Easy, Breezy, Beautiful… Palm Tree?

Missed me? I’ve been trying desperately to bottle the last few hours of summer before the torture, more commonly referred to as school, resumes session. The demanding schedule has left little time for art-blogging. But here I as yet again, staying up too late to share yet another picture. It’s like an itch one has to scratch. Tonight I’ll share a more personal painting. It was painted about two moths ago and given to my step-father on his and my Mama’s wedding day. I’ll claim I am posting it in their honor, for it their I month+1 day anniversary. Congrats to them. Anyway here was the original Rachel Marie Ford he was given on that joyous day:

Yes, a painting of palm trees.  Not quite romantic, but he had asked me for a painting of a palm tree. Well not so much asked as made an offhanded comment about he’d always wanted one, shame he didn’t know someone who could paint him a palm tree. It was an odd subject for me to paint, as I had never considered a palm tree to be overly attractive. Or something that needed to be painted. At all really.

So I took some time looking at palm trees and looking at other people’s paintings of palm trees. Turns out his request wasn’t as weird as I thought. Apparently, Palm trees are all the rage…. And I had been missing out. Well, maybe not that far. But I was able to look at quite a few to get a handle on how others had managed the overall size and color.  I cheated a little in my composition on this one, while looking I saw a painting that had the tree angels and loved the idea. And in my defense, I had very little time to work out and other greater idea of my own, there weeding was two weeks after the proposal– But that it a very different story.

So I started with the two thin trunks juxtaposing one another and let it grow from there. The coloring and paint technique are fairly typical for my current ’style’, but I liked that it wasn’t so feminine looking. It has a quality to it. Less chick-ish. And that really surprised me. I was quite comfortable with my soft painting nature. But if I can’t paint both delicate lilies and palm trees, well, I might just be a real artist….. Someday.

 

 NOTE: This painting is available for purchase at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

A Nosegay a day…

This was a random painting I found archived in my images on the computer. I painted it after seeing the ‘real’ image in a museum one day. I’m completely embarrassed to admit that I can’t remember anything else!  I’ll keep looking for the name and once I find it I’ll pop the name of the painting and artist in! I just know that it was a copy of some famous baroque painting! Oops! Anyway, the reason I wanted to post it was to show another glimpse  of my incredible talent… kidding. I have always loved this painting. I am insanely proud of the billowy sleeves on the woman. The light and shadow in the crevices of fabric were hard to achieve but, I conquered. On the down side: her skin looks dreadful! Oh well, live an learn right? Actually this was my very first human attempt. I’ve never really been interested in drawing or painting people… Strange I know, most artist really enjoy capturing the human form. I must be anti-social on the inside, lol. After this multi-afternoon affair I’ve only attempted one other human. That went much better, but not yet a fantastic as one might predict I was capable of. Maybe I can get her up tomorrow.

In a more recent art update I spent my evening working on a new painting. It’s coming along really nicely, I cant wait to show it off! Hopefully I’ll get it finished before school starts back up next Monday.

I’ll be back soon with another painting!  

 

Rachel

 

This Painting is not currently available for sale, why not check out some that are at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

Grandeur, Glamour and Bee inspiration:Interior Rendering

I figured a break from reminiscing about my past painting was in order. Instead I thought I would share another form of art that is currently very important in my life. 

This particular rendering I did June of this year. I’m taking the summer to build up my portfolio for January, when applications are going in for my transfer to a big bad university (Dun, dun dum). That is, if I live through the rest of my classes.  I really wanted to do a rendering that highlighted rendering and drawing talents, and did not focus on my design aesthetic. So I choose a more architectural ‘room’ and stuck to a simple design. The marble floors took forever to plan out, but once I had those everything largely fell into place. I wanted to stick to a black and white theme and pop it with splashes of color. I ended with the citrus yellow and grass green, I liked that it could seem fresh and a slightly new idea. I was mildly terrified it would end up looking bee-ish, but thankfully the classic details really make for a polished look–atleast in my mind.

This marker rendering  is NOW AVAILABLE, why not check it and other out at http://www.rmf-designs.com/InteriorMarkerRenderings.html

Exploring Texture, Calla Lilly Painting.

Completed in 2007, this was an experimental painting that in the end stuck close to my usual look. I’d seen paintings cropping up with large blocks of color and texture overlapped with an image around town, namely places like Bed Bath and Beyond and liked the intricate mixed with the sleek. My version turned out far more colorful than my inspiration, sticking closely to my style of bold unforgiving colors, that speak to the senses. You could say my color philosophy is this: If something in my painting need to be pink, it might as well be hot pink. Subtle isn’t my preference in art, color or anything else really. The calla Lilly arrangement itself is  an extension of the piece. I arranged them myself during my time of slave labor at 1-800FLOWERS. I found it was difficult to translate an arrangement on to the canvas. There is so many nuances and depth layers one can create in a floral arrangement that are hard to fully express in a painting. Not to mention, around this time I was progressing from my instilled roots of up close flowers into the idea of an entire still life. Which for some reason was extremely difficult for me. Especially when I was first attempting, I would over paint the individual, until the painting look like a sloppy collision of bright colors. Looking particularly at this painting I can still see a little detail overload on areas of leaf. But the flowers are finally getting loose enough that they exist and are focal with out screaming. They allow your eye to follow the lines and patterns while retaining their integrity as the focal point. This was also the beginning of my love affair with primary colors. I’ve moved away from it some as time progressed, but there is a whole era or my art that relied heavily on a bold yellow matched with primary red and usually blue somewhere. Overall I like this picture, it was an interesting departure from my normal and helped me move forward.

NOTE: This painting is available for purchase at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

From yesterdays masters, to today’s nuances

After my trip down memory lane earlier today, I thought I’d show something different I’ve been thinking/working on.  It’s really shocking for a tragically classic girl like me: A modern mixed media piece that relies on texture and color blending, not classical subject matter. YIKES! Now, I was hesitant to engage in this art form. My honest opinion of extremely contemporary art is not, well flattering. Sure, I can find the beauty in an Anselm Reyle collage, with it’s monumental stature and unique placement of materials. But surround me in a room of Richard Hughes sculptures, I may find them interesting, but not particularly artistically pleasing. Can I appreciate the time spent carving marble to create the Initials LSD, sure. Do I really see the point? Nope, I can’t say that I do. It’s just not appeasing to me, the whole art ‘is a political and social statement’ thing.. But I digress. Here look at the pretty pictures:

 

Straight on

 

Side view to show texture

 

Moving Forward:

It was one of the funnest things I’ve ever done, it was a no-pressure situation where if it stunk I didn’t care. Perfect for a random evening of my life.  I got the benefit of a fun evening as well as a beautiful outcome. I was looking at it tonight and felt motivated to go forward, perhaps making it my second series? Hm, the possibilities are boundless. I’ll keep you updated.

This Painting has reproductions available at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

Georgia’s Flowers

                        During the O’Keeffe Faze

Another early work of mine. Well more artist milestone than early works. I’m leaving the time frame blank for this painting, because I haven’t the faintest idea. What I do know about this picture: It is very important to me! My very first muse was Georgia O’Keeffe. I LOVED her when I was begging to work as an artist.  Ha, I loved her long before I could qualify as an artist. I saw several being dragged into museums with my then wannabe museum curator sister. I was in room after room filled with large Baroque paintings of exquisite realism and none of them would faze me. No, I went straight for the small canvas that was filled with a full robust flower. Her paintings are absolutely perfect to me.

So around that time I bought a calender of her work, and painted every single picture to the best of my abilities, January through December. That is how I did the bulk of my learning. I would find images that I loved and painting styles that I’d love to be able to do and sat down and tried. Rarely did I succeed. But these whispers of past muses can be found in everything I paint today. It’s fun know to look at the flowers I copied from  her. I learned so much from enjoying her art. It really spearheaded my continuing my studies in both painting and flowers. Here is another ‘original’ copy I’ve always loved:

It’s almost weird to think about how much her art influenced my desire to produce art. I loved that she saw things differently than other people. She took you up close to the beauty of nature, and that’s a philosophy that’s stuck with me.

Think about it, Why stand back from the show when you can experience it?

Nabbing Nature’s Beauty

My recent trip home to Kennewick Washington left me bored and stranded at my Grandparents house. Luckily for me they have the most beautiful garden and koi pond you will ever see. It sparked my inner Ansel Adams to come out. My attempts at capturing nature’s essences are below, and quite stellar if I do say so myself. Well stellar for someone who rarely takes photographs of anything. In honor of my foray into photography I printed each one of these, as well as a few others, and hung them in a grid in my entry way. They look fantastic!

And Of course my favorites:

Papa

My Idyllic Nature

An earlier painting from oh, 2006 or so. I have a rough time remembering the dates on these things, date tracking is apparently one skill I am lacking at. This has always been one of my favorite pictures. I sat down, and it just came. I was thrilled with the look of the water. That is one of the things I’ve worked on pretty hard over the years. Well that and skies. There complex for me to paint, and hard to make look even a smidgen realistic. But this painting I think I nailed both pretty well, the sky isn’t realism, but I like the moving air feel it has. Looking at it now I just realized it’s one of the first times I used that technique in my marsh-type grass. Now a days that’s a signature look to a landscape. Hmm, no wonder I love this one. It has this cool laid back mood to it. Kind of makes me give a nice sigh. Yeah. Welcome to my melancholy.

 

This Painting is currently available for sale, why not check out  this and some others at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

Abstract Leaves Series

 

One of my only painting series. This one was done when the family moved into our new house. The dining room needed some real pizazz. It’s visible to almost everything (yeah for open floor plans) And the walls needed to remain insane asylum white. So I planned this wall filing foursome last year.

NOTE: Reproductions of these paintings are available for purchase at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html

Floral Painting: Dreamy Flowers

Dreamy Flowers

I did this painting for my Mother’s bathroom. She wanted it to look serene and abstract with beautiful bright colors. The flowers were done in all of twenty minutes, and the background was completed quickly as well. I worked on a really wet canvas to get an airy feel to the colors. The bottom half of the painting as been done and re-done and I can finally say I’m happy with it. The flowers were large enough they needed a large vase to anchor it.

NOTE: This painting is available for purchase at http://rmf-designs.com/Paintings.html