Thirty Paintings in 30 Days - Day 4

Mixed media on altered journal - Thirty paintings in 30 Days - Day 4

(Close-up)

Wow! another days challenge done. I am happy. This little mixed media painting is done on a altered old book. I love painting on them. The paper is so nice to work on. I prefer old books over the shop bought sketchbooks. I have used here my rust dyed fabrics, vintage lace, some hand stitching and acrylic paint. Day 4 - Thirty paintings in 30 Days done.

Busy Days

 

I have been really a busy bee lately.

There is so much to do in the garden. The weeds never seem to stop growing. Our little potager garden has been giving us a lot on our plates these days.

These garlic were a bit disappointing, I expected them to be bigger. So I have left a lot in the ground still. Maybe with some luck it can grow little bit more.

The potting shed is getting full slowly. Fresh herbs are nice to use now and these will be dry and ready to use in winter.

Remember the glass jar which was filled with marigold couple of weeks before to dye some samples in the sun. I am so pleased with the colour and think will make few more jars and leave it in the sun.

Every afternoon after dropping little Emily at her nursery, I am on my own, in silence, creating, this is something I love to do the most.

I am very happy how my work has developed in my studio. This year, I have been pushing myself a lot more to do more paintings. I am not going to show all of them now as I want them up at the exhibition first. The painting above is yet another one of my small canvases which I have completed.

Still a lot needs to be done before the exhibitions. In between I do need to distract myself with some crafty projects while sipping nice cup of tea. While I am waiting for paintings to dry before applying another layer (love working in layers) is the best time to pick up a slow stitching or knitting.

I cant think of knitting now with this temperature. Need to wait for that until Autumn now. Anyway the little piece of work which I did not long ago using my mothers sari and rust dyed fabric got another layer of rust dyed fabric too. It is interesting that like my paintings I keep on adding materials to my stitching too.

So, this is what it looks like now. This was my old (almost 4years) journal where I have lot more sari and other materials inside. I thought because I used more sari it might be best making it as a cover for that book/journal.

The Last Couple of Days

 

 

 

 

For the last couple of days, I have been enjoying the sun and has been working in my studio. Remember the three small canvas which I struggled working at earlier on. I have now finished one of them. I decided to do a mixed media landscape painting and now I am happy with the result. I also did some more rust dying and added a signature book (rust dyed paper) to one of my old journals. More pages, more possibilities maybe. A little bit of sari ribbon and beads also went in my journal.

Colour

I am stitching, painting, rust dying and sleeping late...

As soon as the sun comes out, I go up these steps and into my garden...

Watch everything grow, with a cup of tea, sitting down in one corner of my garden; sometimes on my own but never without my thoughts and dreams. I am a dreamer and keep dreaming of living in the woods surrounded by beautiful trees and wildlife.

I wake up from my dream to find myself still in the garden...

Waiting for the poppies to flower;

Waiting for this rust dyed cloth to dry in the sun;

Watch the raindrops dry and...

Carefully take my step.

Step to fly...

And then I want to freeze the moment. Hold on to the best memories.

 So I feel happy to use colour back in my studio. I am happy to finish a new painting. This is a close up view. Lots of layers of paint. I love textures. Nature creates naturally but I create in my paintings physically by using lots and lots of paint. Sometimes other materials.

Sorry this image not very clear. The wet paint made it difficult to photograph. This painting is done with acrylic paint on canvas.

And this is another painting that I am still working on. It is not far from finishing off. This is a mixed media encaustic painting on wooden panel. I have now done five paintings so far using hot wax. Not sure at this point if I want to continue with encaustic because of two reasons: firstly encaustic paints are very expansive and secondly because its a wax paint and needs to be melted which is very toxic. You really need to have good ventilation in your work room. I do have big doors which I can open while I work with this medium but should have a exhaust fitted above the table. So I am double minded whether or not to invest more on all this or not. Working without proper ventilation in long run may give health problems which I do not wish to have. So I need a lot of thinking on working with this medium.

 

But working with just acrylic is definitely a safe option. Here a better photograph of the finished painting in acrylic on canvas. Still without title but, there are colours, which give me joy.