TamandaArt

I have been busy doing busy work the past few days. Prints. Matboards. Framing. Office work. Inventory Lists. Price Lists.  All that fun stuff.   So here is a peek at some of the Prints for Valentines. I have added some fun in here too! I even put in an older works back from 2018! It's amazing how time flies!  

I have put together some of my most popular florals.   The studio is still a disaster! But it doesn't matter, because off they go... Now available!  

  It's that time of year again! Gathering my collection of Romance together. I will be putting up Prints on Etsy as well.

I briefly mentioned the new Romantic Contemporary Series in the last post. Not only is it a new series that will be available in Prints,  but it will become a calendar for 2024.   I know it seems a bit early, we just opened up 2023.  We have barely scratched into January. But I know that it will take me a few months to get these paintings done,  and photographed, and printed. It is quite the process to undertake. It's better to be on the safe side. The hardest decisions to make will be what paintings go with that month?  

I started on a series at the end of last year and it involves over a years worth of still life's that I had done prior. I have collected all these photos, did all the photo shoots ahead of time so that I can go ahead and just paint them. All of the paintings are 12" x 16" in size, whether they are landscape or portrait oriented varies. They all started off like this, like a toddler drew them. (I find I have less patience now for fiddling with drawings although it is important to get it right) I changed the orientation of this piece because I felt it worked better upright. There are still a few areas that I need to go into and detail here and there, but it is 90% done.  

This is something I painted on Sunday. On a whim. Which is NOT part of my goal set for January. I've started off course already. Sigh.  Something I have been meaning to try is time-lapse videos of painting. Since I don't actually paint for hours and hours at a time (I wish I could!),  I have been created small little segments. Here is one that I posted yesterday.

For whatever reason, Selene was difficult to photograph. but...I am happy to report that I have some new lighting in my studio this January. So I am hoping that will be in the past. But he she is in the making... This is without touching the background at all. In the end, I wanted a dynamic background.  

Here is a quick look at how Henry was created. First, I had an awesome photo of him. I had preciously made a tiny (5"x7") painting of him. Starts out pretty basic, just trying to get the composition centered. Starting to fill in. And then, there he is! Henry 12" x 9" oil on canvas board  

Here is a quick look at the process. It starts out basic. It really isn't very impressive even at this point. The eyes always help,  although, they do stare back at you. Getting there. Here is a look without the background colour. I am a little in love with background colours right now. Especially deep, rich or sultry mixes.  

Here is a quick look (much quicker than it takes to paint it)  as this large floral (still unnamed) starts to emerge.  

Merging different photos into a composition sometimes isn't easy. In this case it is just 2 photos, which is probably the easiest scenario. All you have to do is decide what you are losing and what you are keeping in the merge. I want to use this as the main composition. I want to use the left side mostly and add the extra flower into the new composition. The initial drawing is really important to get everything exactly where I want it or need it to be. Sometimes I will just draw large circles where the blooms should go and work the greenery around it. This is not the case here, it fit quite nicely as I went along. Once the drawing was done, I filled in the background with just a matte black. After that, this is where the fun starts.