September 2020 - What’s New?

 September seemed like a long month, but in a good way. Certainly it seemed like it was a busy month.

It started off somewhat inauspiciously with a triptych of paintings that would’ve been quite good, if one of the custom colours I blended hadn’t gone wrong.  I made a rose gold, which somehow turned copper in the paintings. I like copper but it totally clashed with the rest of the tones.  I ended up painting over them because I just wasn’t happy with the end result.

Next I tackled the largest commissioned piece I’ve done to date. See my blog post “Torrington Teal“ for all the detail. 

While "Torrington Teal" was drying, (which took about a week), I did something familiar and something different. I made a split base colour Dutch pour in my favourite blues. The base actually looks like black & white, but it is a very dark navy. I called it "Can't Get no Antidote for Blues".

 

After that I did a Dutch pour that was based on a photo. It was an interesting challenge to do an abstract interpretation of a real image. For more info, see my blog post “Inspiration - Ben Arthur." 

Then I tried something a bit different, using the mini blower to move paint across the canvas. First I created “Making a Splash”. I was really pleased that it was bought by a friend for her new cottage.

That same day I also made "In the Pink", a contrasting colour block diptych (2 canvasses).

"Starburst" was the result of me thinking about specific colours for about a week, but then I used way too much paint, so it didn't turn out as planned. But sometimes the paint knows what it should be.

  

But it all came together on the other piece I made that night - “Passionflowers”.  

I don’t often intentionally do flowers but I was really pleased with this one as well. The mini-blower creates such cool definition, and translucency. 

"AquaGold" is a beautiful piece using some paints I had mixed. I do love my blues, lol!

Finally, I finished out the month experimenting with two techniques.

The balloon smash technique;  applying a fair bit of paint, then 'squooshing' it around with a partially filled water balloon.  This one on the left is called "Mardi Gras Garden". 

The one on the right still needs a name.

I also played with a modified bloom technique, using a cake decorating spinner to move the paint around (and off) the canvas. These ones are called "Kaboom", "Sunburst", and "Water Balloon Splat".