Happy New Year!  Here is a painting I made titled “Garden Cottage.”

I think I would like to escape to this little cottage and spend the day painting. 🙂  I am really enjoying acrylic painting again, I  just started again three months ago after about a 20 year break.  This is the second painting I did this past Fall.  I have done other mixed media work and I am still experimenting with the style and brushwork I like best.  But I think my style is emerging…

I didn’t get much painting done in December, although I did make a painting for my husband for Christmas.  Of course, I finished it the day before and popped it into a frame I had out in the studio just in time to tuck it under the tree.  I have switched to working in acrylics instead of oils and I like the faster drying time.  I have always painted fast a furious!  So working in acrylics goes along with my style and much easier cleanup.  I am really liking the full body acrylics, especially the ones by Golden.  And all the textures and mediums…

I also love to take pictures and have a huge library of images on my computer to choose from.  So I have no loss of subject matter, now… just need to make more time to paint in 2013!

I have been looking over art books and studying different techniques and brushwork applications as I work on developing my style.  I just love research, actually sometimes I think I get so wrapped up in research that I can’t seem to get time at my easel.  Below is the painting on my easel at about 2/3 of the way finished so you can see a bit of my process.  I did a lot of toning down of areas to bring the focal attention to the little cottage.  I also added some yellow and warmed up the tone of the painting.  The finished painting is on a panel with 3″ deep sides and is 11″ x 14″.

Wishing you a wonder fun-filled creative year!    Janell