Tayata Om Bekandze
Bekandze
Maha Bekandze
Randze Samu Gate Soha
Tibetan Buddhist mantra to alleviate suffering for all beings.
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Mixed Media Artist - daily painter of portraits, flowers, abstracts and birds
I’ve fallen into a routine of sorts when creating art for the past couple weeks. First of all, using my art journal has become my daily practice, which isn’t anything new to me, but it’s a welcome change of pace. I’ve been focused on making art to sell for months on end. Mentally, I need a break every so often to recharge my battery, and the way I do that is by making art just for me.
As for my new creative routine, instead of reaching for oil pastels like I have been for months now, I’ve been starting out by drawing with a black stabilo pencil. Then I add a little color with watercolor pencils.
Once I get the drawing sketched out, I take my water brush and let the stabilo lines bleed together with the watercolor pencils. I don’t have a photo of that, so you’ll just have to imagine what it looked like.
From there I decide if I like the drawing as is or if I want to spice it up using oil pastels. Some drawings I prefer to leave alone. Others look or feel unfinished, so I keep going.
I continued on with oil pastels on this one, and I’m glad I did. It added a bold richness that I couldn’t get with the watercolor pencils.
I used a reference photo from the Museum app, formally known as Sktchy, for this drawing. It’s my favorite go-to app when I want to draw or paint from a photo.
I use these photos loosely as my jumping off point. I will study a photo before I start drawing. I take note of the size & shape of the face, eyes, nose, lips, and hair thickness & color. After that, I put my phone away, forget about the photo, and I draw mostly from my short term memory. Sometimes I glance at my phone to see where the shadows and light are in the photo, but I’m mostly just doing my own thing…making stuff up as I go along.
When I looked at the photo again after I finished this drawing I noticed the girl is actually much younger than my drawing portrays her to be. That’s okay because it gives me reason to use the reference photo again sometime soon.
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See my artwork in a new movie – The Whale starring Brendan Fraser, which will be released December 9th, 2022.
If you haven’t checked out my eBay store in a while, you should. Some artwork I have marked down to only $10 or $15. I add new stuff every single day. Same goes for Etsy.
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What Do You Care?
Art journal portrait
Small to large prints are available here
I’ve been having soooo much fun in the studio lately, painting loosely, which is quite a contrast from the portrait I posted yesterday, I know. There was a time (2010-2013ish) when I was leaning heavily towards being a realistic portrait painter. I have since changed my mind, obviously.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love and highly appreciate all the work that goes into realism, but painting realistically, and copying a photo exactly -to me- feels more like I’m striving to be a machine than an artist. Sure, it shows off a certain skill level, but at the end of the day, that’s not something important to me.
Copying a photo doesn’t excite me or make me want to get out of bed in the morning. It’s rather stressful and boring, to be honest. When I’m in the studio, I prefer being spontaneous, and making things up as I go along. Instead of worrying if the nose is the exact width as the nose I’m seeing in the photo, I’m having fun making up stories about my little characters’ lives as I’m painting them. It’s a whole different experience. I don’t need to worry about getting the hair color right or if the teeth are the right shade of white. Nope! No worries, just fun.
I like to paint more realistically from time to time because I like the discipline, but I realized early on that I’d be miserable if I painted like that all the time. I think all the characters living in my head would be super unhappy with me, too, if I didn’t let them out to play their moody little games with each other..like the two above. 😀
You can watch me paint this grumpy little Miss Thang
in this art journal painting video
Hit the subscribe button on the lower right of the video,
so you never miss another one.
New uploads every Friday.
Listening to: I’m still working my way down through Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Today I listened to Wilco, and Eurythmics, which I loved. Only 491 albums to go.
Boldly empowered loosely painted art journal portrait video.
This was fun to paint. It’s one of those
“This is for me, so I do not give a shit”
type of paintings.
I’d rather play than tie myself all up in a knot.
Messy, loose, freeeeeing.
Enjoy!
Let me know what you’re
working on in your art journal
in the comments below.
© Katie Jeanne Wood
WIP art journal page
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 314
The ugly stage is the most fun for me to paint. This is where I don’t care about the outcome, and I’m just getting in there, and making marks. Getting a layer down, not making any hard decisions, just playing around like a kid.
I ask myself a lot of “what ifs” at this point in the game. One of the questions I asked myself was what if I left it at the ugly stage forever? So, I did. For about a week (which seemed like forever because it was pretty ugly, imo) it stayed this way in my art journal, and then I couldn’t take it anymore, and this happened..
© Katie Jeanne Wood
finished portrait art journal page
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 315
I’m probably going back in at some point, and fix her mouth a bit. I didn’t notice until seeing the photo, but she looks a bit disgusted or bitchy to me. I’m not sure what her problem is..but I don’t appreciate the attitude she’s giving me. haha!
PS: I woke up with this song in my head about two weeks ago. No, I’m not kidding (I wish!), and ever since, I can’t stop the earworm from playing non-stop in my brain. Why, brain, why??
Please send help soon, I beg you. 😀
Watching: Peggi Kroll-Roberts High Key Painting Demo
Reading: Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions by Russell Brand