Jen Bowles Design

Bloom True painting update

We finished up Flora Bowley's Bloom True e-course back in March.  I'd been in a holding pattern with my paintings ever since. 

Then a couple of things happened.

First, I realized the colors on my canvas were throwing me off.  For the course, I bought and borrowed Golden fluid acrylics along with some heavy body acrylics from Dick Blick.  Long story short, I didn't have the variety or the hues I favor when working with plain old acrylic craft paint.  So, I finally made the decision to just use my crafty acrylics.  Flora had said that would be ok :).

Next, I kept seeing paintings that people had creating during a class with artist Jennifer Mercede.  I was somewhat familiar with Jennifer's licensed work, and I love her whimsical, doodle-filled, colorful style.  Abstract, colorful...my wheels started turning.

With brush in hand the other afternoon, I set about transforming my first canvas.

So. much. better!

I liked it so much, I decided to bring it up from my studio and hang it on the wall (!).  

I haven't signed it yet, which means I'm not quite done tweaking it.  I may add some text and a few more details.  We'll see. 

For now though, it's totally making me happy!

Thanks for stopping by,

 

 

Blooming and Painting

The first time I got up on Sunday morning it was a  3:40am.  Why?  To drop Ebby & a friend off at the gas station where she met another friend and her mom.  Why?  To drive 45 minutes to the Natick Mall.  Why?  New Direction, their favorite band, was doing a CD signing and only the first 600 people in line got a wristband to get into the signing.  They waited in line outside for 3 hours and then inside for another 6 hours...and they did it.  They met the "boys", got autographs , gave them handmade trinkets and exchanged a few words and eye contact.
Ebby declared it the best day of her life.

Meanwhile, I went home and sort of fell back to sleep for a couple of hours.  By 8:45 I was on the road.  I picked up a couple of my painting buddies and drove to my cousin Penny's house for our Bloom True painting group.

There's lots of eye candy at Penny's house... Snowdrops in a Lark Rodrgues vase

Very cool black and white lamp & shade

Penny and her daughter Audrey are quite the talented tandem.

Stained glass window handmade by Pen

Amazing oil painting by Audrey

Collection of hearts displayed on a stone shelf on the stone fireplace

After our house tour, we set up our painting space. I used the fish-eye lens on my OlloClip to get this shot

We watched a few of Flora's lessons, browsed the Bloom True Flickr group, and oh...we painted☺.

Some of Penny's paintings, in various stages:

Here's Lynn, hard at work:

Lynn had 5 canvases with her and she gave one to my mom to work on.  Here's the result:
Pretty cool!

Here are a few shots of my canvases:


I was feeling ok about my canvases when we packed up on Sunday, but now that I've been looking at them at home for a couple of days, I'm not so sure.  It's all good though because 1. we're using acrylic paints (very forgiving) and 2. this class is about so much more than the painting.

I can't believe we're in the final week of the Bloom True class.  Hopefully our little painting group will continue to get together.  I'm sure sure we will since my mom is already talking about doing studio tours in June and I think we should have some sort of gallery opening to share our finished paintings this Spring.

On the way home we thought we might fit in a stop at Russell's Garden Center before meeting up with the girls. Alas it was not to be this trip.  Instead we picked up four very happy, very thirsty teenage girls.

Yep, a pretty good day for all.

Bloom True: More Layers

I can't believe we're already into week 4 of Flora Bowley's Bloom True class.  Time flies when you're being brave and loving what you're learning!

At the last painting group get-together I attended, I worked on Layers 3 & 4 of my canvases.  We've been meeting at my mom's house, she's very welcoming☺.

There were 4 of us at this meeting:  me, my mom, friend Lynn, and cousin Penny.  It's always fun and interesting to see someone else's interpretation of the class--and how that translates to the canvases.  The great part about meeting in person is being able to exhange ideas, share materials, and see other people working.  Of course I'm easily distracted...but I love the kinship.

Here are some glimpses at our in-progress canvases...

Lynn

Penny

Mom

Me

I can only imagine what everyone's canvas will look like this coming weekend at painting group--with 2-4 more layers added.  Totally transformed, I'm sure!

I fell behind on last week's painting lessons and then just couldn't pull myself together to go to painting group this past weekend.  Yesterday afternoon though, I rallied and painted at home in my studio.

After Layer 5:

After Layer 6:

I used my fingers a lot on these latest layers--and loved it.  In fact, when I was done with the canvases for the day, I couldn't resist using up the rest of the paint on my palette.

First I did this background on a 4x6 canvas

Then I went to town on my Art Journal/Play Book. 

Are these backgrounds or nearly finished pages?  Who knows!

I used the last little bits of paint on a book page.
Very fun, very freeing and feeling very fortunate to be part of this journey!

Bloom True: 1st Layer

This week Flora Bowley's very first e-course, Bloom True, kicked off and I'm so happy to be part of it! It already feels very different from anything I usually do and I'm really enjoying the non-painting parts of the course especially.

Of course the painting is pretty fun too ☺.

I  completed the first layers of my two canvases yesterday.

Loving the magic that is happening...even if it's going to get covered up!  

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to get together with a small group of friends who are also "Bloomers".  We'll be working on our canvases, for me that means my second layer. 

Painting and friendship, sounds like a good Sunday morning to me.