creative process – A Randomly Creative Blog

So my latest endeavor has been making creative/colorful/fun portraits of my grandkids. Today I’ll share the process and finished images of two of them – our oldest grands – who happen to be siblings. I haven’t been creating in chronological order exactly but thought I might share them that way anyhow!

I’ve found it a much different process to create female vs. male portraits, although I’m not exactly sure why. It’s not the facial structure so much, although that does differs, but I think maybe with the added color/highlights on their faces I tend to be more sparse with the splashes of color when creating a girl vs. feeling bolder with a guy? Or perhaps since we have five granddaughters and only two grandsons I’m just not getting as much practice on the guys? Not really sure! Here are some of the progress images of our oldest grandson:

I fall in & out of love several times during the process and, at least once, want to chuck it and forget trying but after several of them I’m realizing that’s part of my process. I struggled with the shape & proportions a lot during the first three or four of these but it’s gotten easier. Is that why they always say “practice, practice, practice”? Here is the finished image of his painting:

The work on my oldest granddaughter’s image went through the same process, there were times it just looked horrid but, in the end, I finally loved it. Here are some progress images:

I hope that sharing these rough images I will encourage you to not give up on your artwork, even if you feel like it’s not going well at all! Keep persevering! (Although I did paint completely over one piece so that’s also an option – do overs are always allowed!) Here is the final image:

As far as media I used graphite for the sketch, lots of acrylic paint, stencils for the backgrounds and a generous amount of acrylic paint pens as well. These are all on 9×12″ canvases…once I’ve done them all I am going to hang them all up together and have a “grandkid gallery” to enjoy!

I hope you are enjoying your creative time! With love,

Lynne

Earlier in the year I created some of my favorite recent batik artwork, using verses from the Psalms as my inspiration. I had been working my way through the Psalms and writing scripture that spoke to me in my journal along the way, making the selection process easy!

Each piece began by writing the verse in some sort of circular form on Unryu paper that had pieces of gold thread imbedded in it. As always I used my trusty Sharpie for that, knowing it can withstand the rest of the batik process without fading.

I took a wide brush and dipped it into melted wax and blocked off streaks of the pieces so they would remain white and then added light strokes of color with a feathery brush and India inks. Next all the pieces were entirely covered with the wax, crumpled to create cracks for more color to seep in randomly and then sprayed with liquid watercolors.

Covered with wax, crumpled and ready for liquid watercolors

After that application the pieces dried and then the wax was removed to reveal the final outcome of each. All four have been framed in 12×12″ barn wood frames. Here they are:

Psalm Circles 37:24, 32:7, 33:22 and 11:7

I hope you enjoyed this peek into the process!

Your randomly creative friend,

Lynne

Tag: creative process

More portrait fun!

Psalm Circles