Childrens Portraits - Creative Process

Behind the scenes I am diligently working. This portrait I started today. I've had many interruptions, but that is fine each time I come back I have a few more questions for myself. Some answers are clear and some a bit fuzzy. The creative process is an open zone to ideas. This one I started with a big brush and it's a larger painting on canvas. Am I  going to use brushes to complete or just to get some color and composition on the canvas? That's one of the fuzzy questions...and it better get clear as I'm at the intersection and people will start hollering if I don't proceed in one direction or the other.  It is my choice though as I'm the artist. So I deliberate with luxury and a lemonade. I try to focus on the end result, and the possibilities keep popping up.

Every day we are presented with questions and possibilities and we race through them  with, "Yes," and "No," and "Someday," or "Never."  We are almost computerized, but a painting is a work of passion and when it comes to love, we don't want to mess up. Possibly I will show you much progress tomorrow on this painting. For now I will have another glass of lemonade (it's finally wonderfully warm here) and think about the background. Do I want it full to the brim or rather simple? Decisions. Decisions. I really love the creative process at this moment.

Do check out some of my original paintings paintings for sale at Saatchi Art.  

If you want to see photographs of paintings and very little talking you can visit my Google Chrome posts 

Enjoy!

Art Pillows and Prints For Sale

My printed fabric is for sale in different throw pillow sizes! 

This one above is made from my art work.

Punch up the color a few notches and liven your interior decor.

Two different coordinating prints available at Fine Art America.

Most everyone knows I am crazy about flowers.

Our roses are still more than half dormant.

Today it was a balmy 81 so things will start blossoming overnight.

 Link to my many-sized-plush pillows here.

There are also two of my palette knife painting prints for sale.

Pink is refreshing and such a cheery color especially when offset by teal,

 lavender, green and gold.

Prints also for sale here.

Spring has rolled in after many attempts!  I can't wait to do some plein air painting 

before the onset of gnats and mosquitos, but I am not complaining one bit.

Painting Montana's Prairie

                 
                                                                Painting In Progress


I'm currently working on this acrylic painting hoping to finish tonight. It's a painting of the Montana prairie, a mustang pony, and a family member. I'll be the first to say this has a punch of color. My Dad would always say he thought the most beautiful landscape was in Eastern Montana. When I was little and we visited I thought it looked barren, but these grassy plains were my Dad's playground when he was growing up in a large family. They raised sheep and cattle and they didn't have fences except in a barnyard corral. They all herded sheep. Someone had to be out there with them all of the time. These days you see field after field of wheat in the Summer. Also pheasant, elk, quail and a long list of fowl and animals.

I tried to get the richness of the colors when the sun gets a bit lower.There is so much sky out there. I made it darker than I normally would to set off the grasses.  The grasses are remarkable in the late afternoon and much darker. For this painting I actually brushed in a sketch of the mustang pony (what you see) and now I have to paint it with a knife and touch up the man. That of course will prompt me to do a little more here and there. The creative process. Some days it's so smooth you can't believe it. Other days, well, it's a little longer road to the finish line.

Thank you for visiting. Leave a comment if you like.

This will be for sale online with Saatchi Art

Princess Kaiulani Painting

                                         
                                                               Princess Kaiulani Painting
                                                                       11 x 14 inches

In Hawaii there are many places, parks, schools, hotels, and buildings named after this beautiful young princess in Hawaii's Royal Family. She is still carried in the hearts of Hawaii's people and will not be forgotten. Princess Kaiulani was half Hawaiian and half Scottish. Her mother was Princess Miriam Likelike (a descendent of King Kamehameha I) and her father, Archibald Scott Cleghorn who came to Hawaii from Scotland.

It was said of Princess Kaiulani when she was alive, "It is impossible not to like her." That is still true today.

I painted this in an Expressionist and Impressionist style with a palette knife in a painterly fashion used by the old masters such as Van Gogh and Madge Tennent. Madge painted a number of Hawaiian people when she lived in Hawaii.

This portrait painting of Crown Princess Victoria Kaiulani Kawekio I Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn is available for sale through Saatchi Art. $1,300.00  More details and link here.

Did you know that King Kalakaua of Hawaii met Thomas Edison in New York in 1881? On King Kalakaua's birthday, November 16, 1886 Iolani Palace was lit with electricity. In the year 1888, Princess Kaiulani flipped the switch that lit the town's streets.  

Miss Kolden Impressionist Painting

                                                                       
                                                                       "Miss Kolden"
                                                                      Masonite Board
                                                                       For sale here.

There is something peaceful about painting. I hope that is one thing that might show up in my paintings.

I've noticed in my portraits, this one included, that the eyes never look directly at the viewer. My goal is to make them look slightly relaxed and approachable.  I say, "Slightly." I also mean, "amused, thinking, shy, or busy."

Today it was a delicious temperature,  in the 70's. It made me wonder how these ladies in the1800's and early 1900's wore all of these long sleeves and long dresses, etc. in the summer months? And happily cooked over a wood stove. One thing we know. they probably weren't cold. Whew!

The garden will start popping open  flowers like popcorn after a few warm days. I can't wait to paint some of the gems. Hopefully their happy faces will be obliged.

Abraham Lincoln Portrait

                                                                       14 x 11 inches
                                                                           Acrylic
                                                                         Carol Yap    

This painting started out with brushwork and I was going to leave it like that. It did stay that way for a few days and every time I walked by it, I thought, "I have to change it."  When the opportunity to paint came I changed it to a palette knife portrait and the looks are much different. Raw and meaningful I would describe it. More texture, more personality, more courtroom wear and tear of a young lawyer. The former was too smooth and we know his life wasn't exactly smooth. All of these things reminded  me of other painters and their feelings about painting.

Edgar Degas, "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."

Degas also said, "Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

The funny thing is I understand both of these conflicting statements. When we are painting we are a mixed bag of emotions. Degas painted around forty self portraits at the beginning of his career. Edgar's stomach must have sank and lifted a few times.

Details of Abraham Lincoln's portrait painting for sale here.

Van Gogh's Birthday

                                                                 
                                                                   Mind Word Threads
                                                                           Acrylic
                                                                           8 x 10
                                                                        Carol Yap


Yesterday, March 30th was Van Gogh's birthday. I must say I did think of him when I used a palette knife for this painting yesterday.  For me the palette knife gives energy and vibrancy to the canvas regardless of the color used. Van Gogh used brushwork for that. He could paint four green vegetables against a green background and it looked great.  Do you think he had those moments during painting where you feel you are balancing on the brink of disaster or genius? Which is felt momentarily about half way through a painting, but dissolves as you continue to paint. There was an "Aha" moment for me when I looked into this painting and saw a resemblence of myself. This was painted from an old black and white photograph of one of my ancestors. The image was about the size of my thumb so it didn't give me much to go on, but was a start.    

Mind Word Threads is now available at Saatchi Art