creative process – Sunshyne Art & Design

Enchantment

It’s been forever since I’ve posted here. There just never seems to be time! But today, I decided to just do it, since I was on my computer anyway!

I’ve done many, many paintings since my last post, and I usually take progression shots. So, instead of taking hours to figure out what to write about, I just picked randomly from my latest ones.

This one is called “Enchantment” because it sort of just magically appeared. I started playing with paint, like always, and it almost made itself! lol I’ve started experimenting with new mediums, and acrylic inks, liquid watercolours, and high flow acrylics are very freeing! I like to put a stencil down and just let them flow underneath. It’s messy and undefined, and makes for beautiful backgrounds! I’ve found cradle board, prepped with gesso, works well for a smoother finish. I’ve been using it a lot lately, because it can be distressed easily, and stamping/collage works better because of the rigidity of the surface.

Added grease pencil doodles, as part of the intuitive process. Just letting my mind flow. More stencilling on top in white, then glazed over with the transparent flowy mediums. The qualities of each are interesting. The liquid watercolour can be tricky because it can be reactivated with water to a certain extent, and they, plus the acrylic inks tend to bleed through any white painted over them, which gives a beautiful translucency to the background!

I like high flow acrylics because they behave like regular acrylics, but work like inks. They are more opaque, and can be thinned to the slightest glaze, or used full strength for stronger color. Also, they don’t bleed through to the next layers. I like to add details with regular tube acrylic, because I like the contrast of the thicker paint over the luminous backgrounds. 🙂

Available as prints and on various products at most of my online shops. linktr.ee/sunshyneart

Reworked to Wonderful!

Sometimes I will have an idea for a painting, and it just will.not.work. The idea was good, and I liked the design, but it was like I forgot how to paint! It felt forced. It felt too planned…which is weird in itself, because I OFTEN plan paintings. This one, though…I repainted it twice before ending up with the design below. Thought it would work finally, then couldn’t get into it. Very frustrating! So…I started whiting it out. That is a bit scary to do, because I start second guessing myself! lol

There were a few flowers that I thought were nice, so I kept them, and purged everything else….

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I ended up with just a few, and decided to let them take the painting where IT wanted to go. Adding texture here and there with molding paste, and gels, using my homemade stamps, and intuitively adding the color with mostly my fingers…I could see it starting to go in a certain direction….

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Working in the way I do…of layering color, and playing with color relationships, I started really loving what was happening, and the more I relaxed, the easier it came together. There is a rush in it for me when I am loving how colors are working together, or I get a particular effect, even if that effect is largely by accident! 🙂

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Layering the color with glazes creates such a lovely translucent effect….

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Iridescent paint is so fun! I have been using the purple and blue to add extra interest to my paintings. In this one, I added it on a few of the flowers, and also my raised dragonfly. 🙂

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The finished piece turned out so well! Hard to believe it started out as 4 do-overs! lol

I named it “Peace, Love, and Joy”. Peace and Joy for how it makes me feel when I look at it, and Love for how it turned out! 😀

Peace, Love & Joy with signature — “Peace, Love & Joy” ©2017

Available as prints or on various products at my online shops:

https://www.redbubble.com/people/sunshyne66/works/28173272-peace-love-and-joy?c=710318-acrylics-and-mixed-media

https://society6.com/product/peace-love-joy781949_framed-print?sku=s6-7716123p21a12v52a13v54

https://artofwhere.com/artists/winona-d/clothing/yoga-leggings/1059102

Going With The Flow

I love how alcohol inks work on canvas! I’ve only done two so far, with a third in the works, but I am hooked! The only thing I wish it had in common with working on ceramic tile, is not staining. I like how on tile, I can remove the ink to get a brilliant white highlight or area. I can get it lighter on canvas, but with still a stain of the color I’m trying to lift from. Could maybe try frisket, but then again… it feels too controlled. I tend to like to let the inks decide where the painting will go. 🙂 With these two fantasyscapes, I let the ink do just that. I let it flow where it wanted, to start out… then I saw a direction to take the painting. 😀

“Botanica” 2017 (click pic for store link)

“Aetheria” 2017 (click pic for store link)

Abstract Titles

Abstracts can be so hard to name!! Sometimes a feature will jump out and give me a name for it, or the colors/shapes/ atmosphere will remind me of something, and one pops into my head. Other times, I sit here baffled. And they need names. For my web sites, and because they. just. do. haha

Once in a while I will just make up my own words for the titles. Often I do these weird, otherworldly looking pieces, and they are perfect for made up names. Bysarinth sounded like a cool planet to visit. With weird purple plants and a golden sky….

😀

https://society6.com/sapphyreskye

Skies & Mountains

Did a landscape series, recently. I’m a bit obsessed by skies and mountains! lol
Not based in true reality, with the hyper coloured skies, etc., they are inspired by what moves me. The three suns are something I paint in a lot of my fantasy landscapes…they represent my 3 sons, who are the lights of my life. 🙂 ❤

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Unblocked Finally! Yay!

I hate being creatively blocked! Sometimes the trigger is obvious, sometimes it just hits out of the blue….like this last few weeks. So frustrating when that happens! It feels like I forget how to paint, or create anything, for that matter. It makes me grumpy, and sad… *sigh*

Finally, on this last Monday, it was gorgeous outside, and I had free time, so I decided to just sit down with my alcohol inks, bound and determined to end the stupid block… and I produced four alcohol ink pieces! Alcohol inks to the rescue this time, so it seems. 🙂 Because they are so free in their ways, they were a good kickstart. I just put on some groovy tunes, sat out on my sunny patio, threw some color on my substrates, used some stencils, and went where it wanted to take me.

The results….

“Jovia” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

Because of this lovely start, I have another in mind. So my creative wheels are again turning! Yay! 😀

My groovy 60s playlist at 8tracks.com….. 🙂

Expressionism With Alcohol Inks

Recently I had been wanting to try painting with alcohol inks. I had come across some gorgeous paintings online which were done with them, and I loved the flowy expressiveness achieved with them. It is such an intuitive process using them. They have a mind of their own, but some control can be achieved using straight alcohol (I used isopropyl) and various sizes and shapes of brushes. Largely, I just let them do their thing, and then tweak the picture here and there. Experiment, experiment, experiment! Too fun! 😀

The only thing is that a lot of ventilation is needed, as I found out the hard way! I mean, I knew it would be somewhat fumy, but working as small as I did, on 2inch square ceramic tiles(which I got really cheap at the home improvement centre), I was too close, and ended up with a headache on my first go around! I need to pick up some low odour alcohol at the art supply store, and I also want to continue my ink exploration with a specialty paper called Yupo. They need to be sealed with a fixative, also, or the ink will rub off of the tile.

I’ve done three landscapes and three abstracts, so far. Since they are very small, I made them into fridge magnets. 🙂

“Rockies Summer” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Rockies Sunset” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Foothills” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Organica” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Psychedelica” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

Aquatica — “Aquatic” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

“Revelry” 2017 alcohol inks on ceramic tile

They are available in my various art shops as prints, and on products. 🙂

organica-floor-pillows — “Organica” on a floor pillow @ society6…..Click pic for link. 🙂

preview-leggings-585037-back — “Aquatica” on leggings @art of where….click pic for link. 🙂

Tropica

I recently joined an art networking site called paintingsilove.com, and it is a wonderful site for getting feedback on your paintings/drawings, and for the inspiration aspect to it, as well. I often gather creative energy when I visit there! One comment I received on a painting I posted, called it “lush”, and that word was a great prompt to break through the creative block I was experiencing at the time. 🙂

I thought of the word, and what it meant to me, and I immediately went to Hawaii in my head. The lushness of that place is beyond amazing! The scenery notwithstanding, it is lush in other ways, as well, like the scents, and the tastes, and the general feeling of the place.

I felt inspired to do a painting with tropical colours, with the objective being to give me a sense of being in the tropics every time I looked at it. And also a feeling of peace and joy. 🙂

I wanted also to do it intuitively, instead of having a detailed plan. I wanted to see where my mind would take me, just by using color and imagery such as flowers. I started my usual way, with just a background of smeared color, and then looked at it to see what would emerge. I found three birds, a large heart surrounding two of them, and another smaller heart to the right of them. Birds seem to keep appearing in my work! Hearts always did, and continue to do so. Must be some kind of symbolism in that for me, I suppose. lol

I added stencilled flowers, and began to paint the top layers, sketching out my shapes with white chalk, and going with the crackle gel effect again, in spots because I love it so much! 🙂

Painting a slightly translucent layer of white, then going over it in a color gives a lovely luminosity with acrylics, so I tended to employ it quite a bit with this piece. The finished painting fills me with color joy when I look at! I hung it in my foyer, so I see it a LOT. It turned out as happy and tropical as I had intended without using stereotypical tropical imagery like palm trees, etc. Have to be different, ya know! 😛