Wood, art & more..

I got a few slabs of oak wood recently and have been experimenting with different media on it. This one started out to be just a freehand pen sketch with some deep shaded pockets. A good friend and colleague suggested I try my hand at wood burning and that I should limit it to the petals. Needless to say I need some practice with the wood burning iron! But I definitely see the appeal. The burnt parts of the petals bring out the flower which would otherwise be camouflaged in the rest of the sketch. I am definitely going to try some more of this technique, maybe on a lesser intricate piece of art. 

Rustic it is!

This is my latest painting, made this one today. Not sure if its obvious, but this one is on a piece of wood, so already in its natural frame! We were driving in Durango, Colorado last week and came across this rustic furniture shop by the roadside. The guy who owned it was a fantastic woodwork artist. We bought a hand built side table from him and I asked him if he had any scrap wood to give away. This was one of the three pieces he gave me. I wanted to keep the natural vertical lines on the wood intact, hence chose a birch tree scenery. All I had to do was polish and wax the surface a little bit and it was ready for acrylics! The paint flowed flawlessly and I even got a blotting effect for the pine tree leaves.

Bubbles

This was inspired by yet another brilliant art making techniques I found online. I had to buy some Floetrol from Amazon which is nothing but a water-based paint conditioner that helps improve paint viscosity. I used a few colors added to Floetrol, poured them in a sequence at the top of the paper along the smaller length and dragged the colors downwards with a wet towel. And voila! The bubbles appear. This literally took 15 minutes and I absolutely loved the outcome. I'm definitely trying this again with different set of colors, maybe on a bigger canvas this time. 

Blazing Sky

I am often tempted to buy art online and frame it in the house. But that's against the rule we generally have at home, everything hung or displayed is either handmade or has a significance. This was one of the things I cam across when I was browsing for art in one of those weal moments! Loved the raging color medley and was a quick acrylic canvas! 

Doilies & swabs anyone?

 

 

I have been following a bunch of Pinterest and YouTube sites bookmarking all the brilliant painting ideas I love and want to try. This bunch is some that I did try. The one on the right is (yet again) my favorite color combination rendered using cotton swabs. So simple yet so artistic. The one on the left is golden color spray painted on a black background using a beautiful doily. I absolutely love the outcome of these, I even made a quick birthday card for a friend using the same technique but different colors.

Pastels and more

A little experiment with many colors all at once! The one on the right is literally my stinginess coming out as it is made by dabbing leftover/excess paint using a crumple of tissue. Talk about using every last bit of the color. The one on the left is using color pencils or pastels. I think I saw this either in a hotel room on one of our trips or online, but loved it and decided to give it a shot using pencils. 

Modern Art

I have done several modern art type paintings in the past few months, have kind of lost track of the dates. But finally getting a chance to upload them all. These here are acrylics with one of my favorite color combinations. This was a quick guilty stroke of brush after having not painted for a long time!