STUDIO UPDATE: The Big Garden

It's been a lovely week filled with painting, watching the garden grow, catching up with friends and family over cups of tea, ten pin bowling, exercising, cooking, cleaning and relaxing a home.  This week I feel I've gotten the 'Work, Rest, Play' balance right. 

Here's my week in photos!

 

I did some more practice clumps and accidentally smudged the paint after I was happy with it.

It was quite quick to fix it up.  Lesson learnt, be more careful!

 

Another full size practice painting for the 'Garden' painting. 

 

Cleaned the palette to start fresh.  I'm now using linseed oil in place of oil of cloves.

The final practice before moving onto the big one! 

The top left tree is painted on the big canvas! 

I enjoyed some tea and cake while backing works ready to hang and sell online. 

Recently we have been re-growing our veggie scraps and the seeds inside the fruits we eat.  It's so rewarding watching plants grow and produce edible delights. We have lettuce, shallots, onions, garlic, bok choy and carrots re-growing.  There is also mango, lemon, passion-fruit, avocado, pumpkin and tomatoes growing, as well as parsley, basil, chives and mint.

This is how I plant this curly leaf variety of lettuce for regrowth. The one at the front was freshly planted in the above image. I've been doing a daily progress photo over on my Facebook personal profile, you can follow along here if you are interested in watching the growth.

Above is the lettuce after a week of re-growing. Can you tell it rained last night?

The morning sun was casting a beautiful shadow on the pot, I just had to take this photo.

 

The first tomato flowers emerged this morning, so excited!

 

Our bok choy  re-growth.

I'd like to thank my friends over at Painting Party Friday for their encouragement and support each week I've been back blogging for a month now and all your comment have been helpful. The sense of community is so wonderful! Doing a STUDIO UPDATE each week and sharing it with PPF makes me accountable and also allows for me to reflect on my progress and achievements and hopefully encouraging and inspiring others in the process.

Have a great weekend!

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STUDIO UPDATE: It smells a lot like Christmas.

I've got the Oil of Cloves out of the cupboard to keep my paint wet on the palette longer. It smells like, well cloves of course, and it makes me smile and think of Christmas hams, spiced desserts and a relaxed time with family and friends.

So onto this weeks update, a day late, but it's been that kind of week :)  This time last week, I thought that I would  have started painting the trees on the big garden painting, but here I am on Saturday morning and I'm still defining my technique even further. With each practice I do, I keep finding things that can be improved. I did a practice painting with the branches, which I was happy with, then I decided that I could improve on the contrast even further to get more dimension in my trees. I'm still playing around with getting the practices right and am not going to rush into painting on the big canvas until I'm satisfied with the level of finish on the studies.

Small practice clumps to experiment with contrast.

Closeup detail of paint application.

Comparison between my first practice clumps and the recent ones.

Another comparison showing my progress.

 

This commissioned portrait that was given to the family of the girl in the painting this week.

It joins the commissioned painting of her brother I did last year. 

I'm linking up with Paint Party Friday, even though it's Saturday here, it's Friday somewhere right?

Happy Weekend All! 

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Blasts From The Past!

Taking photos (particularly of older paintings) on a Wednesday afternoon is becoming quite the habit. This time I decided to photograph some of my oils from the Studio Sale to show you all how they are framed and what size they are.

Leaves in the Garden.

 Plant Cutting from Mum

Pomegranate Child 

The cute tea cup was a gift from good friend (blogger and AMAZING artist Tracey Fletcher King), it's beautiful and makes the perfect accompaniment to reference the size of each painting.

All artwork in this blog is available to purchase directly from the artist for $100 each using paypal or bank transfer. For more information comment below or email me: tracey.potter.artist@hotmail.com
If you are using the Facebook comment section please tag either @Tracey Grgic or @Tracey Potter to ensure I get a notification of you interest.

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STUDIO UPDATE: Getting there...

My painting week in photos:

Just after writing my Paint Party Friday blog post last week, new art supplies arrived in the mail! 

 'Not your Ordinary Madam' and two other paintings found new homes where they will be treasured.

Here's the Fabrino 'Tela' Oil Paper in use, it's such a high quality paper, I'm very impressed.

The practice trees for the top left need a few branches before I paint them on the large piece.

The colour guide for the different values of the foliage.

Happy Paint Party Friday all!

Enjoy your weekend xx

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Flower Children

The light is absolute wonderful today and I could not resist taking some photos to share with you. These watercolour works were inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Do you remember the singing flowers?  I thought they were delightful.  Upon seeing these two Flower Children again, I'm transport back several years to when I was first working in my current studio and my heart is filled with fond memories. They also remind me of the delicate and soft touch needed to use watercolour, such an immediate medium.  Flower Child No. 1 & 2, along with many of my other paintings have been reduced to $50 each in the Studio Sale.

 Red Flower Child (No. 2)

 Red Flower Child (No. 2)

 Red Flower Child (No. 1)

Red Flower Child (No. 1)

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STUDIO UPDATE: Practicing Trees

Thanks for the lovely welcome back last week!  Many of you said that I had been very productive with all the paintings I showed, I just wanted to clear something up, not all the paintings shown in the post were done over the last six months, many were past works that had been displayed over that time. Painting trees and the garden scene is what I have been focusing on recently. Below are the some studies I've done practicing the tree/bush for the top left of my big garden painting. I'm trying to get the colour, shape and lighting correct before I paint it on the large piece.  More studies will need to be done (hopefully only one or two) I'm getting pretty close to being happy. With each practice improvements have been made, it's well worth taking the extra time to get it right on oil sketch paper first.

Studies for the Garden Painting. 

My palette mix up with 5 tones (the basic colours for my tree)

Garden Painting

Happy Paint Party Friday all!

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Studio Sale

I'm clearing out the studio in order to make room for new artwork.  Most of my paintings have been reduced and are now available for between $25 - $400 (AUD). If you've had your eye on a painting for a while, now would be the perfect time to snap it up at a good price.  Quite a few have already been sold or put on hold, so get in quick before your favourite is gone.  Below is a taste of what's on offer, for a full list of all the paintings and their prices visit my available work album on Facebook.

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Gosh, has it been that long?

Today marks exactly six months since my last post and I'm not sure if I should make a fuss or just gloss over it.  A happy coincidence perhaps that I woke up this morning with a strong desire to re enter the blogging community and when I looked at the date of my last post, I realised that it was precisely half a year ago.  "Gosh, has it been that long?" was the first thought that came to mind. The second was a reflection on my accomplishments in that time, what have I achieved in the last six months? Below are some photos showing the happenings in the studio and some of my recent art exhibitions.

I'm currently working hard on extending my skill base. "IMPROVE, IMPROVE, IMPROVE!" is my motto. I hope to share my progress and the things I'm learning with you all and be active once again in sharing my painting experiences and influences. Happy Painting Party Friday All!



Happy and Productive week to all - Tracey.

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