Week 2- Friday Challenge something with keys!

Hi everyone, okay I am going to keep this going for us and I hope to see more people participating. Every Friday I will post a challenge and a linky link that you can post your pictures too. I will also have the link under Challenges on the home page so we can easily find all of them and go to the posts. I hope you will join me as we play challenge ourselves each week to stretch outside our box and paint or sketch something we might not normally sketch.

This weeks Challenge is "Something with keys" it can be anything that might fall into that description so be creative and have fun. It doesn't have to be my literal interpretation of keys like mine. I did this sketch as a value study of my moms keys laying on the counter. Feel free to Paint, sketch, color, anything goes and then share it here! 

A collage I did with old keys on canvas, this is a 5"x5" piece.

Making time for ART!

I know, here we go again, right, me reminding you to practice your art! Well its time, time to encourage you to make the time. Set a date with yourself, schedule it or it won't happen. You know why?

Cause life happens and once your day has started things just snowball into other things and pretty soon you have lost another day. Tomorrow when your eating breakfast why don't you take a few minutes and sketch your coffee cup or your banana or toast.

I took a few minutes and painted the agapanthus around our pool while they were in bloom. They don't bloom that long and I knew if I didn't paint them now the opportunity would be lost this year. Take time to make time and schedule a painting date with yourself! Remember its doesn't have to be perfect. Share with me what you paint tomorrow morning, please!

How to turn a negative into a positive!

What gets you excited? What grabs you as you walk by and screams to be painted? As you begin to start seeing the world with an artists eye you will start to notice things you never saw before, shapes, colors etc. I happened to be in the garden when I noticed the beautiful, lacy leaves of the dusty miller I was growing. The silvery color and velvety texture. The silvery grey/green top and the white underside contrasting with the yellow blooms was calling my name! 

I first sketched the leaves, taking time to notice the way they tie into the stem and the way they split apart at the tips. The way the immature leaves looked in comparison to the mature leaves. I started with pencil and finished with pen.

I decided to paint it as a negative image, defining the shapes by painting in the background that surrounded it. The dusty miller itself required little paint and I just dragged in color from the background here and there. Do you notice how my background is darker near the center of the flower and gets softer as it makes it's way to the outside of the leaves? This will give you the feeling of depth, the darker area appearing deeper and the other areas coming out and being exposed to more light. This is how you take the negative space and create a positive painting. 

I decided to paint the flowers in my box and I have decided that the background is to close in value to the flowers so I need to darken it some so the flowers will pop. Tell me what your painting in your sketchbook right now!