Painting Interiors

January 2016

I discovered something new to paint which is a little bit like plein air painting only inside.  I just moved my plein air set up around the house.  Being snowed in helped. 

I approached it the same way I do my landscape paintings by doing an underpainting in burnt sienna and finding a pattern of darks that hold it together. 

Both on DailyPaintworks:  http://www.dailypaintworks.com/artists/carol-josefiak-3555/artwork

Daily Paintworks

 

Thank you Daily Paintworks

 

 

This painting was chosen as a "Judges Pick" for the month of October so this means my paintings are shown at the top of the gallery page for this month.  I feel very honored to be chosen for this.  Thank you.  It is a good idea to enter this contest.  If you aren't a member of DPW, I encourage that, too.  It's really given me a more disciplined approach to painting by painting every day and posting each day on the website.  Here is a link to Daily Paintworks.  Plus I have had to become more organized with record keeping and filing my paintings.  My spread sheet is nothing to write home about, but for the most part I know where each painting is.   

 

 

Red is for Valentine

February 13, 2015

 

 

I like red every day of the year.  Click here to see my gallery on Daily Paintworks.

Last of PB and J series for awhile

July 7, 2014

This is the last painting in my pb an j series.  Between the donuts from Buffalo and the sandwiches the calories have added up to tighter clothes.  My plan is to switch to low calorie paintings for awhile.   Don't forget the paintings of Eileen's Bakery and Café because I bought treats both times I took photos. 

Series of 3

Link to http://sprelly.com/ - best peanut butter ever

Auction at DailyPaintworks

15 March 2014

I just listed some (6) paintings at Daily Paintworks in the Auction.  I looked at what other artists do and, that is, start the bids at $10.  So far there is only one bid so these could end up being a good buy.  I listed some nice ones.  The auctions last 7 days, then are re-listed.  I thought it was worth a try. 

Marketing is a perplexing subject. 


http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carol-josefiak-3555

Inspiration

March 7, 2014

 "the best teacher is the very act of painting," by Joaquin Sorolla

I was so inspired by this article that I received in my mailbox today.  Patti Vincent's quote by Joaquin Sorolla really caught my attention.  Plus her paintings have such bold and beautiful brushwork.  Daily Paintworks includes interviews from different artists each week.  Patti Vincent's dedication is very motivating.  Painting everyday is a big part of her strategy. 
(click here for link to this article)

Joining Daily Paintworks has helped me a lot for quite a few reasons:

painting everyday  (almost)

learning from other artists

a great resource for tutorial help

exposure to so much wonderful art

meeting other artists online

learning new techniques

a chance to sell paintings

having the weekly challenge available

You can tell I am a big fan of Daily Paintworks. 

I did this painting yesterday and tried some new things.  One of the many artists I admire is Qiang Huang  (over 800 of his paintings shown at DPW).  He has an article in The Artist magazine this month with a very helpful demo.  He talks about using a palette knife for the areas he wants to emphasize.  I tried that out.  Maybe you can see it in the photo.  I really like the effect. 

( I listed this at DPW.  Their listings let you zoom in an see the brushwork better than here.  Here's the link:  http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carol-josefiak-3555

January 6, 2014

Thank you to my grandchildren  Maggie, Lillie and Cece for these creative gifts.  I'm using the book filled with ideas to paint and encouragement. They are awesome!  I'm blown away by their talent. 

Here is my painting from yesterday for the Leslie Saeta challenge and Daily Paintworks.  I'll put it on ETSY, too. 

"Lounging" would be a good title for this one.  Darwin likes to lounge on the couch. 

Ways to Improve your Paintings

September 25, 2013

 

Paint the same thing more than once

It's not something I do all the time, but every time I try it, I think why don't I do this more often.

Which one did I do first?     Which one do you like better?  

(I made it easy to leave comments because I removed that crazy robot letter-thing under comment moderation-it's easy to do and you can still read comments before they are published).

I toned one with a really light color and the other was dark. 

Both 6 x 6

Today I put one on Daily Paintworks of some cups with a little pitcher and a couple days before I did one using the same cups, but with a sugar bowl.  I'm going to do one more with those cups because I made the sugar bowl so big it might overpower the cups so I'll try another one with a smaller sugar bowl.  The title will be "Sugar Daddy".  I just love that title.  On facebook I already renamed the first one "Sugar Daddy".  (Remember that post a few days ago about titles.  I'm trying to do better with that.)

I can't think of anything too interesting for these titles.  Ideas?

Daily Paintworks - link to see cup paintings

Painting a Day

July 25, 2013 - Have you thought of starting a business with your art?

I realized yesterday that I haven't been posting my daily paintings each day.  Since the name of my blog is "Painting a Day" this might be a good way for me to keep track of my progress by using the collage  which I learned in the marketing challenge.  (Leslie Saeta even put the challenge in the form of a free e-book) on her blog. 

 

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carol-josefiak-3555

( so far I have posted 191 paintings and am selling on a regular basis now- I am proud of this)

 

I encourage you to join Daily Paintworks.  It provides a place to track your progress and is an incentive to paint every day.  Before joining, I did paint every day, but without this kind of focus.  It has energized me to paint even more and the discipline of doing a small painting every single day has helped me improve my skills.  It has given me momentum to add marketing, create a website, and do more blogging.  Don't forget, pinterest, although I spend more time than I should looking around at other boards, it is a good way of educating yourself and often to get inspired. 

 

Carol Marine and her husband started this website (DPW) so artists would have a place to show and sell their work other than ebay.  Thank you to them for providing this opportunity.

 

If you plan on making a business of your art

 

create a website (FASO is a good one) -about $25/mo

join Daily Paintworks-$12.95/mo

create a fanpage on facebook -free

join pinterest - free

 

Radio Resource - "Artists Helping Artists"

July 24, 2013

More Resources.....

When I first started learning to paint, I was amazed at how accessible well known artists are to those learning to paint.  I was surprised when looking through an art magazine I saw that an artist whose book I had just purchased was teaching a class within driving distance from me.  I wrote about that experience on an earlier blog about Joe Anna Arnett.

I was awed by the generosity of  Leslie Saeta in offering a marketing challenge where she shared so much information new to me about marketing. 

Another recent discovery for me was a blog radio show called "Artists Helping Artists".    You can listen to it on your computer or phone and it is usually about an hour long. The host is Leslie Saeta, the person who offered the 30 day online challenge.  Currently, she a has a co-host, Laurie G. Miller, who also offers all kinds of helpful information.  They chat together offering more ideas than you could ever use.  Thank you to them for doing this valuable show


The link to the show is listed below.   Every week it is filled with great ideas.  I am listening to it right now. This week's show is about "How to Boost Summer Sales".   In fact they gave me the idea of having a studio sale.  They list what needs to be done with advertising.

(This is off the subject, but I recently was interviewed by a high school student who is thinking about becoming an artist.  One recommendation I gave her was to take some business and marketing classes along with her art program.)


Here is the link to the show:

Artists Helping Artists 

Now I have the idea to have a Studio Sale.  I need to pick a date, figure out what kind of discount to offer.  Maybe end of summer sale?

My plan is to create an album on facebook with Studio Sale items plus show a few on my blog. 

Here are a few that will be on sale:  (I'm still thinking about what kind of discount to offer)

These are all at Liberty Town Arts Workshop, but also listed at Daily Paintworks

18 x 25 - 575 (narrow black frame with gold trim on inside)

18 x 36 (?)  Price listed on Daily Paintworks

12 x 12 Green Shutter - 325 - wide black frame

Roses on Carpet - 12 x 16

Painting Demo

July 17, 2013

The steps for this painting:

The set up I used for this painting.  That is a piece of construction paper taped to a box for the background color.  I got this idea from Carol Marine.  I just bought a cheap pack of it from Michael's.

Feel free to use this photo for your own painting.

 I did this notan with my value viewer to see if I liked the composition.  I was satisfied with the pattern of lights and darks and the path of darks through the painting.


The next step  is blocking in the big shapes in a thin wash.  Before doing this I did a loose drawing of the shapes including shadow shapes.  (I forgot to take a photo of this step.)

Final phase included adding more detail especially to zinnia in front.  The hydrangea in back is very loose.  

Last step:  Posted painting on Daily Paintworks.  It is an 8x 10.
http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/carol-josefiak-3555

Daily Paintworks

Composition #10

July 13,  2013

Cropping

When my son was a baby I took a class in photography and one thing I remember the teacher saying is.... get your photo set up, then take one big step closer.  Most books on composition mention cropping.  I use my view finder for this.  I have a couple.  I'll included photos.  The one you make is basically two "L" shapes pieces that you can adjust so easily for size.  

The idea is to close in on your subject, simplify, and think about big shapes.  The value viewer works for this, too.  

There are a lot of good examples of compositions that are well cropped on pinterest and Daily Paintworks.  Carol Marine's ArtByte has some great examples.  I'll include one of of my own.  

This helps frame and crop the subject you want to paint in a landscape or a still life set-up.

These can be adjusted to any dimension, I like them both, but the second one you can make yourself.

This is a 6 x 6 of mine where I did some serious cropping as a part of planning this composition. 

Daily Paintworks  

Composition # 8

July 11, 2011

Our internet had a breakdown so I've not been able to add any posts for a few days.  I'm still studying composition and could probably keep doing that for quite awhile.  What got me going on this was my own frustration in doing a painting a day and keeping them interesting and worthwhile.  I realized that I needed to do more planning for each one.  I've been consistently adding to the Daily Paintworks Website and reached 180 paintings listed.  My goal is 250 for the year.   I was happy with the one I did yesterday.  

6 x 6 - Available at Daily Paintworks

The composition for this one was about having the darks create an armature and a gestural path into the painting.  This time I used the VALUE FINDER app from my iPhone to see the pattern that the darks created.  It is a really valuable tool in looking at the pattern of lights and darks.  I think it was worth the $4.99 that I spent.  You take a photo of your set-up and the value finder creates a number of different value patterns.  The most helpful to me is the NOTAN, a pure black and white version of your photo.  

The Art Tutorials at the Daily Paintworks are also worth investigating.  Carol Marine does a really good one on composition.  She recommends a book called The Simple Secret to Better Painting.

Here's a link to the tutorials:

Daily Paintworks Tutorials

Back to the subject of Marketing:

During the 30-day Marketing Challenge with Leslie Saeta, we were encouraged to let people know when something sells, and to spruce up our packaging.  I still need to add a nice bow, but want to buy those clear plastic bags first.  Now that I have decided on the frame size, I need to order bags, but in the meantime I think including the cards as a thank you make it a nice colorful surprise. 

The frames from my favorite, Franken Frames, gives the painting a nice finished look.  My husband puts paper and wire on the back so they look very professional. 

 

I still need to do a better job of advertising that the paintings are for sale. I have the DPW widget on the side panel of my blog, but half of the time I forget to put a link to DPW under the photo.  Here it is DAILY PAINTWORKS

 

 

 

Workshop Info - Joe Anna Arnett ( an outstanding teacher)  She has a facebook page that shows many of her stunningly beautiful paintings. 

 

I am still painting everyday, but put most of those on Daily Paintworks. 

 

 

Painting  of mine done last year.  This is an Anna Belle Hydrangea, the petals are small than the one we are used to seeing, but I was keeping Joe Anna's voice in my head about having a shadow side, under-mixing color, neutral background.......

 

 

This helps me, too.  Re-reading my notes and selecting the most important points is a good exercise on its own.  I'll just hope it is helpful to someone else out there in blogland. 

I put most of my photos from the class on yesterday's post.  I still can't find the photo of the watermelon set-up.  That was my favorite from the class. 

I am just including highlights and tidbits of information.  The things I have to keep reminding myself to follow. 

 - The eye is fascinated by variety

-Painting and palette should be in the same light

-start with big brush

-center of interest does not have to be just one thing

-use thumbnails,  don't start too tight, almost do drawing at end

-cast shadow is only thing we have to show gravity,   consistency of tempertature is needed because it shows it lived in the same light

-undermix paint

-USE LOTS OF PAINT

irregularity is interesting

-add local color to shadows

-distance steals value, things disappear with distance

-crisp edges come forward

-people like to look at impasto, eye goes there first, eye will go to contrast

-establish darkest dark and lightest light

LOTS MORE - JUST HITTING THE HIGHLIGHTS


Photos from my next workshop with Robert Johnson.  I have been so lucky to take classes from these wonderful teachers. 

 

 

Both painted after that workhop.  Next blog I'll show work from class and photos of set-ups.