Yellow or Not to Yellow....that is the question

Determined to stay away from the color pink, well maybe not completely, I purposefully considered my colors today on this 12 x 24 canvas.  And successfully enough I did manage to stay away from pink domination. Here is a section from this painting.

But the question of the day is the yellow.  The finishing yellow.  I'm just not loving it like I would like to.

It could be because I generally don't utilize yellow in this quantity.  I use it to draw attention, or for a burst of color and brightness, but this I'm just not sure about.  So until I decide it has been moved to the holding table.  It's finished life uncertain as the hands of its maker can not decide if yellow is okay or not to yellow in the end.  I'll post the entire canvas at that point.
Have a good week!  August already.....wow!
twitwistofpink.com   mixed media canvas, acrylic painting, jana mclaughlin
 

Perfect Day for the Studio

When it is 100 degrees out I can not think of a better place to spend some time other than the studio.  Well maybe in the water somewhere but no, really the studio is the best place!
So pulling out a fresh new 16 x 20 canvas, the paints, and a healthy dose of eagerness to really get into a project I started in.

Here are a couple of photo's of the "in process" stages.  I really needed to be working on sales generating activities but where is the fun in that?  I'd much rather be creating and here is the final and finished canvas.

Love Canvas

This one flowed seamlessly which made it even more fun to do and I see other things being created from this design which makes it even better!
Hopefully you have had a good weekend and are staying cool wherever you may be.

More Canvas work

It has been awhile, actually quite awhile, since I sat down to put one of my girls onto a canvas.  This is generally due to the displeasure I have with the end result.  Sure, I'll tolerate the canvas for a period of time then end up painting over it.  I'd say it's the perfectionist in me but I'm not a perfect painter!

In process pics

With this being a long weekend and no plans to interfere I felt compelled.  The canvas was calling to me and while it wasn't what I thought I would do this weekend creatively I threw caution to the wind.

16 x 20 "She is Joyful in Hope"

She turned out relatively well for being on canvas.   I've got some other new art posted on my website homepage if you enjoy my art.  Thanks for stopping by and Thank you to all who serve and have given their lives for our freedom on this Memorial Day Weekend!

Getting it Back!

I'm on a self imposed "get my Joy back" time out!  There is not a one of us that doesn't just get worn out over the day to day rat race.  Add on top there is never a lick of good news it seems and zap!
Just like that you wake up and realize you've lost your joy!

So last week I decided to take a few days off this week and work on finding my joy again.  Would it mean not turning on the TV?  Will the time away from the 9-5 be enough?  Some much wanted studio time do the trick?  Sleeping in a bit?
Well, I have to say I think it is a combination of all of that.  Remember my last post about being sooo organized with all the journals and lists and etc.?  It's the same way with life.  I think being so efficient and making sure all the bases are covered and everything is in its proper place becomes all consuming and while yes there is efficiency happening is there balance with it all?

So new word for the day, week, month, year.....is...balance. 
And the studio time today has me working on a 12 x 36 canvas.

These are just a couple of shots taken while I've been working.  I'll post the finished piece when I'm done.  Had an idea in my head but it is not going down with as much ease as I had thought.  But it's all good!!!!

Canvas = Love

My love of canvas...albeit fickle at times, seems to be in full bloom.  While I love working smaller most of the time simply due to ease, when the weekends roll around I have of late looked to canvas.

And colors are always important tome so to play and mix things up makes canvas work even better.
Not to mention the fact that I love pushing paint with my fingers too!

12 x 24

12 x 36

 

 

 

 

I've got a 3rd one in the finishing stages today and will be putting all of them on my website for sale soon.  Hope you are having a great Spring weekend!

Busy Spring Weekend

You can always tell when the weather is nice. There is too much to do and take in over a weekend it seems.  Yesterday attended and FW Art Festival which is a yearly saved date in my calendar and this year was no exception.  Beside the Art Festival  I had to make a stop at another event which had vintage camper trailers all "glamped" out.  The turn out was very small but still was good to tour those that were there.
And of course there was food involved.

Breaded Ribeye Sandwich from Sweetie Pies in Decatur TX.

I have fallen to taking pictures of food and posting.  Sad day possibly.  But my husband raves about this sandwich.  He has only had this one other time and it was years ago.  We'd never made the trip back to the area but, yesterday it just so happened to be his lucky day!
So suddenly here it is Sunday.  I have a new girl which I posted on my Instagram and getting ready to start a new canvas.  But here is a peek at a canvas which I completed last weekend.

So I hope you are enjoying this Spring weekend and I'll share new art next weekend also!

New Canvas Paintings

I have absolutely loved the time in the studio recently.  Not that I don't always feel this way but I've really been playing.  Colors, brushes, doodles, everything within arms reach has been used and the results have created several 2' x 3' canvas paintings.

This one I just finished today.  It's like 70 degrees outside and the window is open, with sunshine pouring in and it's been a wonderful day in the studio!!  Hard to believe it is February for sure!
My other canvas you can see over on my website home page.  I completed it last weekend and had hoped to have it framed up by this weekend but hubby has been busy working. Where are his priorities?  I mean really there is art ready!!  Like I said I have enjoyed creating both of these but one if definitely more my favorite.  I may not be able to sequester myself in the studio tomorrow also if it is still so pretty outside but my head is going with more ideas.
Hope you are having a great weekend too!
Want more?  Be sure to follow me on Instagram.

Triumphant

Last weekend I was in the studio and grabbed up a new 12 x 16 canvas.  Nothing particular in mind just started with paper and glue.  I knew I was going to "try" to do two things.  #1- Not use pink and work a fresh palette of colors from my normal. #2-do something different again from my normal.

And as you can see I pretty much failed on both of these accounts!  In my defense the papers hold the pink color, not my paints that I used. Still guilty aren't I?!  And well, these darn angels just seem to keep appearing .  So, while my Angel says triumphant I think I may......be having a hard time with pre-ordaining an outcome.  So another weekend is upon me and I have a bigger canvas still to lay out and begin on.  Dare I try to accomplish the same two things again?  Guess time will tell.  It's such a fine line between just letting things flow and purposefully setting out on a course.  Suppose if the end result is good what should it matter.

Friday Creative

A bit of creative time today in the studio.  Had no plan for where this canvas was going to take me and just started with no rhyme or reason. 

I did work really hard to keep pink out of it but as you see.... I failed.  Such a surprise!  Not!
Hoping to get a bit more time in this weekend with paint on my hands.  Happy Friday!

New 16x20 painting

It's been a nice Christmas holiday with family, good food, and finished off the long weekend with a painting.  I've got several things going in the studio right now but yesterday I focused on this canvas.

I continue to recycle canvases that I just didn't like.  I can't just throw them away so I give them a second chance, or rather myself a second chance.  I put this photo collage together to show how I progressed and then a glimpse of the final canvas.

Merry Christmas

Its going to be a flurry of activity for the next week and so I wanted to take a moment for a quick studio update.
I finally sat down with my big canvas and got it finished.  Had a hard time getting a picture but here it is.

As it lays on my studio table.

Digitally placed in this frame.  So not actually mounted.

It's always a likelihood that I will come back to this piece and make changes or add to it still.  But for now I am happy with the result.  I am trying to determine what I will do on the next large canvas.
On my table right now is this piece.

 Yes another angel.  I can't seem to get away from doing them.  So that is a quick update and hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!  Look forward to continuing to share art in 2015!

Jana McLaughlin©

Never buying another canvas!

Never buying another canvas I say in a fit of unhappiness.  I love canvas, at least I thought I did.  Well I do.  But really,  it isn't my best friend when it comes to producing work that I generally like.  Rarely does a canvas come out looking or feeling like I wanted it to, tried to make it, or felt it should.  So I say I'm never buying another canvas!  (yes, we both know this is not going to be the case.)

So my fit started after painting a small canvas today and not really loving it. (Not showing it here.)
You know the feeling right?  Please tell me you do.  So after destroying a canvas unwillingly I went to my already existing discard pile of "bad art" canvases and took one to task. I was down but not out!

I snapped this picture after already in the process of  "rearranging" it shall we say.  The original colorful houses on yellow done somewhere in my past wasn't good.  So magic marker in hand I doodled over the top and started painting outside the lines. 

I like the way it turned out and is just proof that the pile of bad art can be spared from the trash and fits can be tamed.  I'm still going to stay clear of the canvas aisle for awhile because who needs that kind of trouble?! Haha!

Latest canvas

Life is throwing curve balls daily right now.  My last week involved:
Trips almost daily (80 miles away one way) to VA Hospital, working when I can, a ride in a wrecker due to a car problem, and now today lets top it all off with a bit of ice and cold.
Time Out!!
So scrap the project that's been in the works for a couple of weeks now as it just isn't going to get completed anytime soon.  What I can share is the most recent 12 x 24 canvas I had completed before chaos and mayhem took up residence.
Asking for prayers for my step father as next week looks to be just as trying and probably more so than this last one.
Wishing you a good week!

12 x 24 Canvas  (Acrylics, pastels, & ink)

Sun Flooded Studio!

As I enjoy a day in the Studio today I'm accompanied by sun streaming into my space.  It's wonderful!
And given the calendar is showing already the 11th of January, (I've been a bad blogger), I absolutely am loving this winter day!
My mind has been busy with projects of re-organization, focus, growth, options, and it can be quite frankly tiring! I best stay with "focus".
I freshened up my blog and website header.  I've still got to update my Etsy shop soon and put products in the store as well. But since the holidays I have stepped away from the sketchbook and journaling long enough to do a painting.

She's my brunette girl on a 12 x 24 canvas.  For some reason I have been doing alot of girls lately.

Be Brave  on  Canvas Board

Wood panel

Sometimes I think faces "define" what someone  is seeing in art so I don't always feel comfortable putting faces on my girls.
So check back as I promise to post more new art plus some already completed art!  Have a wonderful weekend too!

Time to get Serious

Christmas is what, a week and a couple days off?  How in the world did that happen??!
Having truly lost a week with the ice storm and very the extreme weather event we just came through, its now a mad dash to the Christmas finish.  Good thing there are no really big plans or I'd definitely be hyper ventilating about now.  Then again...there is not even a tree up in our house yet.  Gulp!

While there may be no tree up I have gotten a couple of canvases painted in the past few weeks and a sketchbook journal page done.  So clearly not all has been lost.

I'm sure you are all much more organized than I am but it will all come together for me.  Wishing you a good next week!!

I know it's Fall...really I do!

While it may be Fall you can't take the flowers away!  Seriously, I should be working on Christmas but with my Flower Attention Disorder I've only dabbled at Christmas things.  (Shame on me!) 
I worked on this piece last weekend and really like the technique I tried.  Now that I've done this piece I plan on doing more with the same messy background layers I worked on with this one.  Totally different approach than I am accustom when I start painting. 

The vibrant colors really came out and I like the almost "batik" look it has.  I'm excited to expand on this new process and already waiting for inspiration to hit for the next piece.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Paint Party Friday!

Woohoo!  Friday!  And this week finds me with today in the studio.  Every once in awhile I like to collage with images from magazines and play around with what I can create that way.  See more here. It  pushes me to create something funky and fun starting with cut out pieces and then expanded upon.

Collage on canvas with paint, markers & paper.

Because this makes me "work" at loosening up it usually takes me longer than anything else I do to finish.  This probably means I need to do more of this!
This weekend I plan on cracking open some brand new Twinkling H2O's and playing with watercolor.   Enjoy your fall weekend everyone!

See more great blogs here

No, it's not really Fall

Yesterday 104, today the same? Oh, excuse me...only 102? I stand corrected.  And guess who didn't have the household air conditioner in working order for a full 24 hours during that ascend and sweltering 104. Yep, it was a timely mechanical failure that left us tossing and turning Thursday night to what seemed like a jet engine sound of fans in an attempt to sleep.  But by 5 last night we were back to "chill'n"!  So no I can't say as I feel like it is fall-----at all.
Last week I started a canvas by doing the background and while I did finish it, I haven't had time to scan and load it.  So here is one I recently completed.

"Angel in Progress"

 I'm hoping to have some time over this long weekend to complete some pieces.  Thinking of doing a booth in November and will need to ramp up my production if I do.  Besides it's too hot to do much of anything else!

Doing Hard Things

A couple of months ago I created a little canvas (below) to put in with a gift to a friend who was beginning chemo.  It has the saying that my mother-in-law would say to my husband over the  years whenever hard things in life came about.  These words are repeated as needed still to this day whenever we need reminding.
Some have more or even harder things to overcome and deal with in our lives than others but we do all have hard things cross our paths.
Just remember....

Canvas board

Besides my ongoing collection of pens, which I added to again this weekend.  I rarely walk into the craft store and out without a canvas.  I just really like canvas.  I have, or actually have had in my head that if I wasn't creating on a canvas that I wasn't really creating anything of value.  Really?  Well that is just silliness!! Don't know why I had thought that, or from where such a thought would come.  I guess the great painters of history were on canvas.  Why not aspire big!  tee hee!!
Which brings me to canvas boards.  I felt these were merely an inferior way to say you were working on canvas.  And this may still be how I feel BUT, I have to say I am into my second pack of canvas boards and I'm really enjoying them! Especially for heavy mixed media use.  It is so much easier to create backgrounds and add papers and paints to this canvas with a sturdy backing. 

Canvas Board

I've been creating a lot the past couple of weeks and enjoying it.  I've even done some work on the ever so long promised Etsy shop. (No, still not open.)  But baby steps are being made.  I'll share more canvas boards in upcoming posts.  In the meantime I have a brand new pack of pen markers to try out.  Gotta go!