Not Writing Much on Painting and a New Blog

Hi There! I just wanted to state the obvious, ” I’m not really writing on this blog anymore.” I tried bringing it back, but I just don’t paint nearly as much as I used to and to be honest, I don’t think I ever really enjoyed writing about it. I have started learning how to make masks and created a blog for the endeavor and to share my methods and masks with others. Mask making is really interesting and I’ve found many a topic to write about! If you’d like, go on and check it out. I went to blogger for its ability to use javascript for gadgets, so the address and name is : http://mariemessina.blogspot.com : Working With My Hands.

Vacation

This week is the hubby and I’s vacation so I have been trying to take a much needed break and just relax this week. I have been sneaking painting in though and am delighted to say that I was OKed for entering some pieces into a show this fall. The curator of the gallery liked Brain Plate and so I will be doing more along those lines. Once the pieces are completed and handed in for the exhibit I’ll write a huge post detailing which ones will be shown. It should be 2-4 paintings – I’m hoping 4! :)

There is one downfall to this awesome inclusion though and that is that I will have to raise my prices comparable to what they’d sell for in the gallery. Let’s put it this way – if you liked something in my gallery, now is the time to get it as the prices will go up about triple starting at the latest in November.

I just finished “The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far..” last night and it will thankfully be ready in time for the Fall Member’s exhibit at the York Art Association. First exhibit! Kind of nervous but honestly, after walking into a gallery and showing my art, this should be way easier! Will update as soon as I can – waiting for a sunny day to get some good pictures of the latest.

Red Hot Wesson and An Apple..

It’s been quiet on the blog front because I have been busy with two paintings. That means I haven’t had a finished one to put up! I realized half way through this painting that I liked it so much I wanted to save it for the Juried exhibit in October where you can actually win some cash prizes! :O Here is that painting still in progress called Red Hot Wesson.

Red Hot Wesson

The one I decided to enter into this month’s Fall Member’s Exhibit, is a painting I got the idea for before bed sometime last week. It was a little last minute, but I have fallen in love with it so far. I’m really not sure why the idea crept into my head, but I was thinking about a woman holding a branch, and on one end of the branch was an apple that she was perhaps about to eat. I was also interested in adding brambles of some sort, but after putting the painting together, I’m not sure where I could add them. I was thinking initially of adding them around the branch. I’ll have to see how it looks and whether I think it would take away or not once I start the branches. So here is that painting – I’m thinking of calling it something like An Apple A Lifetime – a play on an apple a day as there are definite Eve and the apple innuendos in this painting.

An Apple A...

I was actually pretty shocked with the job I did on the eyes here. I don’t think I have ever done such realistic piercing eyes before. I felt as if I was actually looking at myself! I had to model for myself for the painting so yeah it’s sort of a self portrait. I will update the progression painting posts for these once they are done and let you all know how the exhibit goes at the end of the month. It’s going to be on 9/11 which is an interesting irony of a date and it will be my first ever in person exhibit! I’m both excited and nervous, but it should be a good step to take.

Several Paintings For Sale!

I finally got around to listing my 3 latest paintings on my store at Artfire! I’m starting to get a bit annoyed with wordpress though and have strongly considered moving elsewhere. The whole inability to have any kind of script or css in widgets really limits the ease of sharing for me. I can’t make easy little galleries in my sidebar or add many of the things I’ve wished to. But right now I have too much on my plate, so I will just get caught up with what needs done.

If you’d like the visit the new store – you can click the image below!

Yay! New Paintings! :)

Painting Progression : Femme Metal Jacket

I have been a little slow to get to posting this week because I have been trying to quit smoking (again) and have also been a bit under the weather. There has been this weird sickness going around that it seems my husband got first and spread to me. It starts off with heat flashes and then gets into this scratchy/ sore throat phase. I thought I was over the most of it and then this morning it hit me really hard with cold flashes and incredible sleepiness. It is through sheer will power that I decided to get off the couch and just get this post going already before it’s next week!

I am working on a painting right now that if you’re interested in seeing live updates for; you can check out my facebook page. I will probably be adding an actual fan page later, but not for now! Anyway! On to the painting!

This painting is called Femme Metal Jacket – obvious play on words there – and is a 24 x 36 acrylic painting on hardboard. I was originally going to enter this into an exhibit for “Large Works” and then found that it had to be 36 x 36 at least to be entered. It worked out well enough though because I found that I did like working large like this. It gives you all the room you need! An artist friend, Tim Gagnon, has a little side business set up where he does these acrylic painting lessons. I am on his newsletter and I saw one of the latest lessons for this awesome red sky. I thought to myself what I would want to see under that sky – that to me seemed post apocalyptic almost. I came up with a very crude sketch and then elaborated to the below one.

The sketch!

As you can see, I was thinking of some really tough lady coming out of a burning city still ready to take names! I eventually settled for another look which you’ll see a little later here and got started with the painting’s background.

Laying down the background

The sky came out pretty good to start and then I had to get working on the grass and the rest of the background.

Clouds added

One big NO NO for future reference here was that I painted the entire background in a mix of Cadmium Red and Raw Umber. The top part of the sky was really Umber while the bottom was more red. I thought this would help recall the red in the grass as an undertone, but it did nothing of the kind. Instead it made it horribly difficult for my grass to show through, and I ended up having to completely redo it anyhow by putting a very dark color below. As you can see in the picture below, the grass looks sort of like a joke!

City added in the distance..not happy with the grass!

Here I’ve got that bad grass fixed up a bit, and at that point I was so sick of it, that I moved on to the figure. I got the hair base worked in and the base for the skirt and shirt as well. Now it’s really starting to come to life!

Hair, clothes, grass, still not happy with the grass

Now onto the skin, I had a bit of a time with the skin in this one, as I did with Paper Tiger, because this material (hardboard) can be a bit witchy if you’re too close to the bottom coat. For future reference I have been painting entirely over the bottom layer and not leaving it directly on the gesso for this reason. Since skin takes SO much blending, the spots closest to the bottom tend to not hold as well – IE they will actually come up in spots and leave you with white splotches.

Skin laid down

Here I’m adding in the dark tones and playing with the highlights in the face although it wasn’t working out the way I had wanted it to.

Playing with skin tones

Now on to starting the guns! Pink M4s these are and an actual style that you could purchase in real life. I was trying for as much accuracy as possible with these guns and even had some parts from a M4 my husband is working on putting together to use as reference.

Starting the guns

More gun progress. These guns were probably the most difficult and time consuming aspect of the painting. Going through and trying to catch every little detail especially on the forward showing M4 shown about finished here was tedious! But the result was amazing – even my husband was cooing over how it actually looks like a M4!

More gun work

The guns are mostly done except for some highlights / shadows and now the next big thing to be fixed is that stinky grass and the blah skin tones.

Guns painted...check!

Now that grass is looking more appreciable and the skin tones are coming together the way I wanted them to! Next time I will make sure to make at least a couple layers of just a regular buff color to make it easier to blend the skin tones for hardboard.

Much better grass and skin!

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Here is the finished painting! For the final statistics: acrylic on 3/16 hardboard, 24″ x 36″, varnished for extra protection, with 1″ black matte frame, ready for hanging.Price $150. Email me for any additional details about this painting or if you’re interested in purchasing it.

Femme Metal Jacket -24 x 36 acrylic on hardboard with 1" black matte frame

Painting Progression : Paper Tiger

This will be the first in a section I’d like to start doing here called painting progression. One of the biggest complaints I have heard about just posting pictures daily on a blog, is that it isn’t easy enough for people to look back and see what it is your referencing if they just visited for the first time that day. I’m thinking from now on to avoid that confusion, I will just post a painting progression thread to show the whole painting from start to finish! I will still have regular updates available on facebook for those who are interested!

To start I have a painting titled Paper Tiger. I decided to call it that because this woman doesn’t have much in the matter of defense, but she has a gun and looks quite able to use it (rawr!). First I started with a sketch based on a photo. Since I usually start with a much smaller sketch than the actual surface I paint on (this was 18 x 24), I will scan my sketch and reprint it out to fit in my projector. I will fasten the canvas/masonite to the wall and project the picture onto the surface.

First sketch outlined with marker for projection

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Her corset was blue camouflage, so I wanted to go with an orange background to compliment it. With paintings like this that don’t have a landscape for the background, I like to have fun and try as many new techniques as I can think of. For this one I used a spray and wipe/scrub method to make the color washed in certain areas. Once the background was colored in, I had to go back and gesso out that orange color that got into the figure’s area.

Background in, gessoed spill spots

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I always start with relatively light colors when I’m building up my foundation. It makes it easier to fix things up later on than if you were to just splotch color on super thickly! In this case it helps me to keep track of where things are in the painting as well -especially on the boot creases. Some people like to use carbon paper to transfer their images if they paint over too much of it, but I haven’t found that to work very well for me, so I just try to not lose much of it and work thin so there are no major gaps between paint.

Basic foundations started

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From here I start adding more darker darks as I have come to know them. They are basically your darkest colors and you also start to add some of your highlights, but never much at this point.

Darker darks, and gun started

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Now I’m getting into trying to work on those boots and even the highlighting the the gas mask. Shadows are started on the corset and the belt is even starting to be more fleshed out.

Highlights and shadows started

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I finally finished up the gas mask here – I tend to finish off certain parts one at a time while I have all the colors on the palette before they dry up. The boots have been given a lot of their final touches and the fishnets have also been added. This was my first painting including any kind of stocking like this and I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I ended up using an acrylic paint pen to do them with stroke by stroke and I tell you what – it was nerve-wracking to say the least drawing each line in!

The fishnet stockings added!

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Here is the finished painting! For the final statistics: acrylic on 3/16 hardboard, 18″ x 24″, varnished for extra protection, Price $150. Email me for any additional details about this painting or if you’re interested in purchasing it.

Paper Tiger -18 x 24 acrylic on hardboard $150

Brain Plate

Brain Plate 16" x 20" acrylic on canvas $120

This painting was inspired by Valentina Kallias’ Weird ID seen here. I changed it up a bit by adding a brain and the plague-like mist surrounding the gas masked villian. It was a fun painting and I absolutely love the way the red table contrasts with everything.

Brain Plate is an acrylic on 1/4 canvas, 16″ x 20″, varnished for extra protection, Price $120. Email me for any additional details about this painting or if you’re interested in purchasing it.

Sweet and Simple

As many of you have observed, I haven’t written anything on this blog in quite some time! I was taking a stab at making my blog an actual writer’s blog, but in the end that is just not for me. I think for the most part I will be falling back to a simple, finished painting with progress pictures post.

I do miss my blog though. It just felt like too much work at the time. Trying to keep up with my son, my painting, reading everyone else’s blogs and then trying to write these elaborate posts of my own. I’m such a perfectionist when it comes to my paintings that I used to have trouble finishing them. Imagine that with writing which is way more specific and personable.

So yes, I think I’ll keep it simple and sweet and to my art. I may still do some tips and tricks parts as I have time. I had some ideas for techniques that I would love to show beginners. Grass for instance! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up grass on YouTube, and I can only find the same 3 people showing how to do grass. None of which were helpful to me.

This weekend I plan to get a lot of catching up done. So hopefully you’ll be seeing more from me in the near future. I may also be doing a slight makeover to my blog. I don’t know if I like Messina Studio as a title anymore, I might have to come up with something that reflects my latest inspirations more. Either way, I hope to see some of my old readers come back and I look forward to catching up myself with them!

<3
Marie

10 Ways to Keep Your Sanity as a New Parent

When I found out I was pregnant, my first response was, “What am I going to do with a baby?” After a bit, this turned into a thick gooey haze of motherly love. You know what I mean – where all you can think about is buying cute baby clothes and dream about what your baby will look like. But nobody warns you and nothing prepares you for what having a child is actually like! The books are a weak study guide to say the least.

I can’t even tell you how many times after having the baby though – all of those days of sleep deprivation (yes, I breastfed for the first 2 months) make you begin to wonder again, “What am I going to do with this baby?”

My husband and I have had to learn everything we know on our own and it hasn’t always been easy.

10. Get Sleep

Make sure that you’re getting as much sleep as you can. When I don’t get enough sleep, I’m very cranky, but at least it can be avoided most of the time. Sometimes I’m so wound up that it’s hard for me to sleep, which brings me to #9…

9. Guided Meditations

While I am not yet the waterfall-sitting guru that I’d like to be, I can lay down with my mp3 player before bed and listen to some guided meditations. They are wonderful for relaxing! You can search for free guided meditations or buy them online. I give my seal of approval to the free mp3s on this site – they are all well done!

8. Get Out of the House Alone

I’m fortunate that I can leave the baby with my husband on the weekends, but for you single mothers, I hope you can find a baby sitter or ask a relative to watch your child. You HAVE to get some “me” time every so often. I find that every two weeks is what I need but some may want as much as once a week. A couple of hours is all you need to feel revitalized. Mothers need to feel like they still exist as individuals. It will help you to keep it all in perspective and it will feel amazing when you come home and your baby is squealing with delight to see you again!

7. Change of Scenery

This can be used in so many ways and it almost always works! Sometimes it can be just going outside, sometimes it can be letting them play alone in their bedroom playpen. It just works because the child is distracted from whatever was upsetting them before and is now given something new to do. A lot of the time kids get grumpy and upset because they’re bored as well – so this solves that problem. It can also be changing from you to your husband or vice versa as the babysitter. Your kids can be very empathic and will pick up easily when they know you are stressed or annoyed. Switching off to a fresh parent will work wonders.

6. Buy Some Headphones

Most are probably cringing at this one – but a good pair of sound blocking headphones will help you A LOT! My husband got them for me for Christmas and I love them! When I put the baby down for a nap, we have a certain neighbor’s dog that just loves to bark at everything that goes by. And it always seems to be RIGHT after I put the baby down! Sometimes it keeps the baby up and sometimes it bothers me more than the baby!

These headphones are great for that. You can’t even hear the dog barking and it helps save your sanity. Baby naps are supposed to be a break in and of themselves for the stay at home mom – so don’t let annoying neighbors rain on your parade. Don’t ever use them without some way of monitoring your child though. I have a video monitor of my baby’s crib so I can check every so often to see if he’s alright.

They also work well for when your husband is home and able to watch the baby for you, but you need to get some work done. In my house, while I try to work all I ever hear is, “Mamamamamamamama!” It’s cute, really, but when you have to get things done, Daddy is going to have to be good enough! I always take a break to go visit with him – but if I didn’t have those headphones, I’d never get anything done!

5. Be a Teacher

Kids love to learn. They absolutely adore it. Keep up with age appropriate toys and buy them. Fisher-Price has a great site to help you out with how to find the right toys for the right age. Show your baby how to play with the toys – like blocks for instance. Teach them how to stack blocks, how to put the rings on, how to play a drum, or how to dance.

Sing to them! My son LOVES songs! His favorites are the ABCs, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and If you’re Happy and You know it. Even singing a favorite song will work for a child though – they just seem to like hearing a melodic voice coming from your mouth!

Read to them! They love to see the pictures, they love to hear the words coming out of your mouth while you read. It’s a wonderful experience for you both – try to read at least one book a day to them.

The bottom line is that if you teach a child – they will be engaged and less bored. They will also know how to keep themselves occupied when you need to do cleaning around the house and less likely to bug you the whole time. And it’s good for them! It’s good for your relationship together.

4. Be Loving

This is huge – be loving, spend quality time with your child every day. Play with them, engage them, hug them, cuddle them, tell them you love them as many times as you possibly can. You can never say, “I love you” enough to your child! This has everything to do with making sure that your kid has a healthy center. They don’t feel insecure – they know they are loved and you show it to them whenever you can.

3. Set Your Child Up For Success

Don’t leave things you don’t want your child to get into all over the place and then wonder why you’re stressed out when you find yourself having to say, “No!” every 30 seconds. Make a safe place with things that are right for baby to play with and then it won’t be an issue.

My house is far too open (and with a hard tile kitchen floor) so I had to invest in a bunch of Todays Kids Play Yard panels. I got lucky and found a woman who had 15 panels on sale for $65 on craigslist. If I didn’t have them – my life would be a whole lot more stressful. Most people can just close off their living room with a gate though.

2. Don’t Yell, Be Firm

When my son was a little younger – although I’m not proud of it – I found myself yelling a lot. One day my son yelled at me and it taught me a valid lesson. Your kids will pick up everything you do – so if you don’t want them to be yelling at you or anyone else – than don’t yell at them! Yelling – or raising your voice – is something that should be saved for when it’s needed, like an emergency. That one time you really needed your kid to stop doing what they were doing and a yell would have worked probably won’t if you yell too much.

“While yelling isn’t always bad – for example, if a 2-year-old is about to step into a busy street it’s good to yell – it isn’t very effective either. Even worse, yelling can easily segue into verbal abuse, which is extremely damaging to a child’s self-esteem.” from BabiesToday.com.

So try your hardest not to yell over the petty things; being firm instead when you need them to pay attention shows them that you can be in charge without getting out of control.

1. Time Outs

The most important sanity keeping device I know! A lot of friends I know don’t do this or they don’t do it every single time they should. If you don’t do it all the time – don’t do it at all. I’m going to make that very clear because it will just confuse your child. Every time your child does something wrong they should get a warning.

I go with a 3 strikes, your out method. So the child does something wrong and you say “No.” They do it again – another “No.” On the third “No” they get a time out. They are told that they are getting a time out for 5 minutes for not listening to Mama. I put mine in his playpen for the 5 minutes with no toys in his room. It works wonders.

It lets you know that you are in control, and it lets him know you are in control. Before I found time outs I was so insecure as a mother and I had no idea what to do when he was acting up.

Time outs teach children consequences and discipline and it can all be done without physical violence or yelling. Teaching your kids about timeouts early – I started when my son was 10 months – will help you avoid the below scenario. But it goes to show that timeouts will work even for a child who is used to getting away with murder.

 

On the flip side of this – make sure that you give your child praise when they DO listen. Tell them that they’re doing great!

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I hope some of these methods help you to find some peace of mind with the wonderful, yet stressful, new position you have in life: a parent.

Love Always,

Marie

What helps you to keep your cool as a parent?

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Photo by: John Krytus

There is No Bad Art

“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.” – Picasso

Why do people feel the need to define something that’s existence relies on the inspirations of the creator? Art and the appreciation of art are subjective – therefore they can never be defined in one way to everyone. What upsets me even more is when critics add the label of ‘good art.’ Art can be neither good or bad. As much as we as individuals may think that something is bad, someone poured their heart into it and it means something to them. It may also mean something to hundreds of others.

In this post, the author describes an art professor who once told her that a work of ‘art’ should be defined by the artist’s ability to bring something into existence from his own imagination that did not exist before. By the professor’s definition of art since Michelangelo’s “David” was commissioned than it wasn’t art. This is an amazing example of how people put labels and attach barriers to art that don’t need to be there.

There are so many comments, posts, and articles that I have read that serve no purpose but to be horribly negative and restraining to what should be a free and creative culture. One said that ‘good art’ is something that should bring you to tears. In another instance, when I mentioned that I was an artist to a friend, he decided to rant on about how he doesn’t consider art to be art unless it provokes a profound emotion within him.

Artists have ups and downs with art, but to expect that every single piece of work that any artist does should be profound or make you cry is ludicrous. Every one is entitled to their own opinions. I respect that. But be responsible. Don’t throw opinions around solely as a dampener to the spirits of hundreds of thousands of artists.

Most artists simply try to express themselves through their art. That may mean something to me and nothing to you, but that doesn’t mean that it is not art. And it certainly doesn’t mean that by detailing what you think art is, that every other work out there by default is not.

In a post on sophilos, the author writes a perfectly logical reason why art can’t be defined.

“… we should not take any definition of art as granted, nor should any individual think that its perception is applicable to other individuals.”

This may seem heavy, but it is just an intelligent way of saying that art is different for everyone and therefore can never have a canon definition.

Narrow and rigid opinion about what art is can be depreciating to the artistic community; it creates a social atmosphere of condescension in what should be a free and creative process. It may make an artist think that they’re not good enough to fit into what is considered ‘good art’.

What they need to realize is that the only thing that gives these ‘authorities’ on art any credence is whether or not we choose to listen to them.

You have the right to express yourself as an artist and nobody can take that away from you.

Love Always,

Marie

Do you feel that there is no such thing as bad art or do you disagree?

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Photo by: Ruslan Kapral