Portrait Attempt

I've been looking at all the wonderful watercolor portraits on flickr and inspired to try one myself. Judging by my sketch it might not be very realistic. The model is much more attractive. Hopefully the finished painting will capture that. I'll take more pictures to show the work in progress.

Art Deco Painting

I don't think this is what most people would consider "art deco." It's much too sloppy with errant brush strokes and paint runs. But the colours make me think of art deco. I love how bold they are.

I don't know why i feel the need to classify or label different paintings? In my last post i wondered if my painting was "abstract expression?" I looked up that label and it said something about being anarchic, which isn't a feeling i had about those paintings. So i was probably wrong calling them abstract expression.

Joy to the World!

Abstract 4

I need to do a little research and see if i really should be calling these "abstract expressionist?" All i know is not much thought is put into design or colors when they're started. I just stop when i like them. I like the yellow square at the bottom of this one. It's a total accident. It wasn't planned. But maybe as the Freud saying goes "there are no accidents." I do think about balance though and try to make sure the eye doesn't get stuck in one place, or if all the action is on one side to balance with something on the other side.

Blue Abstract

I like the way this one turned out. It reminds me of when we rented condos at Fernie and the moon light falls on fresh mountain snow at night. It was pure abstract expression. I just painted the paper blue and then wet my brush and tried to clear some areas of pigment. There are multiple layers of blue and yellow revealed like a canyon carved by a prairie river.

Abstract Expression

I was inspired to paint this after seeing a painting on the show "Mad Men." Wow that show has style!

I like the way this one turned out. It's funny how my works always turn out completely different than the works that spurred me. I chose the wrong colours to begin with so i had to layer over some of the first shapes to change their hue.

I really need to paint more. I've improved my process of creating large files and colour correcting for upload to iStock. From what i earn from only a few files suggests that if i add a few hundred more paintings it could be a full time income. Although it's probably naive to make a reasonable extrapolation from such a small sample. Get busy Jones and find out!

Gotta Keep At It

As the infrequent entries in this blog might suggest, I haven't been painting much lately. That's totally counter intuitive given my last entry was all about how well my paintings have been selling on iStockphoto.com/philsajonesen

So here is something done on the weekend. No planning involved. Just started painting and this is what i ended up with. Kinda looks like a nature landscape.

In the recent watercolor magazine I saw an artist who ran a black marker along any hard edges. So i gave that a whirl too, but only around some shapes and below is the result. The change in colour temperature is just how both photos were photoshopped differently. I like the warmer top photo better.

iStockphoto Stats

A quick analysis of downloads from my iStockphoto portfolio in the last month reveals that:

36% were businesspeople
21% were paintings
15% was food
15% were travel pics
9% were girls
3% were miscellaneous photos.

As a percent of dollars:

29% were businesspeople
45% were paintings
7 % was food
11% was travel
4% were girls
4% was miscellaneous.

Wow! Really should proportion time spent on each similarly.