Tag: digital art

New Work – Palette Knife Practice

Playing with the palette knife brush in my digital painting program, and making fun modern pieces. I suppose I should have put borders on each image before uploading them, but they’re kind of fun anyway.

I progressed from being too restrained to maybe a bit too heavy-handed with the various effects by the last piece. I can never quite figure out when to stop – what’s too little, or too much. And I still want to use all the colours, and it kind of pisses me off to use a controlled palette but I’m learning.

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New Work – Hanging Garden

One of the things that inspired me to try my hand at painting (in any medium) a few years back was wanting to paint lush, colourful florals. The hanging garden, or the idea of a garden so full of vines and blooms that it begins to escape the confines of a trellis or fence and breaks free to another space, ideally one that is austere and plain so the flowers are even more of a delight because they are so unexpected, is something that I have aspired to achieve.

This is a first attempt, in Corel Painter, and while it certainly has imperfections, I am absolutely delighted with it in spite of (or maybe because of) that fact. Some of these flowers don’t actually grow on vines, but, hey, art is all about imagination, right?

New Work – “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing” Series

More fun with digital art apps. The inspiration is the many artists I follow on Instagram who do this with real paint and canvas and make it look so easy. I’m learning, but I’m also frugal, so I hate painting irl and having it come out crap and wasting materials. This is much more satisfying… and cheaper.

Clearly I like the ruler thingie that allows me to make straight lines.

See what happens when I just paint freehand?

 

New Work – “Grandma’s Garden” Series

I’ve been playing with a bunch of art apps on my tablet, as well as in Paint Shop. This series started with the orange and yellow lilies that I did as a card for my Grandmother’s birthday. Then I just kept going.

Every piece is done with the same digital “sketch” brush/tool, so it’s similar to working with real paint and a palette knife.

These are meant to be loose and abstract. I’m very happy with them, and I’ve got a whole list of others flowers to add. I may upload them to the POD sites as prints or maybe notebooks or greeting cards, since that was the original intention with the first piece.

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Long Time No See!

Is this thing on? Anybody still here?

It’s been a while, huh? How about that pandemic? That sure was something…

Anyway, like many people, over the past three years, I’ve seen my share of ups and down. Lots of downs. But so far, 2023 has been pretty decent, and things are looking up.

So this site has gotten a bit of an overhaul to better reflect what I’m doing now. I’m still writing – I’ve just started my fourth book, a mystery (hopefully a series) loosely inspired by a Toronto musician from the 30s and 40s.

I started making wacky jewelry pieces that probably nobody but me will ever want to wear, but I think they’re amazing. Some of these items are available on Etsy if you’re also the kind of person who enjoys rocking an outrageous statement necklace.

I also started making art of various types, including paintings and sketches but mostly digital art which I get the biggest kick out of seeing come to life on some garment or usable object.

All of which is to say that regular readers (all eight or so of you…) can expect to see more art and writing, and less food-related stuff. I’m not sure yet. I’ll see how it goes.