Mixed media – Katie Jeanne Wood

Mixed media art journal portrait painting of a woman with pink hair

I used a mixture of chalk paint,
gouache & acrylics
on this art journal page.

What I’ve been watching lately:

Are You Thinking About an Art Supply No-Buy in 2024? – Lindsay nailed it in this podcast. She makes so many valid points.

I thought I just couldn’t paint anymore – this has happened to me, also. I haven’t used the brand of paint she’s talking about, but I noticed changes to some paint here in the US last year. The quality seems to get worse – paint is less pigmented/more watery, and the prices are going sky high.

i drew a self portrait for my Birthday – Even though I loved watching him create his own version of elf on a shelf last month (soooo good!! is there anything this man can’t do???), I’m happy to see BlackBean is back to creating with oil pastels.

Starting a painting using Bob’s 5cs – I’ve taken many of Bob’s classes online & own some of his DVDs, and I’m a big fan of his work & his sarcasm. lol

I recently found Drewscape’s videos, and I’m madly in love with his work.

Mixed media art journal portrait painting

Mixed media
art journal portrait painting

I finished this art journal last week, and I’m already about 15 pages into a new one. I plan on going back through this one at some point, and touch it up here & there. I still have to paint the cover, too, and then it will be done.

I’ve also been busy painting new 8×8 portraits on paper. You will find them in my shop. I have several more scheduled to post through the next week or so.

Last night I ordered some new gouache, and a new gouache palette. I wasn’t able to buy Holbein brand from Amazon because all the sets are sold out, so I got Winsor & Newton Designer.

I also wanted to try the Parkoo brand because the tubes are large, the price is cheap, and the reviews aren’t bad. I don’t expect it to be nearly as good as Holbein, but I plan on mixing it with better quality acrylic paint, so it will be fine.

Crossing fingers that this amount of gouache will take me through 2024 because I’ve decided I’m doing the no buy for 2024 challenge, which I wrote about here. If I run out of something, and need it, I’ll try my best to make it work with what I have on hand. Of course, the exception will be if I need something for a paid work project that I don’t have, I’ll have buy it.

I’m hoping that when 2025 rolls around my acrylic paint will be nearly gone, and my stack of unused art journals will be full. Wish me luck! I might need it because I’ve developed an aversion to painting with acrylics since I’ve become obsessed with gouache. The coming year will be challenging, if/when I run out.

I’m going to take a winter break from blogging, like I usually do this time of year. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

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Yellow & lilac abstract painting

I stopped to take photos as I was painting this one because it’s smaller – 8.5×11 inches, and the lighting is usually pretty good when I’m at my work table, as long as I don’t turn the overhead light on. The paint is still wet in these photos.

All that I can think
when I look at this painting
is the song Yellow by Coldplay.
I titled it Shine For You
for that reason.

Cerulean blue is such a show off,
don’t you think?
I’m not sure it can compete with so much yellow,
but it definitely adds to the piece.

Shine For You
Original acrylic mixed media abstract painting
8.5×11 inches on chipboard
Available here

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Art Journal Page – acrylic mixed media portrait painting and video – daily painting day 185

daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 185

Reading: I found this cool site called Vintage Junk Journals that I’ve been perusing. Lots of great information there if you’re thinking about starting an art journal or even if you’re been keeping an art journal for years, like me.

Those of you with WordPress blogs who have been leaving comments..thank you! I appreciate you stopping by, and I would love to visit you in return, but this is what I’m seeing whenever I click on the link to your blog. I don’t know if your blog is actually protected or if this is some kind of WordPress bug, but I’m stuck behind this wall.

I’m linking to Art Journal Journey for this post.

Large abstract paintings – Daily painting day 179 & 180

On the easel
36×24 inches
Work in progress

These are some of the large canvases that I said I was going to get to last summer, but didn’t get a chance. I’m happy to be working large again. The one on the easel is looking especially large to me..when you compare it to a tiny 4×4 that I’m used to working on.

I’ve actually already worked on this canvas before. It was a black and white abstract, which I’ve had up in my shop for sale now for a couple years. It’s been hanging in my husband’s office, but I decided the other night as I was passing thru that I no longer liked it. Too dark. I took it back into my studio, and immediately started to lay down some white..and then

WIP
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 179

I thought I’d add a little color to liven it up a bit. Not sure where I’m going with it at this point. I’m scribbling and making marks without any thought to the outcome. It’s hard to take it serious at this stage in the game. We’ll see.

Did you know there are oodles of videos on Youtube specifically for cats? Harold is absolutely obsessed with bird videos, but he also likes watching fish. I think the videos are adorable, and it keeps them entertained until they nod off to sleep, as you can see Maudie has done in this photo. The bird videos even seem to fascinate our special needs kitty, Miss Pea Doodle, who was born without eyes. She seems to enjoy listening to the birds tweeting. I think it reminds her of summertime on the back porch. 🙂

Pink acrylic abstract painting
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 180

Whenever the large paintings prove to be too overwhelming, I find something small to work on to balance it out. Does anyone else see a face near the bottom right? lol I just saw it, and now I can’t unsee it.

Reading: THIS!!! —-> STOP BEING A BUTT-FACED MISCREANT

Nonlinear fashion – Day 169 of painting daily

Side note: If you could see the rest of my house, you would know what a clean freak, germaphobic (Did you wash your hands???!!), minimalist I am, but there’s no way you’d get that impression looking at my studio work tables. lol

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that I normally (when I’m not doing the 365 daily painting project) work in a nonlinear fashion, and I work on several paintings at the same time. By “several” I mean I have anywhere from 5 to 30+ paintings in various stages of completion that I’m working on. I know that probably sounds extreme to some of you, but I love the chaos of it all. If I’m painting only one painting I’m bored to tears. Might as well not bother even showing up because there’s nothing worse than sitting around watching paint dry. lol

Unless I’m working with a client/company, and/or there’s a deadline looming, whatever strikes my fancy the most is what I’ll work on. I go with my gut, and it’s a split second decision. Sometimes nothing appeals to me, so I’ll go dig out my art journal and work on a blank page instead. I go with the flow..whatever that might be for that moment. I’m telling you all this because I can’t guarantee when you’ll see the revised painting I started yesterday again. Might be tomorrow or sometime next month. I have no idea. I will finish it eventually, trust.

So, pictured above is another painting I’ve been working on revising. I thought I had it finished, and had stuck it behind my studio door. I found it this morning, and looking at it with fresh eyes, I immediately thought NOPE!! Most definitely NOT finished. Back to the work table it landed with a big thud.

I like to make my own collage paper, and since I’m into stripes right now (and always, you’ll see stripes in many of my paintings if you look hard enough), that’s what I did here.

It looked good on paper, but I wasn’t feeling the teal as much when I got it down on the canvas. So, I had to layer over it..

Work in progress
Floral No 149
20×16 on canvas
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 169

And here’s where it ended for today. Time to let this dry, and move on. I’ll let you know when I pick back up again with this painting.

Letting go – Daily Painting day 168

If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.
Ajahn Chah

New theme started on January 1st, and I’m happy to finally tell you the details. Instead of picking a specific subject to paint, forcing myself to complete a painting a day or painting for x amount of minutes, I’ve decided to set myself free, and not have a theme at all.

I’ve been doing monthly themes now since I started the 365 day project back in July. I’m ready for a break. It’s possible that I might want or need that kind of structure/discipline again sometime down the road, and if I do, I’ll reconsider. For now, it’s overwhelming enough knowing that I’ve locked myself into painting every day for 365 days, I don’t need more rules, restrictions, regulations, and/or challenges on top of that.

I’m ready to go a bit easier on myself, and just start winging it without any preconceived expectations. Whatever’s going on in my studio will be blog fodder for that day. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t show you the custom or contractual work I do, but I can show you lots of other things. Sooo, let’s get started.

Since it’s a new year, I’ve been going through my inventory, and pulling paintings I don’t like to revise them. I started with the blue floral painting you see above – Floral No 279. It’s a 12×9 inch panel. I liked the flowers, sorta, but the problems I saw: it was too dark, the vase was too thin and set back too far. It had to go. This is what I did to revise it..

Meh. Still didn’t like it, but I wasn’t sure what I could do to make it better. It’s been kicking around on my work table now for a week or more. Today I looked at it, and something finally clicked. I thought, the flowers have to go. No wonder I don’t like it, this painting wasn’t meant to be a floral. So, I turned it into this abstract…

Work in progress
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 168

I’m starting to warm up to it, in a small way. It’s not finished yet, so I’ll keep working on. The real fun part? I’m recording the process on my iPhone, and I’ll be uploading it to my poor, neglected youtube channel. It’s been 6 months since I uploaded a video. I plan on changing that this month.

A sneak peek of my work table before I started recording
🙂

If you’re into YT, subscribe to my channel, so you don’t miss any of the new videos I’ll be posting. I’ll be posting willy nilly because I don’t want to be tied down to any strict schedule. All I can say is I’ve already filmed a bunch of stuff that I’ll be uploading as soon as I get it edited.

I’m looking forward to a hodgepodge of writing, photos, and videos. I’m not sure if I’ll be blogging daily or not..my guess at this time is no. If I have something large to post, I’ll post daily. If not, I’ll cobble several days together into one post.

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To be continued – 5 minute painting day 31

Work in progress
5 minute painting
day 31
daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 167
Painted and written on Dec 31st, 2017

I’m thisclose to calling this painting finished, but I need some time to play with the layers a bit without being interrupted by the timer. I want to get it to the stage where I love it, and I’m at the “really really like it” level at the moment. I don’t want to rush through it just because I’m starting a new theme tomorrow, and end up having to revise it down the road. This will be continued next month.

So, this concludes 31 days of 5 minute timed painting experiment. I’m sighing a sigh of relief because even tho I learned so much from doing the experiment, I’m ready for it to be over. The past week hasn’t been all rainbows and lollipops, as you can probably guess from my struggle with the center line of this painting. It felt like things came to a standstill for several days in a row. No progress was made, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the timer, and having only 5 minutes a day to work on this rather large painting.

My hands are UP in the air for one final time, as if surrendering to the great timer gods up in the sky. Time is up, timer. Adios! It’s been quite an interesting month, but I can’t say I will miss you, and all of your restrictions.

New theme starts tomorrow. I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve picked for January. Eeeeeeeee!!

To recap quickly, here are my progress shots from December..

And here are the two paintings I completed:

Summer at the Cottage
Available here
Prints are available here

Land of Opportunities
11×14 acrylic abstract on canvas
Prints are available here

I love how the sides turned out. 🙂 It gives the painting a finished look, so it doesn’t have to be framed.

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