Because I Feel To

No this is not abstract, it was not my intention to just splash some paint on a canvas and call it abstract art. I just had this feeling inside me to feel paint running through my fingers (I finger paint) but what shall I paint? Well I’ve always been curious of colour and it has been my main study lately so I decided to paint the rainbow as it is said to have all the colour visible to the eye. Honestly after painting the orange I realized that I was running out of space for the other colours that’s why there is a lot of warmth in the piece that seems to push the cooler hues to the other corner.

This is life of an artist; sometimes we execute a piece as planned in our heads and sometimes things don’t go as planned and the piece itself can take a turn but we try our best to not let it be for the worst because planned or not we want the result to be art. Creating art is a great resemblance to life, you learn to expect the unexpected and try hard to turn those times into happy memories. I feel as though although I’ve been creating art for years I’m now beginning to find myself as an artist. I will continue my experiments with colour and different mediums till I find my soul’s companion in the world of art.   

Run Like The Wind

You might say I’m fond of everything but horses have a special hold on me, although I’m terrified of riding one I like to see them gallop and play. They are some of the happiest creatures along with dolphins. Horses are complex to replicate a painting of them because of their muscle structure but if you never do something you would never learn or improve. I started how every artist would start and that’s by following a picture but which picture should I choose. I had a whole book full of horses dying to be painted but this horse really stood out to me. The way its mane looked enflamed in the sun and the mascara like stain that ran from its eyes. Some may say it’s a sign of sadness but I see tears of joy and freedom. I truly enjoyed painting this piece and I hope to do another one before the end of the year.

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See this painting and others from my Artrise album

 

The Hand That Burns

We have all heard the term by now ‘reducing your footprints’ well this piece focuses on our handprints. During the dry season although authorities advise citizens against burning their ruble they still do anyway and then we may end up with a wild fire. A simple thing as dropping a lit cigarette in the bush can destroy everything that mother nature has spent building for years. This piece is a plaster paris mixture with my hand print in the center. It’s my first time experimenting with this media and I had to work fast as it began to harden the moment I finish mixing. I then held my hand in place for about 5 minutes then slowly removed my palm to allow the piece to finish dry. When time came to paint it I did not have an objective in mind but as I painted the hand in red I was inspired to do something I feel strongly about. The hand represents the fire and around it is the greenery that is being burnt by a fire started of the human hand.   

Motivation for the Mystery Lady

This piece is chalk pastel on paper (from a regular sketch pad to be exact). I was young and the hour given for the lunch break in school was all mine to fill. Knowing this I flipped through a magazine and came across a watch ad with this scene in the background and I decided to challenge myself to do this piece in chalk pastel and believe me I didn’t know how challenging it would be until I started. Now when I start something I have a tendency to not finish it because an artist’s feelings for the piece in front of them can sometimes take a roller coaster ride.

So after a week or so of working on the piece I lost the zeal for the challenge which resulted in me tucking away the drawing for about eight months. I stumbled across it while I was sorting through my sketch pads and found it to be in very good condition. Sometimes we need a bit of motivation so after giving myself a pep talk and a pat on the back I sat down day after day and drew in every leaf and every crack on the sanctuary until it was finally coming to an end. When I got around to the mystery lady I realize that the chalk pastels were too big to get the job done so I resorted to using colour pencils which took me back a few years (one can never get too big for colour pencils and crayons). 

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I’m A Keeper

Before you go off thinking about relationships, ‘keeper’ in this context is just a nicer way of saying I’m a hoarder. About 5 years back my neighbor was giving away one of those corridor curtains with strings of wooden beads the length of a door. She turned to me and ask me if I want it because everyone knows I’m a keeper and I gladly accepted. At the time I had no idea what I was going to do with all those beads but I sat down and patiently took each bead off the curtain and put it in a bag for storage. A few weeks ago my mother threatened to throw it away so I took the bag and decided to make a portrait of a humming bird hovering by a flower.

It was going well, I knew what I wanted to do but coming closer to the end I got into some difficulty sticking beads into small spaces but I made do. When it was done I was told that the bird wasn’t easy to decipher from the background so I decided to put another row of beads just over the bird so that it literally popped. For the frame I thought that any neutral colour would just blend in so I used blue which compliments the wooden beads and then I decorated it with more beads and bamboo because there just wasn’t enough on the inside. This is proof that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’.      

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Inspiration Part 2 (The Leaf Of My Eye)

Most girls are bedazzled by clothes, shoes and jewelry but I get ‘googly eyed’ when I see bush. Sure from a distance all bush looks alike but with an observant eye one can see how each leaf, flower and blade of grass grows in different shapes, sizes and curls in different directions. So being excited about taking a hike through the bush I felt compelled to touch and collect everything I saw but one thing stood out to me. I looked across and saw this big leaf that was dried to a redish bronze and it took my breath away when touched by the sunrays peaking through the tall trees.

When I picked it up I felt like I found a rear gold that was priceless in my eyes but I was not sure what to do with my newly discovered prized possession. I thought maybe it would make a good hat but then the wind would be a problem. With a homemade, boxed frame it can be a nice wall hanging for my room but I can’t think of anyway to preserve the leaf so that in some years time it would not disintegrate into dust. I want to find a way to preserve the leaf while adding an artistic touch to it or maybe I may just have to settle with some pictures and a painting. Any suggestions are welcomed. You can view these and other pictures from my hike in the Photobucket album.

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Inspiration Part 1 (Big and Tall)

I’m sure we have all had that ‘WOW’ moment when we saw something that is just towering over us like the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. Well I had a similar feeling when I saw this (approximately) century old satellite dish that is still standing strong although it has been out of use since the U.S. army left. In case you are wondering this satellite is located next to the tracking station in Chaguaramas. When I saw it I was completely blown away and felt inspired in a creative way but my predicament was that I wasn’t sure what exactly to do with all the creative bubbles that burst inside me when I saw it.

I like the way the rust claims most of its body and the way it looks toward the sky as if it sees something I can’t so I documented the monument with a couple pictures which are now stored in my ‘Art Stuff’ folder but I don’t want it to stay there for years. So I would like you all to help me figure out this mystery. Be part of my inspiration, you can suggest a medium (it doesn’t have to be traditional, even crayons are fine) and suggest an approach as to how this should all go down. I’m excited to hear from you, just drop me a line or two.

You can view these photos and more from my trip from my Photobucket album.

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Breaking The Laws Of Nature

I may have called another piece my favorite before but I realise now I have a lot of favorites and I don't know how professional artists can take months to do a piece of art and sell it the next day. After taking my time, patience and talent to paint a piece I feel attached to it and the above that you see is one such piece. I worked on it day and night making sure I got every detail right. I enjoyed doing this piece because I’ve always been fund of dolphins but one thing I don’t like to paint is clouds. Sure they look pretty and fluffy in real life but getting them to look like that on canvas is the ‘catch tail’ part of painting such scenery but I think I did a good job on these clouds than the ones I’ve painted in the past. After I finished the painting I hung it in the living room where it can be seen by all who come in the house.

About two years later my uncle stood in front of the painting staring at it with an inquisitive brow then he asked me why the water dripping from the dolphins is blue yet the reflection on the rest of the sea is orange. While the laws of nature say that water would reflect dominating colour of light in its surrounding I wanted the foreground to stand out. So I used the complimentary colour of the orange sunset, which is blue, and I blended it in to the drips of water. I feel as though a painting  is not done unless I put my twist on it which is similar to my other blog post ‘Finding A New Technique’. What is your signature style?

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She Sells Sea Shells By The Sea Shore

If every time we go to the beach and collect some shells we would have enough to fill a museum not so? Well this was my predicament and I finally decided to put my collection to use. Each shell is so unique and carries their own character and stories, even a pair of shells from the same chip-chip are still different from each other. So how does one put together all these shells and still display their true beauty? Well when I looked around I found some bed springs that I saved and painted some years back and I thought it would make a great frame to hold the shells. While I was doing it my mother passed and suggested that it can be a lamp so when the shell structure was completed I put a tea light beneath it and it gave a nice glow. Yes even your relatives can give you inspiration but one thing I could not decide on was if to keep the shell on top or leave it out. What do you think?

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1000 Words Can Paint A Picture

Do you remember the saying “a picture paints 1000 words” well I think it can go both ways. Back in my uniform wearing days I found a poem floating around the floor of the art room in school with the name ‘Karen Holder’ to the bottom of the page.  It did not contain 1000 words but when I read it I was inspired to produce the romantic scene you see above. In case you can’t see it clearly here is the poem below, hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Because I love you

I can look at life

With clearer eyes

And face tomorrow

With a brave heart

And hold my chin up

With a brand new hope

Because I love you

Everything becomes

More beautiful

                        Karen Holder 

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From Sketch To Art

It all begins somewhere though it may not always start out as a sketch. A few years back I visited a little island called Carriacou which is off the coast of Grenada. I went on a vacation not expecting to find much as the island is smaller than Tobago but when we arrived in the dock I was surprised at the crystal blue water below the boat and the buzzing city in front of us. To add to my surprise we stay in a house located on the edge of the sea wall, it was quite a sight to see from the balcony but I didn’t bring a camera or my sketching equipment so I had to settle with the next best thing which was a purple pen and a yellow notepad.

I made a few sketches of the scenery during different times of the day even in the rain as I felt that I must get it done. When I got back home I did not start working on the pieces right away as I felt that I left my zeal for this project back in Carriacou but about a month later I was sorting through some papers and found that old yellow notepad and so I started to work from my sketches and memory using my chalk pastels, which was my favorite medium at the time.

The piece was not completely finished, not all the details were put in, but I don’t think I would revisit it because acrylic paints are now my favorite medium and I’m looking to switch to oils before the end of this year. Yes, artists have phases just as a growing teenager. One minute we like one thing and the next we like something else. I would say I certainly grew as an artist learning to do a piece from a quick sketch and what was left in my memory. What is your approach to creating a scenery?

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The Aliens In My Sketchbook

Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses, mine is drawing my own kind. Yes, I can't draw people and make them look like their actual self. So a few years back I decided to do something about it, I joined the UWI Open Campus art class in the hopes of being the next best human figure artist. Well anything close to it. We went through the whole science of the body’s proportion but when I started to draw using the same guidelines the above is what was produced. That’s just some of the sketches, the rest I threw because they were just too much to look at but if I still had them you all would have had a hard time figuring out what it was.

The closest I came to making someone look like they really are, is the chalk pastel portrait below. In terms of drawing a full body sketch of someone I still lack the skill but I must say that I draw the best stick men you have ever seen. As a result I avoid drawing people in any of my pieces and instead took up a preference in drawing animals. How did you learn to draw human figures?  

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These Boots Were Made For Painting

When you are given an assignment to paint a shoe you should take every advantage of it as I did. Now of course we were given the over used list of famous deceased artists to choose for as our theme but I felt the urge to find a fresh new artist to work with. I was so anxious that the next day I dived head first into Google images and found a number of fine paintings but one of the pieces stood out to me and further investigation lead me to a young American artist named Iris Scott. She was not like the other artists that I learned about in class, for one she was not dead and she did not use conventional methods of painting. She would slap on a pair of latex gloves and begin painting solely with her fingers. Now I haven’t been finger painting since I was a child but a lot of marks were weighing in on this assignment so I had to give it my best.

At first it was more difficult than I thought it would be but once I got the technique right my work started to look more like a painting. Although there was the problem of my fingers being too big to paint on something as small as a boots compared to a 30-40 inch canvas but with a few modifications to the technique I think I successfully completed the project. On one boot have two different paintings, both with warmer colours of the spectrum, and the other boot has one large dog with colours more to the cooler side of the spectrum. I hope you all enjoy viewing the boots as much as I enjoyed painting them. What are some of your assignment challenges?   

Check out more on Iris Scott

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Going Mono and Moody

This particular piece was first done in chalk pastel. I would admit I was a young teenager going through another phase and watching The Note Book over and over but that’s how I got inspired by one of the scenes. There was nothing but that rich orange and shadows of everything else. It was tranquilizing yet mysterious because I couldn’t see who was on the boat. That scene became my first monochromatic piece and I enjoyed every moment of rubbing the orange pastel onto the paper. When I was done I sprayed it well with my fixative but when I dug it up about a year later it was fading and I could not bear to just throw it out because it reminded me of another phase in my life.

In honor of this I grabbed a small canvas board and began to relive the memories of what inspired me to paint it in the first place. I never did any painting twice because I fear that it will not come out the same and I would ruin the originality and I would never have the same creative spark that I had while doing the first one but this one felt different. It felt nice to go down memory lane and although it wasn’t the same sparks I felt like I was preserving piece of my history. I know we all keep a piece we did during a phase, what was your experience like?  

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Curiosity Strikes Again

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am a very curious person and have a tendency to collect things that interest me. So I was walking through Woodford Square one day, as I usually do almost every day, and for the first time I noticed this very intriguing leaf on the floor that’s bigger than my fist. When I picked it up and took a good look it immediately reminded me of a flame and I felt like fireworks going off inside my head. It’s kind of like that moment when you meet your significant other in life but except for me it’s finding my inspiration and that’s how I know when something is going to be turned into my next creation.

When I got home I sketched the leaf and even added some colour to it using my colour pencils which have not been in use since I wrote CXC and I won’t tell you how long ago that was. As excited as I was to get it on the canvas it took me a few days to start because I was nervous it would not come out right, I was more accustom to landscapes, seascapes and animal portraits but not making a leaf look like a flame but still appear as a leaf. Eventually the process began and the bright colours of the flame began to flow along the canvas and I felt myself melting with every brush stroke and before I knew it the fun was over and the canvas was being stretched unto the wooden frame. This piece still stands in my room reminding me step out of my comfort zone more often and just let it be. How did your curiosity contribute to your creativity?

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Touch It, See It, Smell It

We all know how parents always say don’t touch this and don’t touch that but touching was my greatest adventure, yes I can smell, hear and see many amazing things but nothing satisfies my curiosity like feeling the texture of an object. Due to this I collect a wide range of objects including leaves and petals and after sorting through some books one day I found my stash of dried flora. Being bored at the time and feeling to try something new I decided to make a collage with them but I had one problem, the once beautiful petals and leaves lost their colour during the time it was left to dry. The flowers of the bougainvillea tree have an interesting thin, crimple paper texture and there is a plant in my grandmother’s garden that leaves’ are violet on one side and green on the other and they surprisingly hold their colour when dried. These two plants were my main interest in the piece and was used to create the flower in the center.

Now we know that roses are beautiful but when you dry the petals they crumble very easily and there is no trace of colour left so I decided I would still use them because it has great texture but after I stuck down my collection of varying leaves and petals I highlighted some areas with dabs of paint and then coated it with white glue (replacement for varnish). Looking at it after 7 to 8 years I can tell that some of flora was being eaten by little insects and was deteriorating into dust so I realise I need to find a more secure way of preserving such a piece of art but until then I would keep on with my curiosity and building my collections. What has your curiosity allowed you to find?      

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