Landscape ACEOs

Skyline Watertowers, or Constellate
28/100 in 100 creative challenge, 6/28/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic and paint pen on linen finish paper, 2.5"x3.5" ACEO

You'll have to forgive me. My challenge numbers are getting out of order. But I am behind in posting and still have 2 or 3 paintings to put up here... and I am not quite caught up to paintings. Oh, those lazy days will get you.

So when I went to the art store to pick up new brushes, I got a little pack of ACEO blanks. I figured, why not? And then, when I had mixed up too much of a gorgeous blue color for a flying girl, and I didn't want to waste all that paint, I grabbed one of the ACEOs and painted the whole thing. Then I found one of my lost inspiration tiles randomly on the floor, and it said "skyline." I thought, hey, why not? I'd also been seeing city skylines, and watertowers, so I thought I'd go for it. I like it.
Passing Landscape 1
29/100 in 100 Creative Challenge, 6/30/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on linen finish paper, 2.5x3.5" ACEO

This too started as the leftover paint of a painting I was (still am) doing this morning. The color and image is no doubt inspired by what I was doing yesterday.

I've been going through all the photos on my computer, in anticipation of getting a new computer, and getting rid of anything I wouldn't send, post, paint or print. The problem with digital is that it is so easy to take as many photos as you want. But what do you do with them then? Best to get rid of all but the best.

I came upon a series that I took last year while on a road trip. I took the photos out of the back car window as the sun slowly rose. When I went through my photos, which I'd never touched since I uploaded them, I lightened them and heightened the contrast on the predawn, too dark pictures and gasped at what came out. Some of them were so lovely. Some of them looked like paintings. They are smudged and blurred and random and shadowed, and they probably show what a bad photographer I really am-- I have zero technical skills, but I still love them.

Road Trip
7/08

This is one of them. It's the one that most reminds me of the ACEO. I have the feeling that I will be doing more of these paintings. I don't feel that I really captured what I wanted to... although I do like the little painting, I'd just like to work a little more on the possibilities.

I did the painting after looking at the photos yesterday, but I did not use any paintings as sources. I kind of think I should, but maybe I would feel too stuck to the photo?

I also noticed that with the 100 in 100 project, I am almost forced to try new things. I simply run out of ideas. I have to experiment or take a side path. One might look at my Flying Girls and wonder why I would do landscapes, but this new series of Flying Girls doesn't have the landscape background that many of the old Flying Girls did. In fact, both of these ACEO's could have been the background for a flying girl.

So even if a painting or a topic or a technique seems like it's a departure, maybe it's just a little return to something you once loved.

I think the past is such a rich vein to mine.