Pears, Pears Everywhere

I've got pears on the brain because I want to do a large pear painting for my dining room.  Problem is, I'm not sure exactly what I want to do.  Eureka! 9" x 12" journal pages are the perfect way to experiment and that's just what I've done.

The first page I did was my experiment with the Super Heavy Gesso.  I gessoed the background and the pear, too.  After the gesso dried (overnight) I painted my first pear painting!  I love the texture - definitely out of my comfort zone.

This is pretty straight forward.  Gesso and artists acrylics were used.

I decided to go a little funkier with the next pear.  I use the term "pear" with artistic license - looks more like a deranged apple to me!  This is water soluble wax pastels with a touch of craft acrylic.

As long as I was experimenting, why not go hog-wild crazy! There really is a pear in there - somewhere.  This is gesso, craft and artists acrylics.

This is one of my favorites and the one closest to my usual style. This is artists acrylics.

This was way too much fun!  No paint brushes were used except to apply the stem.  I used craft acrylics and applied red, yellow and orange randomly with an old credit card.  After that dried, I roughed in the pear shape in black craft acrylic with the tip of the card and dragged black paint over the background.  Then I took green craft acrylic and applied it to the top of the pear directly from the bottle.  I tapped the journal against the table and let the paint drip.  This may just be my inspiration for a large canvas.

Am I having fun "Happy Creating!"?  I would say so!

Weekend Art-O-Rama - Part 2

Looking back through my journal, I really did create a lot of spreads!  I was very much into playing in my paints with my fingers.  I find it very freeing to put the paint brushes aside and to "become part of the paint." This particular spread was completed using my fingers exclusively.  I began applying black, fuchsia and cobalt blue craft paint in a random, swirly pattern all over the pages.  Even before the background dried, I began to see the face on the far right so I indicated the eyes, nose and mouth using black paint.  The next two faces followed, and while the black paint was still wet, I began applying white paint to better define the features and add highlights.  I don't know where these creepy images come from, but maybe someday I'll figure that out - or not!  I have titled this spread "We Three Creeps".

This next spread is one of my favorites from this past weekend.  Remember the "Junk To Journal" posts?  Well, I decided to flip through some of my treasures from the paint store and I came across the card with the pear.  I just love pear images and I've been saying I need to complete "the obligatory pear painting" for years now.  I thought I would cut the pear out and use it in a spread that would become a preliminary for my painting.  That was my intention anyway.  What I ended up with was a very whimsical character with a pear nose.

I applied these paint colors as the background in a random fashion using an old credit card.  While the background dried, I cut out the pear.  The moment I placed it on the page I saw a nose and proceeded to draw a face around it.  I was thinking about all the artists who painted pears and even googled a few "just to be sure".  After I finished painting the figure, I added the lettering and then wrote in names of artists who have painted pears. 

He still makes me smile when I look at him.  He's very European with his handsome mustache, beret and striped shirt. Is that an accordion I hear? Do I smell fresh baked croissants?  Nope - that would be my imagination manifest through inspiration, and I hope you'll let your imagination come out and play when you're in "Happy Creating!"