Category Archives: Art

Vintage Dress Form Painting…

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Spring Greetings!

I’ve been away from blogging for a couple of months due to family matters.  In March, my dad fell and injured his neck and has temporary paralysis, so I have been making a few trips back and forth to Oregon to visit and help out during his recovery. I must say…. it is FREEZING cold in that neck of the woods.  I am back home this week in sunny California and enjoying our 80 degree weather.  Everything is blooming and inspiring me to paint.

One good thing about not blogging for a while, is that I have lots of artwork to share.  While sitting with my dad, I had lots of time to sketch and in between trips, I’ve created a few paintings in the studio.  And my stress release habit of creating jewelry… well, let’s just say, I have quite a few new pieces I need to photograph and load to my online store. 🙂

I just looked thru my posts and noticed I haven’t shared this sweet little 8″ x 10″ painting that I made in February.

Romantic Vintage Fairy Dress Painting by Janell Mithani

It most certainly embraces my absolute love and fascination for everything vintage! And yes, I added wings! 🙂  I’ve collected and worn vintage dresses and jewelry since I was a teen, and love to use old dress forms to display my jewelry.

I hope you are doing well and I look forward to catching up on everyone’s blog posts.

I wish you a wonderful, creative, day, Janell

 

 

Two Timing My Easel

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The sun is finally shining this week and it has motivated me to not only work on one painting, but to do two paintings at once.  Actually, I do this often.  It is a creative process I enjoy. I like to work on a large painting and a smaller painting at the same time.  I have a floor easel that is my main easel and a smaller table easel that I put on a pedestal next to it to work on smaller canvases.

working on two paintings in the studio by janell Mithani

It is fun for me to hop between the two and also practical to work on one when I am waiting for the other to dry or if I need to take a break and, you know…  think! 🙂

Do you ever work on two projects at once?  Does this type of process work for you?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Have a wonderful, creative day, Janell

 

 

Happy New Year from Bella!

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Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.  We had our daughter home from school which was a gift in itself and had some wonderful visits with family and friends.  As usual, time certainly flew!A few weeks before th e holidays, I created this painting “Bella.”

painting of dog Bella by artist Janell Mithani

When I began the painting, I had a few concerns about painting a “white” dog.  But I was in luck, as my painting process worked great for this type of painting.

I work from dark to light, starting with a dark under-painting and then getting lighter as the painting progresses.  I also work back to front, laying in the background and then moving forward getting lighter and more detailed, thinking of my painting in “parallel planes” or chunks of parallel space that stack up as I move forward towards what is closest to me.

For this painting, I started with a deep gray background to compliment the grayish undertones in her fur.  I then blocked in a slightly smaller shape of the dog with grayish white.  Then I added hair and details, with each layer getting lighter and lighter, and I refined the shape of the dog with each layer.  For her features, I did the same process dark to light, adding details to the nose and eyes. The final steps were adding highlights to the eyes and her whiskers. It was hard to not paint the whiskers in earlier as I really wanted to paint them! 🙂

I do enjoy painting animals, the hair and fur are especially fun to paint.  But of course, my favorite part was painting the eyes! (I know, those of you who are familiar with my art are not surprised.)

A few more animals are sure to make it to my easel this year.  Along with more “Wildish Spirits” and a new series of feminine vintage memories that I began working on over the holidays.

I look forward to hearing what all of you have planned for the new year and wish you a wonderful, creative, year, Janell

Aqua, A Mermaid Painting

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Aqua, a sweet little mermaid slumbering in the waves.  I love the colors of this painting.

mermaid painting by Janell MIthani I did some traveling in September, visiting family in Oregon.  I had a wonderful trip, and it took me a week or so to wind down and get back to work in the studio.  This week, I got back to my paintings and this painting was still sitting on my easel, almost finished.  She seemed to be calling to me… 🙂  Finish me, please!

Here are a few pictures of my creative process.
sleepingbMy original sketch waterfaeblogThe background is painted and then I sketched in the mermaid with charcoal.
mermaidfinished
mermaidinprocess

Finished painting with a bit of tulle that I had in the studio.

 

Have a wonderful, creative, day, Janell

 

A Blue and Yellow Watercolor Flower Painting

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A lovely little daisy just called to me and said…Paint me!  🙂

blue and yellow painting of daisy by Janell Mithani
Actually, I’ve been creating a few dramatic watercolor flowers for my upcoming “Expressive Flower Painting in Watercolor” workshop. A fun introductory workshop to free style watercolor painting that I am teaching at the end of the month.

daisy painting in sketchbook by Janell MIthani

This summer was pretty wild, I taught quite a variety of workshops to people of just about every age!

I had a lot of fun, but I am looking forward to getting back to my Fall schedule of painting workshops, private art lessons and spending more time creating art in my studio.  I sat down and made a “To Paint” list the other day… from flipping through my sketchbook, it seems I have quite a few sketches that are ready for painting. 🙂

So I am off to paint!

Have a wonderful, creative, day, Janell

Violet and Grey, A New Painting

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I finished another painting in my ‘Wildish Spirit’ series.  This painting is in honor of my daughter and her love of horses and I titled it “Violet and Grey.”  She took a lot of horseback riding lessons when she was young, so when I decided to paint one of my FAE characters based on her, I felt a wild horse needed to be part of the painting.

painting Violet and grey by janell Mithani

She left a couple of weeks ago, returning to college.  I miss her SO MUCH!  I used her favorite color palette — purple, grey and black. It is a very cool toned palette and very different from my usual warm tones.  I did give her bangs and a bit of a wild hair-do to go with the horse’s wild mane.  I plan to hang the painting in her room, so when I walk by and glance in, I will see her in the painting, instead of her empty bedroom.

Of course, I am counting the days until Christmas break and I get to hug her again! 🙂

This is a close up picture to show the details of their faces.

Violet and grey painting detail by Janell Mithani

I didn’t do a sketch this time, I just worked from photographs I took of her in the garden last December.  And the horse is a merging of about 4 different horses I looked at as reference, definitely a fantasy breed… with my usual big eyes. 🙂

Here are a few pictures of my process…

VioletNGreyInProcess1W

I painted the background in and then did a charcoal sketch on top of it.

VioletNGreyInProcess4w

Here is a picture from the side of the gallery wrapped canvas.  I don’t think I have shared the sides of my paintings before on my blog.  It’s a little hard to see in the picture below, but  I painted the name of the painting along the thick edge of the wrapped canvas.
VioletNGreyInProcess2W

I hope you have a wonderful, creative, day, Janell