Summertime And The Livin' Ain't Easy by Leada Wood

Ahaaa Summertime! As I was standing in the warm sunshine watering...all the sights, smells and sounds evoked pleasant memories of many warm summer days. I love the familiar sound of the Cicadas in the trees. The sound takes me back to playing mud pies under the big Elm trees when I was a child. Summer just wouldn't be summer without their chorus.

My summer has been exceptionally busy with birthdays, graduations, travel, and a wedding! We have partied all summer so far. I feel a shift now...maybe a more leisurely pace akin to summer is coming? Summertime and the living' is easy!

July is World of Watercolor month and I have been painting and getting ready for the fall shows that are already requesting entries.  I am painting every chance I get but all paintings seem to be in different stages of incompletion at this time. I know the shows are coming all year but seems I do better with a deadline.

I had a fun paint day with friends a couple of weeks back and tried some Zen watercolor using only 3 colors, red, yellow and blue. The idea was to just put down color on wet paper and let it mingle and then go back in and very loosely turn the paint into something. In other words to let the paint guide me intuitively, which is the way of watercolor anyway, but looser.  It was an interesting exercise and good practice.

Guess I was thinking of my Mama’s Periwinkles when I painted this one. She always had them growing in her garden. 

This started with three puddles of colors as these all did. Wish I had taken photos of just the backgrounds. 

Love the way the colors shine though each other.

Linda painting

Kay painting.

And Pearl trying to keep us all entertained!

A card I painted for Sue’s birthday. We both love Sunflowers!

 

 



Happy Days Are Here Again by Leada Wood

Any day you are in the studio painting is a good day and teaching these kids is a pleasure! Here they are mixing paint and preparing the background on canvas. Quite an undertaking for smallish type guys.

In the spirit of autumn we painted pumpkins with a twist. They all love gnomes so what better way to paint a pumpkin than a gnome holding one. I think they all did a great job! Fun times!



 

 



Fun In The Studio, by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

You never know what the day will bring when creative minds get together. My dear friend Sue and I had a play day planned in my studio. I told her to bring her favorite rusty finds and we would do assemblage on a muffin tin but then we had a better idea, make faces on Matt board. She had done 

these before but I was a total newbie.

This is my first little assemblage. I love his crooked smile! These little guys are so liberating and relaxing to do and they make me giggle with their expressive faces. 

I decided my muffin tin was better suited for holding all my rusty parts. I already had a slight problem with saving old coupons and paper bits for collage, but now I have added a new addiction of saving rusty things. I imagine if you make something out of your found things it's recycling...right?

I recycled pieces of matt board that were too small for most of my paintings and cut them into 5x7 and 6x6 pieces. I used some of my old paper on this one and I like the way it turned out. These are just plain fun and I am using materials that are cast away and recycling them into art pieces. I think it's a wonderful combination! 

Be flexible... be open...be patient. Life has its rhythm and there is nothing you can do but dance with it.





Painting Like Mucha by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Alphonse Mucha was well known for his distinctive style of painting and began the Art Nouveau movement. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards and designs throughout his life. Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing gowns, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed halos behind their heads. He used pale pastel colors in contrast of contemporary poster makers of his day.

This is a couple of my girls trying their  hand painting like Mucha, I think they are off to a wonderful start!

After drawing their choice of Mucha's paintings on board and before beginning their paintings they had to experiment with paint and figure out what colors to use.  A lot of mixing and and testing went into this project and they made  a mood board so that they would remember how to make those colors.

Here they are in their creative zones with their reference photos and color mood boards handy laying
in colors that they mix themselves.  I also read to them the biography of Mucha's life as they painted. I think Mucha would be proud. I know I am!

Beginnings, Mixed Media, By Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Beginnings ©2018 Leada Wood

Beginnings are easy, it's the endings that are difficult as you can see from the photo. It is especially true when working with mixed media in a series. Since there is a lot of drying time inbetween, I like to have a lot of beginnings so I can keep working. Mixed Media has lots of layers and you must push and pull those layers with paint until you are satisfied. That's what makes it so intriguing and fun! For me it's all about the process and experimental,  and the adventure always awaits.

Beginnings ©2018 Leada Wood

This is a peek at my paint table. I have two other tables and a wall of shelves with supplies around me when I am working. Mixed Media takes a little more room when working in a series, or at least for me it does. Love seeing all my pretty paint colors while I am working. 

Printed papers ©2018 Leada Wood

This is one container of collage materials that I have made. I use to make papers in every color and still do with my Gelli plate but find I use black collage more and more as it goes with everything. Kind of like that little black dress in your closet. These are hand printed papers and that is another days work.

Background painting ©2018 Leada Wood

Do you see what I see? Might not look like much yet but there are about seven layers on this beginning right now, and I do manipulate the paint by drippage, spritzing alcohol and splattering. I like to keep it transparent while building up the backgrounds, at least most of the time. There are no rules when experimenting with mixed media.  I work in a series of 6-12 substrates at a time creating backgrounds so that when I am ready to develop the painting I have many to choose from and can add more layers.That's the fun about Mixed Media, you never know what you are going to get, kind of like a box of chocolates.

I Hope you enjoyed a peek into my process and studio. Thanks for stopping by!