Finally done!

 

So here is the finished result of playing on mommy's table. I am still not sure what title I will actually use as that one does not seem to fit anymore. I am overall very pleased with this piece as it is my first attempt in the direction I am wanting to take my artwork. I want to depict toddlers and babies in all sorts of normal and humorous settings. Sometime they will be depicted in a more surreal setting such as this one or I hope to also do everyday normal situations that children find themselves in or get into. The focus is supposed to be the little girl but I fell there is quite a bit of competition in this piece for a focal point. I am not pleased about that and hope to plan better in the future as to placement and movement to create a stronger focal point. The medium is color pencil which though very time consuming, I loved as it allowed me to really do some of the tiny details and yet still possess a rich color. I would like to try one of the pieces in another medium as color pencil is so slow it makes it a little impractical time-wise. Well, I know I could go on and on but I am not going to this time, I am happy with it, felt there are areas I can and will do better, but overall am pleased. I feel that God allows me to catch a really good likeness in some areas to bless me and then allows me to do what I am truly capable of which are the poorer areas to remind me to honor Him and that God is the giver of gifts and talents. 

I am going to try to finish up the other piece and will post it as soon as I am closer to done.:)

Portrait collages

I am still currently working on the other piece, but thought I would post this one as well as it has been an ongoing piece for awhile. Well, to be totally truthful my fellow beloved artist ( mom) suggested it as it fits the theme and I am not being as faithful to post as I originally intended. It is only just started as it will be a collage of six portraits of our little girl playing at the park. I love doing portraits so the idea of doing portrait collages totally enthralls me. The two that are partially in are going to be on the bottom going from left to right. The theme is "Mommy play with me". Most of the pictures will have me blurred in the background with Elicia as the focal point except for the bottom center which is her coming at the viewer.  I did this to create a center of interest and will be positioning all the portraits to draw your eye towards the center. I wanted the viewer to see her playing all around and then to see her coming at the viewer almost inviting them to play with her as well. I purposely chose to do a contrast of blurred soft edges ( Me) against the hopefully crisp photo like edges of Elicia. This piece is supposed to have a modern photographic feel,  which means a lot of patience to try to grasp the range of values that will have to occur throughout the piece to accomplish that feel. I have always wanted to do collages of a person or persons and recently completed one for my husband. I will post it on the bottom. It is entitled "Daddy's Girl" and was my first attempt at what I hope to become an ongoing project of doing portrait collages. I will post an updated picture of  "Mommy play with me" as soon as I get another section complete. The piece is going to be around 3 feet by 3 feet so is will take me a while to complete it.

Here is the piece mentioned before " Daddy's Girl"

A sneak peek ....

Here it is,
I am posting as promised a around halfway done look at my current children's illustration. As you can see alot of the elements are only halfway done so it only gives you a glimpse as the final product. This is very important art wise as well as it is very important that the piece develops a whole and not as separate entities. It is unfortunately and area I struggle with greatly as I like to complete each element and then move on once I am totally happy with it. While this may not sound like a bad idea, it creates issues when it comes to creating a sense of ones between the elements and creates problems with having a consistent light source. It was for this exact reason, that I primarily am wanting to blog as it will force me to complete the piece slowly as a whole.

I am still unsure as to what the little girl will be holding in her hand. I want and animal or something alive that she is playing with that has captured her so completely she is unaware of the other animals at play. As far as lighting for the piece, I am still working on trying create a strong since of light in a dimly lit room so as to be able to have the harsh shadows on the little girl, table, lamp, and other objects still to come. It is my first attempt  to do a piece with such a warm strong since of light so hopefully it will work out in the end.

Well for now that is all until the piece is finished.

An early look

Here is an early look at one of my current pieces I am working on. I am undecided as to what I will title this piece as I am still trying to add additional elements. The theme of the piece is " Playing on Mommy's Dresser". I used my little girl for the model of the child as she was handy and will follow directions easily. I found it much harder than I had anticipated to capture a good reference photo of a toddler at play that wasn't blurry, stiff, or totally at the wrong angle. Finally after three staged attempts I managed to capture her in a natural pose that I think I can use to suite the piece. Besides the little toddler, in the picture there are also animals at play on the dresser, smelling flowers, crawling in drawers, playing with beads. I am going to be using realistic images for all my animals and not plastic animals. In a child's mind her toys come alive and play with her and I wanted to emphasize a childlike imagination in this piece. I do not always intend to have things done from a child's perspective, which though adorable are not always realistic. I intend to capture moments in a young toddler's life sometimes from their perspective, other times what someone might see if they peeked into their room and watched them play.Children are a blessing from the Lord and I believe we often miss out on little precious moments in their lives that are funny, adorable, mischievous, or altogether priceless.

While the piece is rough at the present moment, I wanted to post it so that you would have a glimpse of it in its early stages and would get to see the process and development of the piece as a whole. The piece is going to be done in a very warm lighting with strong shadows cast from the lamp.I am still adding a few additional animals or objects to the piece and will place them in as I start to fill in the background and foreground.

I will post a picture of this when it is about halfway, which hopefully will be soon.

The meaning behind Transparent Art

So why Transparent Art?
I chose the title Transparent Art because I wanted to convey the idea that behind every piece of art, there was an artist. You may be thinking to yourself, ' Okay  real deep there...I get it..But I don't think people really do. I don't think when they looked at Andy Warhol's "Soup Cans" for example, they thought about what that piece said about Andy Warhol. The endless repetition of a meaningless object says quite alot about an artist who lived a rather sad, confused, and perverted life. Or for example, I could use the all so familiar ,Picasso, his disjointed bizarre images leave a rather disturbing impression of his life, views... and that matches his life. I could name artist after artist that if you put the images they created next to the artist it matched their life, views, values.

That being said, I do not believe that you can simply just create or paint anything you want. I believe you need to pause and think about what you are conveying to the masses through your artwork. Throughout history artwork has been a tool used to convey ideas of God, humanity, society, environment...etc Now I am not saying you can not simply go out and paint a pretty sky, mountain scape, or just an object for fun or that you can use an everyday object in a unique way. What I am saying is that what you choose to draw, or paint conveys a message and to pause and make sure that is what you want to say about yourself, life, and what you value. For me personally, I felt convicted about simply drawing dog portraits. Now I do not think that it is wrong to draw dog portraits but I do believe that in today's society that values pets over children I need to be careful what I am saying and encouraging. So do I intend to occasionally do dog portrait commissions, yes, but as a focus I have chosen to do children. I am wanting to depict children doing everyday things that are funny, precious, and priceless. Why? Because God loves children and I want society to realize that children are people and are a blessing and of value.

Well, guess that sums it up for my first post. On my next post I will show the beginning of my first children's illustration... It is going to be called something like " Getting into Mommy's Stuff", at least that is what I think at the present moment.. might change :)