mixed media art

May 18, 2013 by Tara 6 Comments

TA DA!!!!

I don’t usually begin with so much pink enthusiasm, but something unexpected just happened. I finished a painting. {What the….} I’m very pleased because it’s been quite a while since I’ve a} finished a painting and b} done a process post. So yay on all counts.

As I mentioned the other day, I have a big old chunk of unfinished paintings hanging around in the studio, and I had some vague and ambitious notion to complete them all by the end of the year. As we come up to the midway part of the year I realise now that that was a hilarious moment of insanity, but I’m ok with that. {Aren’t they the best kind?!} You can see some of the piece that is underneath the painting I finished this morning.

I suppose you might say it was reworked, rather than finished, as pretty much none of the original remains. Since it was an experiment in colour and mark making I was happy to let it go and see what happened.

As you can see, the changes became more and more subtle as the painting went on. You can barely see what I did this morning because it was layer after layer of soft, pale glazes. I was quite glad I’d consolidated some ideas about how to finish a painting last week as I called on those ideas for this. In particular I went back and forth softening all the areas that were jarring to me {a benefit of having a long studio}.

Here it is hanging out with some buddies in the living room. Those colours make me die a little bit.

I’ll be putting it in the shop shortly. In the meantime, you can enjoy it here

In Flow by Tara Leaver

April 15, 2013 by Tara Leave a Comment

Angela Petsis is a mixed media artist who works with encaustic and photography as well as acrylics, pencils, pastels and so on. As a mixed media artist myself of course I am drawn to her layered and eclectic pieces.

Her paintings are full of symbolism and imagery that reminds me sometimes of Mati Rose’s work. I am having a secret love affair with elephants lately, seeing them suddenly everywhere in other artists’ work, and Angela includes them often I’ve noticed.

Frequent references are made to the circus, and also to nature, growth, and industry, often with repeated images and shapes.

Her work in encaustics is softer and more neutral in tone; you can see a beautiful selection in her Etsy shop.

I didn’t find any information about her as an artist in terms of her inspiration and motivation, but I think much of her work speaks for itself.

I love the layers where suggestions of details and words show through, and the delicate soft colours and meaningful images.

Many of her paintings remind me of dreams; a collection of disparate images that sometimes seem to have no obvious connection and yet make perfect sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Filed Under: artists, love it, mixed media art Tagged With: angela petsis, encaustic art, mixed media art

April 5, 2013 by Tara 3 Comments

My paintings can be loosely categorised into those which have some kind of message and those which just look pretty {or not, as the case may be!}. I realised this just now when I was thinking about the title of my newest painting, which took a while to come through but I’m pretty sure the wording is right now.

To clarify a bit ~ like any artist, my painting style evolves over time as I learn new techniques and move through different colour, shape and style preferences, as well as different moods and cycles in my life. I always wanted my work to be connected with the healing element of what I do, and for a long time it just didn’t feel like it was; it felt like everything I produced was, although often aesthetically pleasing, a bit ‘hollow’ or without any kind of depth and meaning.

I am not placing a value judgement on either approach; sometimes we just want to rest our eyes somewhere beautiful, and other times we want to be provoked into thinking more deeply or looking for meaning. Art is fantastic for this, like nature.

I suppose, to push that a bit further, anything that comes directly from Source is going to do that, because it reflects back to us both the simplicity and the complexity that we humans are.

More recently though, as I come more and more into alignment with my Self, with who I really am beneath all the conditioning and learned behaviours and limiting beliefs, I feel my paintings shift.

Jeanne always says that when we ask for things to change, not only can we not decide how those changes come, but they never look how we thought they would. We will always get what we ask for, but without releasing all our preconceived ideas about timing or what that will look like, we limit the possibilities. Spirit {God, Creative Source, whatever you want to call it} is infinite; in my experience asking and then letting go is the best way to bring solutions I could not have conceived of.

So I knew I wanted my paintings to be about healing, but I didn’t know how that would work and I couldn’t force it. I held it loosely in the back of my mind as an intention, and just carried on living my life and painting whatever I felt moved to paint.

The work will always be evolving, as I do, but since the beginning of this year I’ve noticed a couple of things. One is that, where before I couldn’t get enough bright colours onto the canvas, and even when I tried to not use them my paintings still ended up like a visual punch in the face {a nice one!}, suddenly I find myself wanting to use pale colours and a lot of white.

So yes, there is the ‘light’ factor ~ lighter colours, a feeling of light and something ethereal. And also images of figures, undefined and nebulous, keep appearing. They are only partially visible, and sometimes if they come out too defined I find I have to knock them back a bit. It makes me laugh really, because it reflects so neatly my own personal journey from ‘old me’ to ‘new me’, and the fact that what used to be invisible to me is starting to emerge from the mists, slowly!

I find that these new paintings are feeding me. I hang them up in my home when they’re finished, or almost finished, and find myself just looking at them for long periods; I don’t know what they are giving me but it’s something profound. I don’t know whether others who look at them will feel this; it doesn’t matter. For now I’m just intrigued as to where the painting is taking me.

What Was Invisible Begins To Be Revealed

‘What Was Invisible Begins To Be Revealed’

mixed media on canvas

60 x 90 x 4cm

Available for sale here

Filed Under: art development, creativity, journey, mixed media art, mixed media painting, process Tagged With: art for healing, how my art has developed, types of painting, what was invisible begins to be revealed by tara leaver

March 27, 2013 by Tara Leave a Comment

The name for this painting came from Jeanne. I was getting stuck on names that either felt twee or just plain boring, and new fields is very apt for me right now, so New Fields it is.

Step one – laying down watercolour and gesso

It’s another Flower Crazy painting, kind of a companion to Sea Flowers. I like the contrast of colours with that one, although it wasn’t intentional.

Step two – finding flower shapes and pulling them out by outlining with pencil, then a gesso wash around them.

I did not know you could make these cool little captions beneath photos! I learn all the best things by mistake.

New Fields ~ Detail

Again it was fun to pull it together under Carla’s calm guidance, and know that you were going to finish it and it wouldn’t be languishing in a dusty corner for months. I must find a way to be this accountable with my other paintings.

New Fields hanging on the wall

It must be a confidence thing. I’ve been staring at some for weeks now and still not a clue what they need. Sometimes you have to weigh up whether it’s because it needs completely reworking, or that it needs you to look to artists that inspire you for ideas, or actually it IS finished and you’re just pushing too hard. Or something else!

New Fields ~ Detail including watercolour, gesso, acrylic ink, pencil and charcoal

I really like how this one turned out. The flower shapes annoyed me for a bit but now with the shading and details I’m happy with them.

It’s in my Etsy shop now along with Sea Flowers. They look lovely together actually but I think they can probably bear to be separated.

New Fields
Mixed Media Painting on wooden panel
25 x 25 x 2.5cm

Filed Under: art class, art development, mixed media art, mixed media painting, online classes, process Tagged With: flower crazy class, flowers

March 20, 2013 by Tara 5 Comments

So lately finishing a painting is not an experience I’m intimately acquainted with.

Which is why doing a class can be really helpful; cause you HAVE TO. Something in me clicks when Carla says ‘today you’re going to finish the painting you started the other day’. It just goes, ‘ok’.

Why that doesn’t happen when I say that to myself is a mystery.

Anyway, this week we’ve progressed from paper to wood panels! I don’t often use wood panels. I just seem to love canvas. But the rigidity of the wood is good for holding big globs of gesso and pressing hard.

I took these photos with my phone during the process, mainly because I’m joined at the hip with Instagram {if you’re on it too, come and say hi! @taraleaver}.

Part of Carla’s process is to keep going back in, adding and knocking back, which I think is partly the reason why my own paintings aren’t progressing in a healthy way lately. I have a touch of the old ‘I-don’t-know-what-to-do-and-I-might-ruin-it’ paralysis. Also I have no idea what I want to SAY, which is also handily sidestepped by doing a class.

Happens to the best of us.

This one went through a painfully bright yellow phase and a disturbing ‘dirty’ looking phase, but using Carla’s adding/removing system and persevering because it ‘had’ to be finished took me through both with surprising ease and speed. {Note to self; DO THIS.}

After the addition of pencil and charcoal for definition and depth, we finished with some white acrylic ink.

I’m calling it Sea Flowers. I took the shape from an image I saw during week one, when we were sketching sea plants.

Here’s a nice little close up; the textures are a little bit to die for.

’Sea Flowers’

25 x 25 x 2.5cm

mixed media on wood panel

Available to purchase here.

Filed Under: art class, art development, mixed media art, mixed media painting, online classes, process Tagged With: flower crazy online class, gesso on wood panel, process, sea flowers painting

February 18, 2013 by Tara 11 Comments

One of my Christmas presents was a book token from my brother. I ask for them every year because books are my crack. My Amazon wish list is so long now it’s getting a bit silly.

Anyway, one of the books I bought {thanks Ben!} was Mati Rose’s ‘Daring Adventures in Paint’.

I heart it! Mati is a girl after my own heart with her love of the sea and all things nautical. I’ve loved her paintings for quite a while now, and while I don’t want to paint just like her {for all the obvious reasons}, I was intrigued to see how she pulls a painting together.

I devoured the book in about an hour, then took it up to the studio to try out some of the painting ideas. These photos show the process.

It was night time I’m afraid so the colours aren’t very true.

Mati shows the process of a painting from start to finish, something I have done in my book actually but not in quite the same way. But I thought I’d challenge myself to follow along and see what happened.

Not least because although I have a couple of paintings on the go at the moment, they are getting sticky and a bit of new energy is sometimes just what’s needed to get them going again.

Mati’s approach is layered, like mine, so I was familiar with all the parts even if I hadn’t put them together in that way before. There was laying down colour in two opaque layers, using contrasting cool and warm colours. I started with orange and then a deep aqua blue {natch}.

Then there were layers of brayering {orange and white}, using a squeegee {old credit card, pink}, dry brushing {white} and some vigorous sandpapering {as shown a couple of images up in front of the light}.

Next, collage pieces.

Then Mati did some silver leafing, but as I only have gold leaf and wanted to use silver in my painting, I made a fish stencil quickly from cardboard and used some pearly acrylic to make fish shapes.

Then spray painting through a doily. I also changed my mind about the main fish shape and whited it out.

Mati adds drawing into her piece using carbon paper. I leafed through some of my sketchbooks for inspiration, and in the end found it on my pinboard. See how I’ve made it nice and clear for you to see which image I chose.

I’m not usually one for repeating images in all my paintings {apart from circles, but that’s like breathing}, but I do like doing these stylised feathers. I used my actual feather cut to a point and Quink to draw the shapes, and painted them in acrylics.

Mati did a couple of things to hers that I didn’t do, like getting someone else to collaborate, and adding in a personal reference from a childhood photo. I was happy with the painting by this point, although I left it overnight to be super sure, and then signed it this morning. Boom. Done.

I called it Three One, partly because of the three feathers and the ‘one’, and also because I’ve been thinking about the Trinity a lot lately, so it seemed fitting.

Only ten days {and oh how I’m counting!} til I have the internet installed at home and no longer have to sit outside Jeanne’s house in my car writing blog posts and checking email! Yay.

Filed Under: art development, mixed media art, mixed media painting, process, techniques Tagged With: daring adventures in paint, mati rose mcdonough, mixed media art, mixed media painting

January 7, 2013 by Tara 3 Comments

“New” alert!

I am abounding with newness. Specifically: I went up to the studio the other morning, having made myself a promise that I will spend at least a part of every day up there, and was painting for about 7 hours! That’s, like, almost a day’s work! Ha.

It occurred to me {rather late in the proceedings, as the most obvious things often do}, that if I am committed to this life path of working with spirit {which I am}, and if I want to make the focus of that helping others to find and explore their creativity {which I do}, then my actions really ought to be in alignment with my intentions, and that means spending most of my time in the studio ~ making art, having creative ideas and generally walking my talk.

It’s definitely easier here than at my last place, with the studio being on a different floor and dedicated solely to art.

And want to know what’s cool? Not only did I do a good seven hours, but even after I came back down to my ‘living quarters’ for the evening, I couldn’t stop being creative! I wrote poems, I made an envelope of joy, and I had so many ideas bouncing round my head I couldn’t sleep for ages!

Somewhere on a piece of paper I had written this down ~ that I wanted to be excited when I went to bed and excited when I woke up. I didn’t really think it through as being excited at bedtime is not exactly a recipe for a long peaceful sleep, but no matter; these things can be tweaked.

I’ve even had some initial interest in the Creative Spark Sessions after sending out an email to all and sundry announcing they’d arrived. The thing seems to be: act when inspired, otherwise wait for instructions.

Not a bad motto.

So as you can see this new painting is a reworking of an old one that just wasn’t going anywhere, although I was quite fond of it, and had one or two moments of mild panic that I’d just ruined something worth keeping.

As always, those moments passed though, especially once I’d started on the pencil sketching. And even more so once it was finished.

I used an old painting by an artist I don’t know {sorry, vague} as inspiration for the woman. I have no idea what she’s doing, although in the original she’s sitting down looking very demure.

The painting is now finished, complete with new style signature which I’m really loving, and is hanging in the living room awaiting a title {and a buyer, perhaps}.

Despite my desire to develop a more cohesive and recognisable style, this one looks nothing like the first one I did in the new studio. Apart from the ever present circles of course. Ah well, if you work intuitively you do as you’re told.

Filed Under: mixed media art, mixed media painting, process Tagged With: mixed media painting, process

December 16, 2012 by Tara 8 Comments

I’m in! I have no internet, so posts will be sporadic til mid Jan {WHAT ~ really? WHY?!} as I borrow and scavenge interweb access where I can. I can’t wait to show you properly what’s been going on here, but am swinging by quickly to share some new work and some images from the First Day, taken just before the removal men turned up and filled my house with ~~crap~~ my beautiful things.

I MISS you guys, and blogging and sharing and being part of this little online world. {Not that little, in fact, is it, really.}

Here is the studio, empty and ready for New Stuff to happen in it.

Please note the butler’s sink, the skylights {which open electronically!?!}, the storage and table space.

The way the light falls in, the fact that that entire right wall has storage running behind it. There is room for four people comfortably I think.

And the porthole windows with views of the sea! Seriously? I get to live here?!

It takes me, oh, a good thirty seconds to reach the beach. Although the first few days I wasn’t physically able to leave the house ~ it was too lovely! Now I’m down there every day. It’s better than tv, always changing, always soothing to my soul. And as much as this move is a glorious, exciting thing, other life things continue to happen and they are not always glorious and exciting, so soul soothing is required at the moment.

So then, I had to try out the studio! I have a STACK of unfinished, unloved canvases, just waiting for renewed life, so I started on a big one that just hadn’t worked although I had loved the idea. I forgot, of course, to photograph it before diving in with the paint, but you can still see a little of it underneath the first strokes.

If you follow me on Instagram {@taraleaver} you will have seen most of these. This palette is unusual for me; I rarely use black but I was inspired by Mati Rose’s recent pieces on there too.

Besides, a new start is the perfect time to try doing things differently. It has been quite interesting putting things in place in the flat in accordance with how I live and want to use the space. That will evolve over time and a lot of it is provisional just to get rid of the cardboard boxes, but I find myself intrigued by the possibilities of how I might like to live that is different from before, from the obvious {beach alert} to the tiny daily details.

I’m really loving this painting; it’s not finished quite yet but not too far off I think. I have ideas growing and turning over in my mind as I slowly pull the studio together. Right now it looks NOTHING like the above images, as everything is unpacked but not yet put away in an orderly fashion {ha}; I have enough art materials to amuse a small army it turns out!

And I hope that I will. Amuse, inspire, offer a healing and fun place for people to find their way back to their own creative selves. It would be a crime not to share that space. And although I’m kind of terrified, now that it’s so much nearer {I’ll begin in the new year}, it still feels right.

It feels so good and comforting to be speaking to you again. Moving is a discombobulating thing, whichever way you look at it, and it feels a little like a touchstone to come here and show and tell a little bit. Thanks for being here.

Filed Under: acrylic painting, art development, creative spark sessions, home, journey, mixed media art, mixed media painting, painting, process, studio Tagged With: art studio, new home, new painting

October 29, 2012 by Tara 2 Comments

Sometimes I can hardly bear how amazing technology is. It took me less than a minute to make this collage, and I completely love it!

I also love the painting, which helps. I’m experimenting with paler colours. I had to push it back SO much with the gesso, it was quite an excercise in restraint! But look at those lovely textures!

One of my favourite sayings in the studio is ‘gesso is my friend’ {that’s a Tara original, you can totally tweet it, haha}, mainly because it REALLY IS. I used loads on this little painting, and I found that using the foam brush in a dabbing motion made it all nice and textured.

In case you’re wondering, I also used lace, some lineny fabric, a bit of dress pattern, and an EE pencil {didn’t even know I had that}.

Filed Under: mixed media art, mixed media painting, painting on paper Tagged With: mixed media art, mixed media painting, painting with gesso

October 12, 2012 by Tara 10 Comments

This is a revamping of an old painting that had been languishing in a dusty corner of the studio for months. I kind of liked what I’d done but also didn’t because it was unimaginative, looked like something you’d buy as a print on canvas in a generic store, and was frankly pretty boring. It also didn’t feel like me. You have to wonder why and how I painted it!

So. I was a having a Native American moment recently ~ I am intrigued by that culture generally in fact ~ and this is what came of it.

First loads of collage pieces.

Stick ‘em down.

Gesso over them.

Pencil in the feathers and use a light blue for the background, which I rubbed back with a cloth.

More detail in the feathers.

Start to add colours. I used coloured pencils and acrylics for this.

More colours.

A Turquoise Phthalo glaze and dirty it up a bit with a stain ink pad.

Boom. Done. It has a really pleasing sheen to it from the glaze, and heaps of texture that hasn’t really shown up in the photo. It feels much more like ‘me’ now. Probably all that turquoise.

Three Feathers

Mixed media on canvas

61 x 30 x 3cm

Filed Under: mixed media art, mixed media painting, process, work in progress Tagged With: feathers, native american art