Hey everyone!
Sorry I meant to post this sooner but better late than never, right? I have had an extremely eventful few weeks. Starting off I have completed the Koi Fish Pond piece and results are... well... I'll be straight with you they need work. They didn't quite turn out how I had envisioned, but thats ok because failure is apart of learning. In better news I finished a commission that a client had asked of me, she gave me the colors she wanted and left the rest to me. I settled on a feather design that I found online and after a lot of trial and error I am finally happy with the end result! Additionally, exciting shows are in the works as I am gearing up for the St. Pete Awakening Festival on March 11th and 12th. Lastly I have been in communication with Blick art store here in Tampa and they have agreed to showcase my art in their store!
Before we dive into all those other exciting events lets talk about Mr. Fish. I know what worked well and what fell short. I really like how the pour came out on the cake plates, the colors worked great and the bits of green looked just how I wanted. the stencil worked as intended but I noticed that it works better on solid color backgrounds. Unfortunately thats about where it ends for what went right and now heres what I learned. The reason that most people don't paint on cardboard is because the moisture warps the board. Also, trying to spray a stencil on a warped board is not the easiest thing to do. Finally, I believe I need another stencil of the body of the fish so that its not so transparent.
Koi Pond Mk1 & 2
Ok enough of that! Let's talk about something more successful! As you may have noticed on the front page I have developed a new style of acrylic pour, The Feather! Several weeks ago a friend asked me to make a painting for her room that matched her color scheme. She gave me gold, turquoise, and light blue. It was then up to me to make something with those colors. I was watching art tutorials on youtube when I found one for the feather. I was completely blown away from how amazing it looked. I messaged her and informed her that I had found her painting. Now, I'd like to say that it was a total cakewalk and it was beautiful the first attempt and everything was just peachy. I'd like to say that... the reality is that this was one of the hardest techniques I have done yet. No scratch that, this was the hardest technique I've done since starting this endeavor. What you see posted here is the cumulation of 2 weeks of trial and error (mostly error). There was 1 point that I almost gave up due to frustration (but I didn't :D). Basically, to make one of these feathers I needed to pour 2 cups of paint on top of each other controlling the speed of the paint exiting the cup, the speed of my hands moving across the canvas, the location of the cups, and the fluidity of the paint. But I have to say the end result is pretty spectacular!
Turquoise Feathers
Mythical Plume
Last bit of business that is on our agenda is the St. Pete Awakening Festival. Over the weekend in March 11th and 12th you can find me and my tent posted in downtown St. Pete displaying many of the works you see here on my site! I do have a few points that need to be touched before I am ready though. Biggest part is my tent, I currently have one setting in a box in my living room, so thats squared away. The problem arises by trying to figure out how to display my works. My plan is to attach a tarp to the sides of the tent via zip ties and secure everything with sandbags. I think I'll be able to secure the painting to the tarp with zip ties also but I'm not sure. I'll do some experimenting later this week to see if that actually works. Last but not least my goal is to have 6 really nice paintings to display at the festival in addition to the many smaller works I already have done. This is the biggest event I have ever done to fingers crossed it works out!
So as anyone who knows me will know that I am constantly floating in and out of art supply stores. I have befriended some of the employees at Blick Westshore. As I was in picking up supplies I was talking to one of the guys who has helped me since I started. We got to talking and he mentioned that they were looking for an artist to hang up their work for the month of March. Not being one to miss up on an opportunity, I jumped on the idea and got into contact with them. Either tomorrow or Wednesday I will be going over to drop off some of my works to be sold on display at our very own Blick Art Store. I'll be sure to make a post once they get them hung up. They should be up for the entire month of march so let me know if you see it in there if you're floating by.
I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has supported me during this wild adventure. There have been more than a few times that I wasn't sure if doing this was a good idea or not. But being able to create beautiful things has always been something I wanted to do. Its because of you that I can do the things I love. Whether is buying my art, reading my blog, or simply saying "woah thats neat" I get to do what I love because of you. So thank you :)
Carver McCaskill
(Also here is a sneak peak of whats in the works...)
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