5 Things you need to do after a painting is finished | Kyle V Thomas Fine Art

Thank you, Kyle Thomas, for excellent advice.

5 Things you need to do after a painting is finished | Kyle V Thomas Fine Art:

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Herringbone Geology - a new nano-d

Original Herringbone Watercolor

Herringbone Geology could only have been created with Photoshop®, the new power tool in my lifelong learning toolbox.

Until a few months ago, I had  been using Photoshop® to document and upload art to the nanoscapes and small friends websites, and for entries for exhibitions and contests. I wish I could remember why I decided to fool around with images, but I can't, and I will celebrate the happy accident forever.

Herringbone Geology began as the tiny 5x7-inch original watercolor above. I experimented and created many different colored images, and tried,unsuccessfully to work out patchwork designs that I liked.

Light Purple

Very Red

Patchwork: eh?

Green

Yellow-ish

Herringbone Geology

BREAKTHROUGH.  I took a single deep purple block, duplicated it, horizontally and vertically flipped it, and created a new single block. Using the language of quilters, I "pieced" some blocks together to create Herringbone Geology.

An 18x 24 inch Herringbone Geology print on fine art paper made with archival ink is available at nanoscapes. Contact sgainen@gmail.com  directly for a larger print.

10 tips for daily (or other) painters

My 2012 Daily Painting Began with "7 hippos marching"

When one of my colleagues at the LinkedIn Daily Painters and Collectors Network suggested that everyone encourage a Daily Painter, I cheered and made this list which is good for all creative folks and for anyone with a project that is just out of reach:

1. Paint every day if you can. Sometimes, you can't. Don't fret.
2. If you can't complete an entire painting in a day, don't fret. Leonardo didn't finish the chapel in one day, either.
3. If you can't get to your paints everyday, think about something that you would like to try. Write it down or you will forget it. Keep the list in a handy place or you will lose it, or, in a fit of super-cleaning, you will send it out with recycling.
4. When you get back to your studio (or, in my case, a table in my living room), look at the list. Some of the ideas are genius. Some are not. Laugh if you must.
5. If you have lots of work in progress, hang the pieces up or you will forget them. I have too many mostly-done works on an easel. I need another easel.
6. If you can't paint everyday, sketch something. Pick up your pencil. It is a magic tool, sometimes with a mind of its own. Let it lead you to a new place.
7. In creative brain-freeze land? Pick up an art book. Go to the library or to your favorite used bookstore, both of which have hundreds of art books waiting for you.  
8. Need to get out of the house or out of your comfort zone? Go and look at public sculpture. Like it? Don't like it? Either way, a response can get you out of your creativity brain-freeze. 
9. Go to a museum. Everyone there loves art, and these are your people. If you don't live near a museum, hundreds have put substantial collections on line. Bert Christensen has posted a helpful list. 
10. Can't paint because you have no space? Clean a closet. Apply these tests: (a) Do I need to keep this? (b) Do I need to keep this here? (c) I can get rid of it if it was given to me by someone to whom I no longer speak or who will never, ever visit. (d) I can get rid of it if I don't remember how I acquired it and I have never used it.

Personal note: I am in my second year of Daily Painting, and I post an image-a-day to Facebook. This is cross-posted to the small friends blog.

2012: an image a day from nanoscapes & small friends

IMAGE-A- DAY

January 1, 2012 from a camera photo
of "7 Hippos Marching"

I posted an image a day to Facebook from October 2010 to September 2011, and it's time to start again.

Image-a-Day 2010-2011

Those images were thematic and either related to specific months (pumpkins for October, leaves for November, lost-left-handed gloves of January, raindrops for April, ears of corn for July, pencils for September), or joyfully random (introducing the LLLama family in May and 30 new small friends in June).

Because both nanoscapes' geometric abstractions and whimsical small friends will be part of this project, the theme for 2012 will be "surprise!"  This first image is part of a 7-hippo family portrait which will join the small friends website next week.