Pastel Study, Nude

This is another of my figure studies, partially nude, yet again it is very modest. It took me a long time to get around to doing any work in soft pastels, whilst they are a wonderful medium to create with I often find that somewhere along the line I manage to smudge the piece before it is completed. I've tried several different fixatives, including some high-end ones and have never managed to get it quite right. Either the fixative diminishes the colour intensity of the pastels, or on the odd (and very frustrating occassion) has propelled a blob of 'goo' onto the paper spoiling the whole project. I'm usually very careful with the fixative and make sure the nozzle is clean before starting, shake the can until it feels as though my arm is going to fall off, but sometimes, even then, these things happen.

With this piece, in contrast to some of the other nude studies I have done, I wanted a soft, almost romantic feel and so pastels seemed the obvious choice. Although I didn't realise it at the time of drawing this picture, I find that I really like how the shoulder blades give the impression of being light and dark wings - if you use your imagination, lol.

Pastel Study Nude by ArtformTheHeart

Some fellow artists whom I admire.

I wanted to take a break from posting only my own work, it gets very difficult to keep on saying positive things about myself and my art (the perfectionist in me always wants to criticise!), so I decided that today I would feature some work from other wonderful artists that I have come across.

Remus Brailoiu is a young artist based in Romania. His gallery on zazzle features surreal and abstract work which I find very appealing. I love this piece "Drunk Street Lamps" as I find it very evocative. It is reminiscent of Salvador Dali's work yet to me, far more whimsical as it seems to leave more up to the viewer's own imagination. I feel that I could write a short story based solely on inspiration from this painting.

Drunk Street Lamps by RemusCB
Shop for art on zazzle.com

Ruth Housley is an American artist living in Texas. She works in oils and has a number of amazingly beautiful wildlife and still life paintings on her blog. This Piece, Geese Flying North, is soft and tranquil. I find myself drawn into this painting, imagine myself walking through the snow, enjoying all that nature has to offer on a bright and crisp winter's day. You can view Ruth's blog or contact her by email: rjrhousley@verizon.net to purchase her artwork.

Geese Flying North by Ruth Housely

Nude in Blue

This is an acrylic on canvas study. I love doing tonal pieces, usually in pencil sketches/charcoal/pastels but on this occassion I chose acrlyics as the medium as I wanted something bold. I'm fascinated by the way the human body can contort itself, the shapes it forms and the shadows is casts. For that reason I do a fair number of "nude" studies. I use the quotes around the word nude because most of my pieces are very modest even when the subject is completely unclothed.
 

Black Canvas Blue by ArtformTheHeart

Another Gerbera Daisy.....and something a little different.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've really come to love the cheerful gerbera daisy (how wonderful would it be to have a garden full of these pretty blooms?). I had taken some photographs of some last year and went back to those as a reference for this bright cerise pink painting. I reverted to adding lots of detail to this piece, ah well, lol.

Bright Pink Gerbera by ArtformTheHeart

After that I went on to do something quick and goofy, just for a change of pace, and came up with a goofy little caveman. I thought he'd make a funny t-shirt design, so here he is:

Gone Clubbing by ArtformTheHeart

'Loose' Floral Design

After the Pink Gerbera Daisy painting, I was detrmined to do a very loose painting and not become obsessed with details. Without having anything infront of me for reference, I began painting some lilies in artweaver. I didn't use the zoom function, kept a large brush size and sat well back from the computer screen. I also limited myself to half an hour to complete the picture start to finish. This is the result. I'm not sure that it will ever become a favourite piece, but it was a very good exercise that I plan to repeat with real paint and canvas.

floral by ArtformTheHeart

Pale Pink Gerbera

This beautiful pink gerbera daisy was part of a bouquet of flowers my sister gave me for my birthday at the weekend. I've decided that I really love gerberas and the colour of this one in particular is gorgeous so I couldn't resist sitting down with artweaver and doing a digital painting. I downloaded some free watercolour brushes for artweaver from DeviantArt and use them a lot. 99% of this painting was done in artweaver (a free software btw for those who are interested) but I finished it off in photoshop as I still find a few things easier to do in the adobe software. I'm really happy with the results but again, I had intended this to be painted quite loosely and instead ended up adding more and more detail.

Pale Gerbera Canvas by ArtformTheHeart

Flower & Butterfly

This is my second 'painting' in Artweaver using the graphics tablet and pen. I was getting along really well with it and was several hours into the project when Artweaver crashed and I realised that very stupidly I hadn't saved it in a LONG time. I had put so much detail into the centre part of the flower and lost all of that work so I learnt a valuable lesson - save your work often! I have also learnt to save my work as a photoshop file with all layers at various stages incase I merge layers and later down the line change my mind on something I have done. Keeping all of my layers came in handy when doing my cartoon character Starsign designs previously as it meant I could use the same character over and over - I event used it to make some funny Bride and Groom designs. It certainly made me think that digital artwork is a big benefit when designing for POD but I will never fully give up on traditional media.

Flower & Butterfly by ArtformTheHeart

Windows

Pen and ink isn't my favourite medium and this was really a practice exercise for me. It was taken from a photograph that I found online and particularly liked; I also thought that it was a fairly simple and straightforward project to work on. I was pretty pleased with the result here but less so with with my next attempt, which I won't post here, lol.

I don't currently have this piece on any products as I'm not happy with the photo quality.

Dot-Art Iris

I had done a painting very similar to this a long time ago in acrylics - a real labour of love creating all of the individual dots and I resorted to using a cocktail stick rather than a paintbrush. Unfortunately I was rather careless with the painting once it was completed and it got spoiled. This time I decided to try it in photoshop where I had complete control over the dot size. I'm fairly happy with the result but don't think that it is quite as good as my original. Ah well, such is life.

iris rose dot-art by ArtformTheHeart

I love you THIS much

I managed to get back to my little wooden artist's mannequin briefly for another humorous (in my humble opinion anyway) photograph. The large felt lovehearts came as part of a valentines bouquet of roses - along with a beautiful card and some very yummy Guernsey fudge! Sadly, the felt hearts are all that remain but I wanted to do something with them as a memento instead of just leaving them lying somewhere gathering dust. I should think of a name for this little mannequin if I am going to keep featuring it, lol.

I love you this much by ArtformTheHeart