Texture is fun, but more than that the added dimension it adds to a painting is becoming to me like putting salt and spice on my food.










The textures that can be added to every kind of two-dimensional media vary, but more and more I am looking at texture as a necessity rather than an addition to a painting. In this first example entitled Music For Martinis, texturing the background happened before the idea of the painting was hatched.





















In this next example, He Gave Me Flowers some of the background texturing happened as the abstract still life was being painted, but much of it was created after the fact.

The two examples are used to show that texture can happen at any stage of a painting to add interest and excitement to the artwork.

For added information about either painting, you may want to click on the images to read more.

The Italian Wash Job - ORIGINAL Mixed Media Watercolor and Acrylic on paper

It's finally done!

I started talking about this painting on July 12th as a sort of demo and did another feature on it on August 7th. Then I got busy preparing paintings for art shows, and did not get back to working on it again until this week. Final touches included straightening the lines of the shadows with acrylics and painting shadows under the laundry with a watercolor mixture of Cobalt Blue, Winsor Violet and Burnt Sienna.

I wasn't sure until the shadows went in that I was going to even like it, but they made a tremendous difference. One thing that has befuddled me for quite awhile is where the focal point is. I like the pane on the left the best, but the pane on the right is bigger and closer. Theoretically it should be where the center of interest is found; so I put some red socks there and increased the contrast of light and dark in this pane, but I still am more interested in the left pane, and I think it still dominates. I look at the lower window in the left pane, and I'm not sure that is a bad thing. After all it is located in the Golden Triangle. Where do you think the focal point is located?

More information about this painting is located here:

Summer Colds Are The Worst

For the last week I have been battling this obnoxious cold that started in my chest. I haven't had too many colds in the last few years, so when I got one last fall it laid me low, and I can't believe I now have another one. Cooties, giant blue furry ones have descended upon my head. Blaaaahhhhh ! Yuckeeeeeeee! Eeeeeewwwwwwweeee! I hate being sick; it's such a waste of time! Needless to say it has slowed down my work, but I tell you what, I read in the Parade section of the newspaper this Sunday about some of the military who are coming home with horrible, horrible injuries and amputations to solve some of their problems. The ones featured go through these things and keep a great can-do attitude about it. That simply fills me with pride and admiration for them, and I feel like my complaining about a little cold is just soooooo pathetic.

After The Chick Fight

On to today's artistic project which was putting the final touches on something I started awhile ago, like so many of my projects. You might ask, why does she always have some old, unfinished project sitting around. Well, it's because I have been taught to have multiple projects going on all of the time. The theory is that it keeps you looser (yeah, complicated art word) because you aren't so wrought up concentrating on one masterpiece at a time.

OK this is not the greatest title, but After The Chick Fight with its empty gold, ornate picture frames and assorted "altered" photos just reminds me what might happen in an extreme situation when two chicks become jealous of one another's interest in what else, a man. We have already heard on the news about one chick's trek across the country in diapers to exact revenge upon another. Havoc is wreaked when anyone loses control, and there is much damage in the fray here.

So anyway, my original mixed-media collage is built upon gessoed masonite, and I have now put it up in my Etsy shop so you can find out more info about it. Click here.

Today's Twisted Tree

What a twisted web we weave into a Limber Pine tree on 12 X 6-inch canvas with the sides painted. Yes, it has the staples on the side, but it still looks quite pretty and could just have a wire fastened to the back and hung. Of course, it could be framed as well, but then we couldn't see the pretty sides.



Today's Painting A Day, Twisted Tree

http://dreamon.etsy.com/