I love love love Christmas! It’s my favorite time of the year, for sure. Well….other then my own birthday. But really, it’s awesome. I especially love singing Christmas songs and giving gifts. I like to make other people happy!
That is why I’ve started the Pritteful Palette Christmas Sales! Every few days, I will be posting a new item that is up for “Christmas Sale”. If you are looking for a gift for someone, or maybe one for yourself (there’s nothing wrong with the one for me one for you concept in my mind) then you should make sure to check my Facebook Page for the latest updates. I will also try to post the updates on my blog for those of you who are RSS subscribers, but don’t have a Facebook.
‘Tis the season when posting articles about paintings becomes difficult. Why, you ask? Well, right now I am working on two different pieces. One piece is the Palm Tree Sunset which I posted a video on over a month ago. This painting is coming along, but I haven’t posted anything recently because I have been working on the background and layering paint this whole time. At a certain point, that becomes un-interesting because it basically looks the same and there is not much to say about it….other then that I don’t think that these paints could dry ANY slower inbetween layers. Seriously. It takes them at LEAST a week and a half, if not longer. That makes it somewhat difficult to work on. None the less, I want the background to be full of rich, deep color which therefore requires me to wait and be patient . I’m doing my best….
In between layers of paint on the Palm Tree painting, I have been working on another piece….but I haven’t been posting that one either because it’s top secret. ‘Tis the season for secret paintings…AKA Christmas gifts. Will it be for you? I won’t tell!!! So anyhow, I can’t exactly post pictures of my top secret work to the internet…if you catch my drift. There will be plenty of posts afterwards though. But for now, I will just tell you a little about my recent struggles.
The piece I’m working on happens to be one that has many different blocks of color. While painting these blocks of color, I found that when the layers dry, they seem very streaky. So, in an attempt to make the piece look less “streakified”, I decided to try out some Linseed Oil. Linseed Oil is usually mixed with oil paints to increase the fluidity of the paint and to create a slower drying time so that you can re-work parts of your piece easier. One of the side effects of the oil is that it makes the paint appear more glossy when it dries. I’m thinkin’ that this could be an advantage for me with this piece that I am currently working on because it will help camouflage the streaks that might show up. The paint has yet to dry…so I can’t really give you a solid update as to whether or not it really worked.
As I was working with the oil the other day, I looked at the bottle to find that it says “Caution: Soaked Rags May Spontaneously Combust”. Apparently, if there are any rags soaked in Linseed Oil layin’ around, they can suddenly start your house on fire. Awesome. That makes me feel extremely uneasy. I guess that now I have to wash all of my painting rags and clothes whenever I paint using this oil. What a pain. I will admit, I’m probably taking the road labeled “too cautious”….but I just can’t sit at work knowing that there is a rag that might start on fire with no one’s assistance sitting over by my easel in my future home. That’s just unsettling!
I think it’s safe to say that I have become a blogging slacker. Boo to me. What kind of blogger never blogs? Honestly.
Well, since we’re being honest….my honest reasoning behind my blogging hiatus has to do with 4 big things. You guessed it. Moving, babies, weddings, and holidays. All good things, other then moving. I miss my roomate Plus…moving just sucks in general because you have to spend all of that time packing only to have to unpack it all in a few days. Seems completely ridiculous. At least it is over with now. That leaves me a little more time to focus on other things….like babies, weddings, and holidays! No matter what is going on though, I have found time to paint. Actually, I have somehow found a LOT of time to paint despite the chaos that goes on sometimes. The only problem is that when I have time to paint, I haven’t always had time to post. So, my lovely and wonderful readers, you don’t have to worry your pretty little heads about me quitting art for good anymore. Now you know it’s not true! And to prove it, here are some pictures our Halloween Art from this years carving party! Enjoy!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! – From the Mroz and the Mroz-To-Be. Here are some close-ups of our handy carving work.
Back to making more videos! I haven’t done one in a while because I have been finishing up the last painting and it was mostly detail work. Watching me do detail work, even if it’s in fast motion, is not very exciting considering there isn’t a big change.
On that note, I made a new video of the latest piece I am working on. This is actually the first time I am creating a painting using multiple canvases. The only challenge I can see is that three canvases do not fit on my easel…so I have to paint them on Matt’s drafting table. Had he been home last night, I might have asked him to raise the back of the table so that it would be at a slight angle and I could see the canvas better because I am too weak to do it myself (sad, but true). Either way, I got what I wanted to get done finished and that’s all that matters.
If you actively follow my blog and you watch this, you might notice that there is no underpainting. I didn’t just forget to do one, I actually didn’t do one on purpose. Sometimes it is good to have an underpainting, and sometimes it’s not. It depends on the kind of end result you are looking for. With this piece, the picture I am painting from actually gives you the impression that what you are seeing isn’t real because it is so perfect looking. Underpaintings, while awesome, give you the illusion that there is something deeper going on underneath the surface. They create depth in a painting to give them a more realistic feeling. In a case like this one, where the colors are very vibrant and you want people to feel like what they are looking at isn’t really real, you wouldn’t use an underpainting because it would ruin this effect.
This video is also a great example of some finger painting. I, and other oil painters I’m sure, sometimes don’t use brushes because they are just to darn difficult. Depending on what kind of look you want to create, brushes just don’t always do the job right. So, finger painting it is! I wanted this background to have a nice smooth texture, but because orange and yellow oil paints are somewhat thin, using a brush just creates a lot of lines and clumps. There’s nothing wrong with getting a little dirty for the sake of art! Plus, combined with the awesome beat in this song I chose it sounds and looks like I am scratching records and painting all at the same time…which is AWESOME!
Sometimes you just don’t have anything interesting to say…in which case you shouldn’t say anything at all. So, that’s exactly what I am going to do. Here are some pictures instead. I know you’d all rather see those over hearing what I have to say anyways.
. I’m doing my best….
Plus…moving just sucks in general because you have to spend all of that time packing only to have to unpack it all in a few days. Seems completely ridiculous. At least it is over with now. That leaves me a little more time to focus on other things….like babies, weddings, and holidays! No matter what is going on though, I have found time to paint. Actually, I have somehow found a LOT of time to paint despite the chaos that goes on sometimes. The only problem is that when I have time to paint, I haven’t always had time to post. So, my lovely and wonderful readers, you don’t have to worry your pretty little heads about me quitting art for good anymore. Now you know it’s not true! And to prove it, here are some pictures our Halloween Art from this years carving party! 
