I'm currently working on portraits number 24 & 25 in this second series of Nasty Women and I have to say that working on these pieces at this modified pace is definitely better for my soul.  As much as I loved working on a portrait a day for 100 days, I felt too much pressure and, even though it was self-induced, it was challenging to say the least. This round has been gentler on me as a whole...more time for painting and for life in general.  After feeling that kind of stress, I honestly feel like myself again.

I thought I'd share a few details of the portrait I painted in the video I posted last week.  The layers of colour, both opaque and transparent, are visible here, along with the flaws which could be considered errors but I really love that imperfection.  It really belief in perfect imperfection.  In my daily life, I need a lot of order but when it comes to my artwork, I like to leave things feeling much more painterly.

I also wanted to share my colour palette.  I don't think it is typical of portrait colours but I love vibrancy and tend to step out of the box with colours in all of my paintings.  The basics are titanium white, sometimes unbleached titanium or burnt umber, pthalo or prussian blue, pthalo green, dioxazine purple, cadmium or hansa yellow, cadmium orange (I've begun enjoying the cadmium-free colours by Liquitex), alizarin crimson and also napthol red (not pictured).  My preference is heavy bodied paint, not only for the texture but for how far I can stretch the colour just by adding water or thinning medium.

One of my favourite things about working on these smaller 8x10 gallery canvases is the fact that I can take them anywhere.  I still love working large, but these are certainly handy in summertime.

After spending a day filming portions of my process for creating a portrait in the Nasty Women painting series for Instagram, I thought it would be nice to share it here, too.  Though I didn't capture every single step along the way as I found it difficult to paint and speak at the same time, most of it was included - watercolour types of initial shadow and dark layers followed by mid-tones and highlights and then back again.  I really enjoy beginning my work on a coloured canvas as those colours and patterns end up showing through the completed portrait and, to me, add so much interest...kind of like tattoos.  I hope this is helpful to you.

Last week my daughters and I went and got matching tattoos...we've been talking about it for a long,long time but it's been difficult to decide on a pattern.  After many sketches, we decided on an outline of the Three Sisters mountains near Canmore in the Rocky Mountains.  And I love it!

We were so lucky that my eldest daughter was home to celebrate her birthday with us.  I never get to spend enough time with my teacher though I am grateful that her lovely artwork (on the wall behind her) lives with me. :)

Happy Birthday Babycakes!

Now that I've actually (finally!) used my Guerilla Painter 5x7 PocketBox while plein air painting, I thought it would be a good time to share an update. In full disclosure, we had a thunder storm the night prior to video taping this so my bottom was getting wetter as the video progress ;D  If I was asked which paint box was my favorite, I think I might have a hard time choosing.  When I first purchased my original 6x8 ThumBox I don't think there was an option for a 5x7 at that point, otherwise I may have selected that one instead.  But, I have created hundreds of paintings using the 6x8 pochade so I'm rather attached to it.  After this summer, though, I may be leaning towards the 5x7 a little more...we'll see.  Plus, it looks like they've changed the design on the 5x7...it would be interesting to see how this one works.