Kidsillio

Whisky Painting

Hello Whisky! I’ve been waiting a long time to see you finished.

I remember watching a movie where someone had a trick horse named Whisky. I thought that if I ever got a horse I would use that name. I never got a horse, so I painted one!

I started this painting years ago, when I took the intuitive painting class that I’ve talked about before. It was almost finished but I was so afraid of ruining it that I got stuck! A few days ago, I felt brave enough to try again. I made corrections, then I came back and corrected my corrections … several times. I may still tweak a few areas, but I’m happy for now.

Painting Class

I’ve been painting more lately thanks to a class I took from Heather Sink of Craving Art Studio. Her paintings are full of light and beautifully visible brush stokes. Scenes of the south eastern coast are full of people and horses enjoying the water, boats and marinas, and marsh grasses that you can almost feel their movement in the gentle water waves. When I see them, I think, This is the way I want to paint!

What I Learned

She taught me to paint the underpainting in contrasting colors and then to let some of those colors show through. Painting with oil paints again has been a fun challenge. Acrylics dry too fast since I’m a pokey painter. But then, oil can take forever for the layers to dry. My solution is to do the underpainting in acrylic and finish the remaining layers in oil. I love the smooth texture and easy blending of oil paints.

The paintings Heather instructed turned out really well, I was shocked, ha! Now I just need to remember what I learned for future paintings made from my own references. Here are some photos of paintings from the class.

Cut-Paper Art

Creating with cut paper is my favorite. The mini projector I ordered to help with projects came yesterday. It can transfer photos of my sketches right from my phone to the wall where I can trace them larger. Super simple! It will save so much time scaling up art large enough to avoid cutting such teeny-tiny pieces.

Upcoming Books

I can’t wait to show you the cover art for book 2 and 3 of the Hope and Horses Series and share the news about what’s been happening with book 1. My publisher, Editor-911 Books, will be posting the article I wrote soon that will tell more about the storylines of the Hope and Horses series. Stay tuned! Here’s a sneak peak of the art for book 2.

I hope this will encourage reluctant artists like me to stick with it! We all learn at our own pace (mine is that of a tortoise) and create when time and life events allow (I lost both parents and my only brother in 2022. Most days I am still not feeling very creative). I don’t think there’s a rule about how much art you create to call yourself an artist. I’d love to hear about what blocks you from creating and how you’ve overcome them in your own time.

Happy creating!