Mosaic Daisies

I know I've tried a lot of different art mediums in the last couple of years, but his was a first. 

My WordSpark group was challenged with the word "Mosaic." 

I thought this one would be easy.  I've made a lot of stepping stones with concrete and bits of color. I'll just whip this one out in a no time.

Yeah... that's what I thought...

No... that's not how it worked out...

I decided that I'd like to give doing a "real" mosaic a try. So, where does one go to learn something brand new? YouTube, of course.

I have more art supplies than... well... I have anything I could ever need for any craft... except for...

... mosaic adhesive... and grout... and colored glass shards... and glass cutters...

It looked so simple.

It was not.

But, I did try again and gave new life to an old frame.

I will eventually do another... I do have the supplies after all...

The top one is done on a wooden plaque. (It was a plaque that the Harley place had given Ron when he bought his motorcycle. I just "upcycled" it.) 

the second one was done on art paper and made from scraps of paper I'd painted on.

Flowers & Shadow

I love smearing paint with a palette knife.

The *WordSpark* for my little painting group this month was "Shadows." As is usually the case, I was completely blank as to what I might paint for the topic.

I was walking through the garden center at Walmart, (the part where it's inside, but open to the sky) when I noticed the most lovely perfect shadows this plant was casting on the concrete.  The plant was on the floor marked down to $4 because nearly every stem was broken. But... some scotch tape to hold the stems upright-ish... some wire to prop the dead-ish ones up... some artistic license to fix it up was all it took!

My companion piece was fun to create.  

• I started with scraps of collage paper in purples. 
• Then I fussy-cut (a term I learned from my quilting friends) the flowers off of a paper party napkin.
• Next I created a "found poem" about shadows from a page of Charlotte's Web. (It's the scene where Charlotte was sending the rat, Templeton, to the fairgrounds to get her a word so she could weave it in her web one last time.)
• A found poem is done by taking a sheet of text and marking out everything you don't need until you end up with words that make up a description/feeling/image/poem of what you do need.

The Cool of the Evening

In the cool of the evening, shadows darkened the air. 

Without saying anything, he started off. 

The shadows came as a welcome relief.

The sky seemed high, and you could hear music.

The man felt refreshed.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

Click Flowers & Shadow if you'd like to purchase this painting.

Black-eyed Susans in a Vase

I would say that this painting may not be my usual style or doesn't have my usual color palette.  But then I realize that I've done so many crazy-different styles and used so many different mediums through the on-line classes I've signed up for this year, that I don't know what my style even is any more.

2007-2021 - I worked in realistic oil painting pretty much exclusively (although I did do an occasional acrylic).  

2022 - I began trying to figure out how to paint with the palette knife.  

2023 - I've done a little of everything: watercolor, acrylic inks, pen & ink, collage, fabric applique, and so many things with mixed media. I've grown in appreciation for each.

I have to say, though... I think smearing paint with a palette knife is my favorite.  I love the process. I love the end result.  I want to keep looking at it. I want to run my fingers across its surface (once it finally dries). I want to do another.

My Weekly-ish Challenge was "Just Put Them in a Vase." 

Thanks to Wendy of Pieceful Thoughts for letting me use her image as a reference.

 Original Palette Knife Oil Painting on 9"x 12" Wrapped Canvas

[SOLD]

Black Eyed Susans in a Can

Simple, yet elegant...

These pretty black-eyed Susans were growing in the blackberry patch behind my garden, 

Plain wildflowers in a tin can... couldn't be any prettier if they were from a florist and placed in a crystal vase.

The word for this weekly-ish art challenge was "tin."  

Original Palette Knife Oil Painting on 8"x 10"
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Pink Daisies in the Field

It doesn't matter how many paintings that I've done or what the subject is; I still go through through the same patterns of thought

This one will be fun!

I can do this pretty easily

How is this going to work?

This isn't working.

I'm not sure I'll be able to make this work.

This is a disaster.

Should I scrape the whole thing off and start over?

I've been trough this before. I can do this. Just keep going.

Maybe this is going to come together after all.

Ugh, maybe not.

Let me just step back and look from the other side of the room.. 

Hmmm.... Niiiice...

Squint. 

Pick up the brush and get back to it.

I think I can make this work. 

This is starting to look good. 

Where should that next brushstroke go?

Guess it's time for a signature.

Good job, Helen.

You can use this narration as you watch this 26 second video of the process.

Original Oil Painting on 8"x 10" Wrapped Canvas

[SOLD] 

Daisy

He loves me...
     He loves me not...
He loves me...
     He loves me not...
He loves me!

Daisies are such happy flowers.

Until this one, I'd only painted one other daisy.  It was the fourth painting I ever did.  Although it was only my third lesson and way back in March of 2007, I have a clear memory of it.  We were to learn about seeing the color in black and in white. My teacher gave me a calendar page with a big white daisy on it. "Look at all the beautiful colors in that flower!"  Oh, dear... something was wrong.  I only saw a white flower.  She said, "Yes, it is white, but look closely and notice the purples and yellows and reds and browns and blues!"  Wait, did I get the wrong picture? Mine's just a white daisy!  She said that her goal was to help us to see the world differently, to notice the subtle variations in the colors of nature. Clouds weren't just white. Trees weren't just green. Water wasn't just blue. I tried. I tried to pretend I saw more than just white. 
The background was black... wasn't it?  "Yes, it's black.  But black has no life, so we won't open the tube of black paint." Oh, dear... Should I quit now? Will I ever "see the world differently" like she wanted me to?
Yes.
Yes, Over time and through practice, I would learn to see the world differently, through artist eyes.

Photo by Sara Harley

Sara's Inspiration Image for July's Inspiration Collaboration gave me the idea to give painting a daisy another try.  And, yes, it was much easier to "see the color" in the white flower on a black back ground.

You can see my painting along with several other works of art inspired by A Touch of Sunshine.


Original Oil Painting on 5"x 7" Wrapped Canvas.
[SOLD]

Pink Daisies

What's in your backyard?

These pretty little things grow in my parents' yard.  I think they're called echinacea - pretty fancy name for a pink daisy. 


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Gaillardia

What do you miss about summer?

One of the things I love about living in Northwest Arkansas is that we get a little of everything with the four seasons.  Right now we're at that kind of in-between stage.  Autumn was gorgeous, but the winds have blown in.  The leaves are brown and wet, and the lovely things about winter are a while away.  I guess these in-between weeks make us appreciate the best each season has to offer.

During this brown stage, I've been missing the wildflowers.

Mount Magazine State Park is the place to go in June if you love wildflowers and butterflies.  On a short stroll along the trail, you can see butterflies of all colors on wildflowers of even more colors.  
A little research helped me discover that this wildflower is a Gaillardia.   (I think!)  I would have just called it a red and yellow daisy!  Whatever they're called, they're lovely.

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White Daisy

What color is white?


I'm going back the very beginning with this one.  I just had my painter's birthday.  Four years ago, I picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in some paint, and smeared it onto a canvas.  I painted a tree that night.  My homework after that class was to paint another tree.  The next week, the art lesson was to paint something black and white.  I did a cup... but it was awful, truly awful!  I don't believe I have the courage to post a picture of it.   The third week, we had to paint something white, and the lesson was to see that white wasn't white at all - but filled with colors.
This is a concept that still amazes me.  

Purple Coneflowers

I wonder if it means you're getting old because you begin to notice things like wildflowers?

There's been some road construction near my home,

and yesterday I got to drive on a section that had been recently completed. That's where I noticed that someone else enjoyed wildflowers. Whatever big, burly crew member had been assigned the job of weed eating the ditch beside the new stretch of road must have had a sensitive side. The ditches and banks had been neatly mowed except that the wildflowers hadn't been touched. It was the oddest thing! It was obvious that someone had simply not done their job completely; every clump of wildflowers had been carefully left alone. Thanks, road crew guy!

These wildflowers were growing in Mount Magazine State Park in Arkansas. They're called Purple Coneflowers.

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