Reflection (5)

          For the past seven weeks, there have been several realizations I have come to terms with during oil painting that I think I should reflect on today.  Not only have I seen improvement in painting technique, but I also have found improvements in myself.  To recap, oil painting has been an interesting experience, as experimentation revealed many lessons. I learned many lessons that I wouldn't have if I just learned from a textbook, and through learning lessons differently, I learned to look at the world differently.

         This blog post isn't going to be the things I didn't say, but the things that still linger upon inactivity.  I didn't look up instructions online for how to paint a tree, or how to mix turquoise, I made a guess, and even though I made mistakes, I learned more from learning not only what to do, but also learned what NOT to do, and I think that revealed my true potential.  Reading from a textbook won't teach someone how to code or cook unless they use the oven or type something, because getting something perfect each time kills the need for improvement.  When I went out into my own style, and did what I felt like, I messed up, but I also improved by not doing the same action the next time around.  I made my own lessons and experiences to learn from, and I think that not only I improved at painting, but I was also more confident in my ability, and happier upon painting.

        I felt that explaining an experience was too narrow, because I said that you could only learn from your own experience, while teaching a new experience.  I felt a little muddied the day of presentation, but I think the message of breaking the barrier, and doing what you felt like doing was a strong message that I endorsed during the presentation.

Vlog

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog.  If you are a first time viewer, you might want to view other blog posts, as this is a special feature this post.  Although I have made the process of painting very visible, I thought it might be useful to not only add a smoother documentation, but also add some input with emotion, and not just internet text.  For those who might be lost, as of 3/21, this is where the painting I will film is at:

VLOG

I'm not done today, but what I do know is that I will continue to use this blog to post updates on my creations, edits, and reflections.  Overall, the blog post I have established is different not because it shows the process of a painting being created, as many of my .gifs show, but is more of a gateway into the insight of me, what my motives are for making the painting.  Today, I just am filling out shapes with the general color, not adding any particular details yet.  I have put paint dryer over the new progress I have made, so the crooked rectangles are an easy fix.  

Essentially, today is still working out the basics in the midground, and not necessarily anything in the foreground yet.  The background for the most part seems to be finished, with the building's sides being the remaining area of work.  Other than that, the painting seems like it is due for completion by around one or two weeks from now.  

As I said earlier, the blog will be kept in maintenance until May, and if you are interested in seeing more paintings, I have added a e-mail subscription service.  I won't send spam emails every day, but more likely send a blog post around every or every other week, detailing concepts and criticism.  Anyway, goodbye!

Shaping Out

This week, I worked a little more on my portrait.  Unfortunately, I have not started the actual portrait part of the painting, and am still working on the background.  Well, not really the background, but have moved closer and into the middle ground.  What this means in everyday English is that I'm no longer painting the farthest objects.  So let's go over a brief recap on what happened.

Day 2 (3/16) : Drying the Sky

After the sky dried, I was then able to work on the buildings in the skyline.   Although I had already put down some buildings, I began to work on the ones on the side of the street.  It was a bit hard for me to get used to the three point perspective, but it's coming along.  

Something I could've focused more on is aerial perspective, especially for the color mixing unit I did a few weeks back.  The colors in the distance are mostly dark gray, so aerial perspective won't apply nearly as much as it would have for other paintings.  The atmosphere between the subject and the vantage point scatters light, and when there is more atmosphere, there is more light to scatter.  This happens way more often in the daytime, because there is outdoor light, and for the colorful neon skyline here, I don't think it was daytime.  

Also, contrast decreases as something gets further and further away, because the brain wants to remove the fine details the contrast has, to run the brain more efficiently.  I missed the first time around the building in the middle, because it blended in with the night, even though it was probably a lighter shade of gray in the daytime.  Because of the less contrast between the atmosphere and the land, the land below the horizon will have a shift towards the sky's color.  The tropical island would appear bluer, and the sunset over a pyramid would shift everything red. Many different sciences still use light scattering of aerial perspective to tell distances, especially observant sciences like optics and astronomy.

Day 2, with a monochromatic palette

Day 3 (3/17) : More Buildings

I focused more on a few of the details on the buildings, but I kept all my details that I made relatively monochromatic, to make my life easier with color mixing.   Some buildings are definitely off due to the three color perspective, but that can be easily fixed as more shapes are added in for reference. 


Taking three-point perspective is difficult because it changes what would be squares and rectangles into stretched-out trapezoids and triangles.  It is the hardest and rarest perspective to master, despite being the closest perspective to what people see. A vanishing point is where the objects of the painting appear to shrink or disappear, hence its name.  Now, how many vanishing points will a three point perspective have?  You might think it's 25, but you only need three, genius.  Two vanishing points go on the horizon line, on opposites sides of the canvas, and one vanishing point goes above or below the horizon line, in between the two vanishing points.  This is one of the ways that space and depth get added to painting, along with one and two point perspective.  So breaking it down, space can be painted like this because we see like this.  Humans (most likely) have two eyes, and they are equally set on the face, so no one looks like their eye fell out,  Because the eyes represent two level perspectives, this makes up the horizon for vision.  Now, depending whether you are looking down or up, the third point will be above or below the horizon.  A vanishing point below the horizon will make it look like you are looking down, because they are lower than your eyes, and vice versa, finding the third vanishing point.

I wish I did other homework this fast...

Day 4 (3/18) : Tips of the Trade

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am going to a painting studio for a place to paint without worries of mess, and how the painters there also give advice among each other.  This week, I decided to ask a few questions to them.  I asked a painter named Bill, who ran the painting studio course a few questions, some about advice and a few about experience.  Bill is an art teacher for high school and college students, and gives tips on acrylic and oil painting. Here are a few of the questions I asked when looking for advice. 

Q: What is a general tip to use when painting?
A:  When you first start painting, do not focus on detail right off the bat.   Use basic shapes, and when you want to add detail, go back and add detail. Many shapes can be left as just shapes that represent objects like buildings,  especially when they are in the distance and detailed will be hard to paint.   Get rid of that annoying white canvas, cover the canvas  with shapes and then you'll get an idea of how the painting will look like. 

Q: What do you like to paint? 
A: I prefer to paint modern art paintings over landscapes.  

Q: What is an experience of painting that you have had?
A: A few years ago, I wasn't having a good time, as I just went through a divorce.  However, I was an instructor for kids, and worked with these painting books where shapes would be assigned colors to paint it with.  So I took one of these paintings, blew it up on a old piece of plywood, primed it and painted a Tinkerbell, who was happy and it really took my mind off from all the drama at the time.  But it wasn't Disney's, or the book's Tinkerbell, it was mine.  I made it, and I added my own style to it.  Whatever you paint, paint with your feelings, your emotions, and add a twist.

Knowing how important emotion is when painting, I realized that I shouldn't be concerned with having every brick or leaf in perfect position, because emotion should have its own impact on the painting.  It's not just an oily photograph, I added something that made it stand out, making it unique.   Anyway, during the painting class, this is what I accomplished over the weekend:

Anyway, I'm about to upload a Vlog on Vimeo in a few days, as a special feature.  After this week, this blog is going to slow down A LOT, but painting classes go on after this week, so anyone who is interested can see what is going on for the next month.  Anyway, goodnight!

Bringing Art to Life (4)

Now, before you get worried about this week, don't worry; I had my fair share of qualms too. It's been a month, and I think it's time to get cooking with gas.  This week is going to be an overwhelming mix of knowledge and painting, and let me start by saying, there are going to be bonus blog posts.  Let's discuss the title that I have, Bringing Art to Life.  No, this isn't some resurrection scheme I have, it is simply transferring life to paper.  And when I mean life, I mean moving, interactive life.  Not trees, but moving life, like animals... and people. That's right!  To go all out this week, and push myself to the limits, I have a self-portrait!!!  I was thinking about painting an animal, say, the cat, or a random bird, but a human, that is a test of skill.  Now, before you worry, I did a SELF-portrait, simply because if it looks bad, I'm not suing myself.    But without further ado, let's move on.  

Hello World!

There are several ways a painting such as a self-portrait can be observed, one obviously being an artistic focus.  As you all know, light can be different colors, and be bright or dim, affecting the way objects look, including source photographs.  This week, there is only going to be ONE light source, and all light is to be blocked, making mixing and .gifs less of an eye-strain.   Another focus is the more logical anatomical focus, which observes how the subject should be shaped.  Proportions and lighting both lead to areas where art and physics interact, and these will be pointed out along the way, for those who happen to be more intellectual and analytical.  

So, this time, we are definitely using a grid, no excuses.  If everything is proportional to the larger canvas, many anatomical requirements will be skipped, meaning less studying, and more painting.  Let's begin!

Day -1 (3/14)

Preparing the Canvas

As I said earlier, getting proportions down correctly will be essential for bypassing most of the physics and anatomy needed to paint a city scene self portrait.  What I learned from past experience was that I suck with tracing rulers, so I decided to trace over the source photo with graph paper, placing each shape, object, or speck into position.  

Graphing's odd purposes

Day 1 (3/15)
Beginning the Background
  

Now, using the magic of paint dryer, I can effectively paint the pitch black sky, and wait for it to dry the next day, preventing the annoying plague of horizon blending.  So let's talk about a few different subjects as the background dries, and maybe even work on a few other areas of the painting. 

So this blog post, we are going to talk about the nature of shapes and how our brains perceive them this week.  On paintings or even photographs, 3-D objects can start to look 2-D, and more flat and rectangular than thick and far.  This relates to how our eyes see things, bringing in science and psychology information into something as simple as a brushstroke.  The retina of an eye senses light, and therefore processes things as 2-D, as it doesn't know that the lighter hues of the paint might be different sides of the prism.  Luckily, when looking at tangible objects that are right in front of you, the brain's visual processing assumes the dimensions as 3-D, because it's right there.  One of the main theories behind this is that the surroundings around such objects can be combined as a whole scene, forming a greater whole, making it easy to pick out objects.  However, on a flat canvas or paper, adding depth might become considerably difficult.  This retinal recognition is called form perception.  So using this information, what can it do in painting tall buildings?  Well knowing that a constant, smooth surrounding helps pick out 3-D objects, contrast and bright surroundings can help bolden the prismatic buildings behind me.  

More blog posts are sure to come, and as I find it easier to make 50-frame gifs rather than 300-frame gifs, blog posts will become shorter, but will be more frequent.  Expect a bonus blogpost around Thursday, another around Sunday, and maybe another more after that. Anyway, goodnight (even though no one's reading this right now) !

Paintings Have Feelings Too (Part 2)

As you all know, last week I didn't finish my painting, and I left off on sort of an incomplete post.  But now, I have finished my painting, along with the process:

Whenever a painting is finished, critique it and ask questions.  Evaluation is one of the things that can help you a lot, especially as reflection will reveal the painting's purpose and nature.   There are four components that can be used when critiquing art, description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment.  Today, there are only three we will use, as description is mostly just tangible, objective information.  

Analysis: How is the work organized?

The work is rather blended and soft, with the jungle's canopy painted in overlapping strokes, and the sky's oranges to purples each dominating the sky.  Proportions seem about right, and the texture seems to be getting better.  The soft, but crowded, dense leaves are condensed into darkening pits, the sky blended and smooth compared to the earth.  Depth could be expressed better with the pyramid, and the pits of the forest that the branches make.  

Interpretation: What's going on?  What is it trying to show?

It's a hot day, and its almost over, and you're just touring.  It was a fun, relaxing day, and now it is time that it goes away, and the sun is setting down.  Looking at it holds you in awe, a nice touch on a fine day. The world's coming together at a small point for just minutes, releasing beautiful colors that would put a rainbow to shame, as oranges, purples and blues fill the air.  The painting has a calming effect, while being exciting and breathtaking at the same time.  The painting is to captivate the observer with its various colors, tones, and textures, and with its diverse range of painting techniques, pulls it off somewhat successfully.

Judgment: What do I think of the work?

As the creator of the work, I'm allowed to be as critical as I want to myself, at least in public. So it is time to deduce what the stylestyle of the painting is.  In art if there's a small error it's obvious that it was a mistake, but if you made a bigger, more provocative error, then benefit of the doubt will guess that it was on purpose.  So what can we judge the work on?  Imitationalism, which is basically how well it imitates the source photo.  The painting is more vibrant then it was in the photo, but frankly I find that less of a complaint, as the vibrancy gives more dramatic elements to the painting.  The jungle could be better constructed for photo realism however, but for what it is, it's okay.  You can also check a work on how well it embodies the principles of art, called formalism.  Ask, does it indoes it embody the principle elements of how art is made?  The perception of depth is okay, given that buildings are not exactly the easiest things to paint, but colors and light seem pretty spot on.  Finally, there's emotionalism.  When doing emotionalism, you can  lash out and make attacks that reflect your feelings, saying how much you have a deep hatred for pyramids, and therefore you hate the painting, or how you love beautiful sunsets, and how it produces a calming effect to the painting.  Positive or negative, when visiting an art gallery, this is definelty the most used way of criticism,  given that not everyone has art majors.  Use a mix of all three judgment systems, as one outlook and lens on the painting is very limiting to evaluation.  

After that long red's house to get art, you can try to leave criticism using these for purposes, asking for questions I've left next to the to the section.  Is a very general I'd criticism description, but asking these four questions to reveal a lot about how the work of art is viewed.  Need some criticism at the comments below using these four tips, if not that's okay, as long as you have a pair of eyes and brain, anyone can give criticism using these tips, and anyone with a pair of eyes and brain can provide valuable insight for the future, to improve hone , or master skills.  Sorry this bonus blog post took so late!

Paintings Have Feelings Too (Part 1) (3)

This week, after refreshing my color mixing knowledge, I came to the fact that it would only make sense that practice was going to help.  That still didn't stop an ounce of paint going down the drain, which just shows how nature savvy I can be. (SARCASM ALERT: DO NOT EVER POUR OIL PAINT DOWN THE DRAIN EVER!)  

After that thick texture mixing, I had to run back to the store and re-stock on new supplies, and I'm not going to lie, but they cost a fortune!  Maybe that's what I get for thinking Michael's is a run of the mill, ordinary craft shop, the Wal-Mart of art, when it's actually more like the Whole Foods of art.  

After I paid the price, I sat down and thought about what I was going to paint.  I had a cool plan laid out, and I think that schedule is pretty good, so this week, following color mixing I'm going to add texture and feeling.  Texture blends (no pun intended)  together the shading and tinting of color mixing, and emotion and feeling, a different lens, view, perspective. 

One of my main focuses of texture is not necessarily rough textures like rocks, concrete, but more worn, soft textures, such as the sky, wood, plants, or even water can have a rougher texture if its choppy enough.  I want to work on these, because softer, smoother textures require perfection, as the fourth, third, and even second stroke over gives an unwanted, bumpy texture, that might be hard to blend.    

After hours of last-minute painting choosing, I finally settled on this photo right here:

Jungle Sunset

It's not as colorful or vibrant, but it has different shades and hues across the painting, in the jungle, in the sky, in the sunset.  Also, textures are not as prevalent as I want them to be, but the relative softness of the trees and the rigidity of the stone calls for the need of some texture.  

Now, gifs and time lapses of progress are going to be a lot less common, due to the time constraints I now have. The reason for these time constraints?  A studio session.  What is that?  Let's find out... today?  Yep, that's me procrastinating this.  

Saturday (Day 1) 3/4

I walk into the studio with a blank canvas and supplies, and sit down at one of the art tables.   The studio has 20 people in it, which half are painting.  It's not crowded, but the people seem pretty nice.  I don't have any photos, but if the chance arises, maybe they'll be posted.  Now, surprisingly or not, I'm actually not a newcomer to this studio.  The last time I went to the studio was maybe middle or elementary school.  But going there, I felt frustrated, and rushed through artwork, and I didn't get a full experience of painting.  Anyway, the intro class begins.  

Progress from art class

Being the forgetful person I am, I forgot to graph my painting out.  When you transport an 8x11 paper to a large canvas, it's a good idea to have nice little squares to fill in proportionally.  Other than that, I got a little feedback on the sky, which was nice.  Anyway, I made a composite image again, and found out that a lot of things had been shifted to the right, like the pyramid, and the hills, and how the jungle was too high.  Needless to say, some drying agent will get me to paint over, without any more mixing fiasco.  

But what did I learn from art class that I couldn't just google? It was an intro class, and it was about what paint supplies to buy, so I didn't learn too much, already buying materials.  We got a packet, and one of the things I looked most at was the criticism section.  When critiquing art, it doesn't matter whether you like it or not, it matters whether its expression is shown.  Art is subjective, like music or literature, and even if you don't like it, if it got its point across, it is a successful painting.  Other wise words from the instructor were that when looking at a painting, it can be obvious to tell whether the painting was genuinely liked, or if it was a pain to work on.  So, emotion needs to be expressed during painting, maybe over photorealism.  Anyway, here is the end of Saturday:

A good start, if there was no shift

My goal was to express photorealism, so the next day, I would decide to reshift everything to the left.

Day 2: Sunday (3/5)

What did I do to correct myself?  Well, I laid the photograph over the painting, and observed the shift, and found it wall all to the left.  So after hours of constant mixing, blending, and waiting to dry, I eventually had a new problem: blending of the edits and the original layer of paint.  Luckily, I bought some paint drying agent, and am waiting patiently for the sky to dry.

As I was waiting for the shift to dry, I tried to elaborate on the jungle.  I didn't go pixel by pixel, but went by general region, like a different section of the canopy.  When everything is dry with the sky, I will elaborate, adding lighter tones, thinner strokes, and the clouds.  

I am nowhere near done, and this likely won't be the last to see of this painting.  But after two days, this is what the shift did to the painting:

Sunday: An overall fail

Anyway, the green of the jungle is starting to grow into the air, like some new kind of mold, which is not good.  Blending is good, but not today, where the jungle sort of split-complements the orange sunset.  The orange and purple blue sky look good, but the horizon is too blended, and the sky needs to be a little grayer.  Otherwise, the painting is off to a good start.  The small specks of light will be an interesting touch.  Also, making buildings look like buildings are actually quite a skill, unlike a tree, or a mountain.  I will add a bonus blog post on the completion of this painting, where I will reveal my next ambitions.  Until then, keep in touch!

A New Shade (2)

This week, I decided to work on something that had burdened me the most as an artist: colors and shading.  I would consistently waste entire tubes of paint trying to lighten a shade, for a color that only occurred in three specks on a painting. To work on color mixing and shading, you need to have a very diverse color scheme to base off.  But what is relatively colorful and easier to paint?  This marked the beginning of my weekly adventure: find a cool picture.  

Day 1 (2/18): Painting the Blues 

Naturally, this meant choose a painting with vibrant colors and some contrast.  So I chose this:

A pretty rocky island

This photo had lots of blue and green colors, which both involve a lot of mixing with both hues and tints, something with dire need of improvement.  If I can't properly make colors, how will I paint?  So immediately, I printed the photo out, and designed its proportions onto the larger canvas.  Hours were spent yelling at a crooked square, or an annoying pencil smudge, but eventually I realized I was just going to paint over it anyway.

"No one's going to see this anyway, right?"

Now, onto the actual painting.  I decided to work background to foreground, starting with the sky.  Immediately I made questionable color choices and mixing, but in the end, it all got corrected.  I rushed through because I wanted to seem accomplished, and I'll be honest, that's a pretty stupid mistake. 

A shaky .gif of the creation of the sky. On one of the frames, you can say hi to the creator himself!

After giving up hope to the point I used a paint knife to scrape off layers, (a desperate failure) I decided just to work on the sea.  I had actually used more turquoises before (What? It looks nice!), and even though I was working from background to foreground, I decided to mess up the order.  Unfortunately, at 11:00 PM at night, you become too tired for documentation, at least with oils, you don't need to clean up right away.  Oil isn't known for drying, and that is a huge double-edged sword for a mess waiting to happen.  Anyway, onto the next day.

Day 2 (2/19): Land Ho!

Disclaimer: I did not create the sea in 10-15 seconds, as the .gif shows

Like I said, at 11 PM, people are far from their peak, unless they're a zombie, something I might become during freshman year.  But Sunday was an absolute... success?  Like I said, I thought the sea turned out well, and that the gradual move to the turquoise coast was a highlight.  I then decided, the cloud was made, the sea was at a straight level, what is to keep me from painting the island?  I got a lot of it done, but my shades were way off, as light lime meadows conflicted with... teal?  How do you get teal on a tree covered island?! 

No idea why this .gif just stops.  I gave it THREE hours (of upload time)

Frustration aside, the island was in the right shape, a round end, a pointy end, dark hilltops, light meadows near the coast, etc.  And I even shaded the cloud, the comfortable blanket over the island.  For someone who couldn't even paint one color the first day, I felt pretty achieved. 

I left the painting mostly like that during the weekdays, but I did come back and make minor edits now and then, mostly after I came back home.  On Friday, the sky's true color started to form, as I decided to just add small globs of blue, giving the sky less of a gray, and more of a blue.  By Friday, I had pretty much finished my painting, with a few additions on Saturday.  Anyway, take it away to Sunday!

Days 3-9 Monday-Sunday (2/20-26)

Because GIF makers run slower than my mile time, I just ran a HUGE mega-gif.  The lighting can get really bad, because sunlight isn't always available for six straight days. 

IT'S THE MEGA.GIF!  My Week: Greatest Pics

You made it through all 300< slides of the MEGA.gif!  Internet about to crash?  No? Me neither, but my computer gave me 10 error messages before having a seizure on Finder. Isn't that just awesome, more flashing.  Marginal edits were made and in the end, the result of nine days brought this:

Hi!  I look pretty decent for someone who hasn't taken an art class since elementary!

Amazing?  No way, but if you look at the composite:

Painting overlaid the original photo

Now that the details are outlined, let's go over our adventure.  

Lessons Learned

Many things have been learned through my painting adventure.  Instead of writing a whole narrative essay, I feel like they could be summed up in bullet points.


1. Color

My focus was on color mixing, so I hope I learned something about it, and sure enough, I improved.  The dark greens that represent the two hills are not distinct, but they are pretty close.  Looking back, the ocean could be a little darker, but the coast seems to be solid. Also that strip (peninsula) is awkward, it blended in a little with the coast.  Even though I thought that color mixing and blending was my main concern, it seemed like other concerns arose.  In order of my success color matching in major objects, from perfect to pathetic, I'd go with:

1. Cloud (Blending on the right could be calmer however)
2. (Close Second) Ocean (darker ripples, coast is good)
3. Sky (Managed to pull it off)
4. Island (Not enough lighter tones, dark blends good)

So why did the island fail in my eyes?  Frantically guessing the perfect shade definitely absorbed the next guess, compounding into an unknown, but definitely not a light green.  You like texture?  The rocky island had texture, rocks, trees, the sky?  The result of too much mixing, especially on week old paint.

2. Proportion

I don't blame my sketch for this one, despite yelling at it so much.  But the first noticeable difference is how the hill isn't that steep, or that tall, or that low.  The ocean seems to be a little lower than it is supposed to be, but that isn't a big deal.  Noticing the faded painting overlap the sky, I would give myself at best a 60% success rate at painting the peaks,  That's terrible, but inside the painting without the source, it would look normal.  The valleys of the peaks don't have enough depth, looking all like one misshapen hill in the background. 

3. Conservation

Whoever said that haste makes waste, preach!  Through mixing, blending, and the repeating 10,000 times, I'm pretty sure I used at least a 1/4 pound of paint.  I've already run out of two out of six colors (Easy to guess which two), and I'm not sure if I will use turquoise and aqua in the next week.   Either way, I am burning through paint.  It dawned around Friday, or even Thursday when I was working: mixing wouldn't be so hard if so many things weren't being mixed at once.  What I mean was I was painting my palette more than my actual painting.  How productive! 

So by now, you could have picked up a contradiction, or hyperbole, but that's really how things went sometimes, and failed at other times.  But no matter what, there was a takeaway.  Clouds are really nice to blend in with the sky, and land is not, unless you want a olive green haze.  But the overarching theme?  Moderation.

Moderation?  But why, when you have learned how to slant a hill, or give a cloud some transparency?  Because moderation needs to be used everywhere.  Do what you need, and if you need a little more, make sure its because you've actually completely run out, and not because it would make you feel better.  If the paintbrush doesn't get paint after a good swipe over the puddle, refill.  Use all of a color, and then make a new color if needed.  Just don't make turquoise, than realize you need sky blue, and then need turquoise again, to the point where you are making sky blue off a tissue.  Moderation, do only what needs to be done, and nothing more.  I think this really hit me personally too, as I also deal with issues of going over the top.  I am in no way a perfectionist, yet sometimes I do a lot more than I need to do to get something done.  After all, all these troubles could have been prevented by moderation.  Just a thought to ponder, and why not to overcomplicate and overestimate things.  

And oh yes, the title! Yeah, I feel like that it's not only a hobby, through all the stains and all the smears, I'm really going to enjoy painting.  I feel like that this is just a brand new way of creativity for me, and although I may be bad now, it can really only get better, like a brand new shade of your favorite color that you might love.  Now I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what I'm going to paint next post, but I'll find something new to do.  Anyway readers, good night!  I can't believe it's only 10:30! 

Sources (The really boring part)

Now I don't want to get sued or anything like that, so the paintings, photographs and .gifs will all belong to me, and if I ever use other photos (memes are the new craze on the Bloggers)  they will still be mine.  -A

Harnessing Art's Power (1)

         Whenever work becomes mundane or stressful, it seems hard to let go and think abstract, creative thoughts.  Maybe a new hobby can change the static of life, to express creativity, do something that I've never done before.  I want to pick up painting as a new hobby, as it always has been something that was interesting, and they can turn out pretty detailed.  During elementary school, I had some art exposure, and developed some artistic talent.  But throughout the middle school years, I have lost any artistic ability I once had, but now I have a chance to use my artistic potential through painting.

         One of my favorite things about painting is the craftsmanship that goes into painting.  Unlike photography, it takes patience, and adds a new texture to the same perspective. When I went to buy supplies, I had a hard time choosing what materials I needed, as so many materials have been developed to help artists.  Starting off, I chose large canvases, making it easier to emphasize details.  I also chose thin brushes to form crisp lines.  I chose these thin, detail oriented appliances because I want to paint landscapes and scenes.

        Some of the painting styles I want to try will be from a self-taken picture when I can't go outside, and others will be painted outside, to see the inspiration straight with my eyes.  I hope that painting will be a unique learning process for me, as I capture the details of nature's views through careful strokes.  It will be a patient (and messy) journey, but nevertheless, an adventure of a journey.