While my daughter was home over the holidays, I wanted to take some photographs of her in the garden. It has been a while since we did a fun photo shoot and I wanted to capture the feel of a fairy in the garden, yet be true to her spirit.
This was one of my favorite shots.
Have a wonderful, creative, day, Janell
One of the biggest inspirations for my art is my garden. I love spending time gardening, painting and just sitting and observing what is happening outside my studio. I just love the tiny bright red blooms on the plants just outside my door. They seem so soft and fragile. I image little fairy’s snuggling among them for an afternoon nap.
I am also inspired by yellow and purple color combinations, lately. The bright yellow is so cheery next to the light purple of the lavender.
So… What inspires you?
Have a wonderful, creative day, Janell
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
janellmithani.com 
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