Inner Storm

This is my first finished painting from Jared Knight's class. It's 11 x 14, Acrylic, and I call it Inner Storm. This was not the painting that you do along with him in his video. This one is from inside of me. It's funny because I started painting his painting Black Ice along with him in his video and when I got to the best part of the painting (the knife work) I couldn't get it to turn out like I wanted. So I've started three more Black Ice paintings in hope I'll get one of them right. It's just my perfectionist taking over. I let myself off the hook and decided to start my own painting and use the knife however it turned out. I really like this one and am hanging it in our living room. Hubby said it looks exactly like the title says. You see all that unrest below the surface, churning away, and eventually it rises and explodes. :)

It's been fun challenging myself to do something that, for me, is totally different. I love the freedom of abstract painting. I had Melissa Etheridge blaring in the background and just went at it, painting my soul. There are lots of paintings in the works now in various stages. This particular one started out as different shades of violet. There are probably four or five layers painted over in this one. I kept changing my mind as I went along. What a rush! I told Jared that now it's time to make a new class video and he said he's working on one.

Other things I'm working on: I have a bunch of new sketches that I'm playing with. I've been scouring the fall fashion mags for pretty faces to sketch. I don't make up my own faces very much.; a few have been and I've liked them. But there are so many different looks and poses in the fashion mags that I'll just pick a girl and concentrate on her facial features and sketch her. I'm working on giving them more emotion. Looking over the earlier ones they all seem to have the same frozen expression. So, hopefully, you'll notice more emotion in these later sketches.

That's it for today. Off to paint and play.