My Latest Painting … Returning to an Old Friend

Posted on January 24, 2014 by janellmithani

She raises her eyebrow and, with a slight shake of her head, she pulls me towards her.

Her lips part, “Tsk, tsk, you have been away from me long enough. Return. “

I nod, and slowly walk through my landscape.

“Well, maybe just for a while.”

I raise my brush and return home.

After a three-year pause from portraiture,

the ever intriguing face draws me through my landscapes into her knowing eyes.

She beckons to me and my brush.

Once again, she has captured my attention.

—-

I have been sketching a lot lately and I have noticed an interesting difference between my sketches and my paintings. My sketchbooks are filled with the human and fae faces and of my dreams. Yet landscapes, nature and trees are what come from my brush. I wanted to start a new series and spent some quiet time over the holidays with my journal — Writing, sketching and thinking about how to merge my paintings and sketchbooks. I want them to share the space of my paintings. I wrote the above notes in my journal and then this is the painting that emerged.

Now, I am sketching with the intention of a painting. I still sketch to just relax and record memories and dreams, but now I feel a connection and “full circle” pattern in all of my art.

Well, I better get back to my easel so I can finish this painting. 🙂

Have a wonderful, creative day, Janell

Pallette vs. Palette

Posted on October 14, 2013 by janellmithani

I am always getting the spelling of this word mixed up. As a painter, I use it a lot in my blog posts so I decided to Google it to find out the correct spelling.

I don’t think I will ever get it mixed up again, LOL.

Pallette: an armpit plate in a suit of armor.

Palette:

1. A board, typically with a hole for the thumb, which an artist can hold while painting and on which colors are mixed.

This is my PALETTE from a recent painting session. I love my stay wet palette since I paint with acrylics and they dry out so quickly. This palette has saved me a lot of money by keeping my paints wet for a lot longer period and it allows me to keep my mixed paints wet for more than one painting session. I have a little spray bottle with water that I “spritz” on it that keeps everything just the right dampness.

It has been a good but hectic week. I met with a local gift shop/art gallery and they are going to carry my jewelry and paintings. I am so excited. I have been busy this weekend putting together a display for my jewelry. I will share a picture of it soon. 🙂

Have a wonderful creative day, Janell

T-Shirt Painting – Fun, Fun, Fun!

Posted on June 23, 2013 by janellmithani

Last week I had another art workshop for teens, and this time I taught a new class that I added this year… A T-Shirt Painting class. We had a lot of fun and everyone’s T-shirt turned out AWESOME! And so unique, everyone had a very personal vision for their shirt. Here are a few pictures from the class…sorry about the quality, I forgot my camera so I took these with my phone. 😦

This is the shirt I painted for a sample.

Wow, have fabric paints changed. I found all kinds of colors from neon to soft pastels and from shiny to matte finishes. Just be sure to prewash your t-shirt without fabric softener. I also put cardboard between the front and back of the shirts so the paint didn’t bleed through to the back of the shirt. Drying time was also pretty quick, just be sure to make thin coats of paint, I learned when I was painting the eyes of my fairy, that if you get too much paint it gets way too gooey and can turn into a mess.

I also had everyone create a pencil sketch first, then outline it with a sharpie and slip it under the front of the t-shirt to use as a guide as they painted. Since the t-shirts were white the sharpie showed through really well and you can see that some teens placed their paintings in different areas of their shirt, not necessarily centered. I moved my fairy sketch to the side and painted some of her up on the sleeve to be more whimsical.

This class was held at the Hastings Branch Library as part of their summer program and was filled to capacity. Such a great creative group! I really enjoy teaching art and craft classes to teens, they are always so fun and enthusiastic about creating art.

Do any of you teach art to teenagers? If you do, what is your most popular class? My most popular classes are Manga/Anime drawing, Jewelry and now… T-shirt painting!

Have a wonderful creative day, Janell

Garden Cottage Painting

Posted on January 8, 2013 by janellmithani

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″.