Unfinished Business

Last week I joined my friend and creative sister, Nichole in a goal-setting partnership. By putting our goals out here in blogland, we were sure to be more committed in finding the time to live a more creative life. It worked! We both found ourselves doing art, photography and other crafty things all week long despite the responsibilities that come with life! If we can do it, so can all of you! Even little moments, like writing down an idea in a journal or notebook count towards living a more creative and light-filled life.

This week my goals are about unfinished business. I have too many non-creative obligations this week to start new projects. I have tons of unfinished paintings, digital and traditional.


Digital art goal:
My first goal this week is to complete the digital painting of a pinup girl I started last year during a Creative Saturday with Lita. Here is where I left off:

She needs a lot of detail work and her face needs to be rounded more. And according to my grandmother, "her mouth ain't right". So, back to work. I would love to complete it this week and then post the steps taken to get to the final result. 

Traditional art goals:

Where traditional art is concerned, I have several unfinished oil paintings. Oil painting is what I do best when it comes to traditional art methods but living in a swampy, tropical climate really put a damper (pun totally intended!) on my love of oil. I paint the way the old masters used to...building up thin layers of color over an under painting of light and shadow. Each layer has to dry before applying the next. And it takes a really long time for oil to dry and even more so down here in Swamplandia.  But, I really want to get them finished. Especially these two..Still Life Pears & Copper Pots. So, I shall buckle down and work on adding layers this week. In addition, I plan on continuing with my watercolor lessons. The next lesson is learning to paint clouds & skies. I'm also going to continue with the Exploration tasks by doing #17 this week! 

Photography goal:

This week I have scheduled a photo shoot with Leanne. She needs new head shots as she enters her third! year at Tisch at NYU. Where has the time gone? She is soon to be 20...I took her original head shots which helped her get accepted to NYU back when she was just 16!

Last week we spent a day shopping together and bought matching "boyfriend" sweaters. We are going to plan on doing a shot together wearing them...and maybe some hats. :)  My goal is after the shoot, to process all the pictures right away and not have any of them still sitting on the card by week's end.

So, another week of goals has been set. I wanted to do a journal prompt as well, but realistically I'll have to put that off for at least one more week. I think I may have too much on my creative plate already! Anyone else out there planning an artful week?

Creative Saturday: Pinup Progress

It's Saturday! Today we had a Digital Art Day at Lita's. Lita began painting the most beautiful landscape, taken from an image she took when she visited the Northern part of the East Coast. Periodically throughout the day, we check on each other's work and I was blown away by the beauty of her piece which was rich in color and in the impressionistic style. I've already requested a print! I will post it here when she finishes it.

I was back working on the Pinup I started a few weeks ago. Here is a reminder of how far I got previously on "Peggy Sue" (She finally got a name today):
She started out as a sketch and then slowly took shape with painting of highlights and shadows:

Today, she came to life when I began laying in the colors:

There is still much to be done. I still need to work on all of her body parts, soften her face, blend all the skin tones and put in details.  I also still have to do detail work on the ropes and log as well as paint a landscaped background. While working on this today I revisited the Clipping Mask and learned how to create my own pallet of color using the Stained Glass filter. I always love when I find some new interesting technique in Photoshop! For now, I will put her aside for another day.  Future blog posts will show the continued progress and maybe, one day soon, the finished piece!