue to contemplate hooking one of these paintings.

"Experiencing Layers", a painting

One of my catch up words for the creation and expansion group on the Welcome Mat has been "layers". I have been wondering what to do with this word. I have been inspired by Cathy's beautiful watercolors of gardens and sunflowers to try to paint a flower with acrylics. I have mainly painted with watercolor (years ago!) which does not layer very well. I have been wanting to see what it would be like to paint with a medium that allowed me to layer. So everything came together yesterday and I worked a flower on canvas because Michael's had a good sale on canvas and I thought "why not?" So its not in my journal although it is an entry in my mind.

So here is my interpretation of "layers," layers upon layers of color, golds and yellows and greens and purples, pulled through and on top of each other, mixed together, each its own, but brushed collectively to form a sunflower, that ended up looking like a chrysathemum! This project was more about me "experiencing" the process of layering than about creating an entry that depicts layers.

This project has made me want to create a huge floral rug - one flower taking up the center-space of a three-by-three foot rug.

"Dare" is my favorite

My favorite visualized word is the first I did, "dare." As soon as I heard the word in my head, I saw red. I have no idea how this could be translated into a rug, but it might be fun trying. I think the entire piece would have to be created from dip-dyed material, red to yellow. I haven't tried hooking an abstract yet, but I think one is in my future.

If you haven't followed my previous painting posts, this is part of a series of works I am doing as part of the art journaling group on The Welcome Mat called Creation and Expansion.

What does "reside" look like?

I want to archive on my blog, my visual representations of the words that the Creation and Expansion group on The Welcome Mat have been making. I joined the group late, so I have many words to create yet, but here is the one I did for RESIDE. It is about the immanence of light in our world.

How do you visualize "reside"?

Creation and Expansion Painting

Wanda Kerr on The Welcome Mat has a group called Creation and Expansion that I have joined. Once a month she gives the members a word to make visual representations of. This month the word was DAILY. Here is my attempt. The idea was to create the feeling of continuity and repetition with punctuations of variation and vibrancy. C'est la vie!