Picture Story: violet night

It occurred to me when I was scanning my 11X14 acrylic paintings that I was inevitably going to be making new scans of paintings that I have used as backgrounds for my illustrations. Yes, that's part of the magic of photoshop — the painting I used as the background of an illustration is actually completely separate from the illustration. Mostly because while I render the vast majority of the 'parts' of my illustrations by hand - ultimately they are digital collages and assembled on the computer.

So, it took me a ponderous moment of searching, but I found the "violet night" background.

It is via the magic of photoshop that this painting became part of the background of this illustration:

"violet night"

"violet night" was created mostly out of the parts of other illustrations. It's just one of those compositions I assembled for the fun of it.

The irises are something I created for "purple martins & purple irises" which is an image I originally made for one of my calendars (it was for June, since that's when my irises bloom). Anyhow, the irises were originally a pen & ink drawing, which I 'filled' in photoshop — the petals were created from parts of a scan of a salt on watercolor painting and the leaves were created from a scan of an acrylic painting.

The luna moths came from a graphite pencil drawing that I had done as a teenager for the county fair. I scanned them into the computer, colorized them, printed that file, and then colored over it with prismacolors, and scanned that back into the computer. The luna moths are kind of the only part I formatted specifically for this illustration, even though they originated with another composition.

The starry sky came from the background I made for "deer in the winter woods." This illustration was the January picture for one of my calendars. I'm pretty sure the star is a vector graphic, which I spent many hours rotating and layering in a file. For violet night - I used the graphic as a layer over the scan of the painting, and then literally faded out half the graphic with the eraser tool.

Obviously, I color adjusted the scan of the painting that I inevitably used as a background, because, well, I wanted it to be a cooler and bluer shade of violet.

I admit, there are some illustrations that I like just a little bit more, and "violet night" is one of them. Probably mostly because that's my favorite shade of violet — that sort of milky bluish violet color.

28 paintings in 3 days

So, while I wasn't blogging last week, I was painting. Now, if I'm going to get out the paint (translation: move the plastic 3 gallon sized basket over 2 feet next to the paper cutter) then chances are I'm going to make paintings in multiples. Apparently I am not prone to moderation.

So, over the course of 3 (okay, 4) days I made 28 paintings. On the fourth day I made 1 painting, which was actually a "redo" because I wasn't overly thrilled with how it came out the first time...

Anyway, I don't have a studio, and would probably find possessing a room with nothing in it but art supplies to be a complete waste of a room. I believe I would consider that a "storage" room. I enjoy stimulation, whether that be music, television, or the computer. And generally, when I'm doing work I'm either listening to music or watching something on tv. Of course, by "watching" I mean I look up every five minutes or so...

So, virtually all of my painting is executed atop an old paper cutter which sits on the floor in front of the television. It's my de facto desk.

Anyway, when I paint the 'implicit landscapes' I put the illustration board on top of a box so the excess paint doesn't get all over the place. And that box sits on top of the lid to a pizza box, so the paper cutter can actually be used to cut paper or cardboard if the need arises without needing to be cleaned. Otherwise, if I just painted them atop a drop cloth or a piece of paper, then paint from the first painting would get mixed in with the next one, or else I would have to waste a lot of paper to keep my work surface clear for the next piece...

So, this is where the painting happens:

This was actually the box for a dremel tool & kit, although you would have a hard time identifying that now. As you can see, we enjoy pizza from Little Caesars.

Yes, there is flotsom and jetsom hanging around the paper cutter... and more paintings, and cardboard for the boxes I make to ship my work.

And this was the last painting, the one I repainted: "orchid guava aurora"

Beautiful things can be made in the most mundane conditions : )

Four of this production of 28 are currently listed for sale at my "sarahknight" shop on etsy.

watching paint dry

There is a part of my brain that is always designing ideas and things... which is probably why I'm always thinking about the next thing I want to make or project I want to embark upon when I'm at my job and I'm supposed to be focusing on the task at hand.

I have several ideas & designs involving butterflies which I think will eventually be the project at hand. But the present moment has been all about painting. I actually started painting again because I happened to be in a 'discount' store and saw an insanely good deal on pre-stretched canvases. I then found myself at the craft store loading up a plastic basket with paints... And in the span of 1 week I had done 20 'implicit landscape' paintings on canvas. I just varnished all of them. And my next step is to finish the backs & add picture frame wire to all of them... Then, of course, I still have to title them.

There were literally times when I was sitting in my living room / studio waiting for paint to dry, which was quite an amusing notion to experience. Anyway, since I have a proclivity towards sprees: not only did I paint 20 11X14 canvases, but I then also made 23 smaller paintings. It would have been 24, but there was a snafu with cutting the illustration board, so, yes, it was 23. They are 8X10s done on illustration board.

I just finished naming all of them, scanning all of them into the computer, and varnishing them.

So, yes, in the span of about 10 days I made 43 paintings... clearly moderation is not a familiar concept.
These are some of the 8X10s:

strawberry guava phantasm


ruby cerulean phantasm


midnight violet guava sundown

Eventually, these will be for sale at my "sarahknight" shop on etsy. I was amazed & delighted that the first painting I listed actually sold!

Next week, I think I'm finally going to get to one of those butterfly projects that have been percolating in the back of my mind for months...

Hopefully you're been busy & creative too : )

What I've been doing...

I have been making art since I was 2. And I've used a lot of different media. I think the first thing I drew as a very small child was actually done with a bic pen on paper, because it happened to be the writing utensil that was hanging around the house.

As far as rendering is concerned, prismacolor pencils are my favorite. Sometimes I have to throw a little black ink pen in there for the tough details... because it's very hard to find a black verithin that will actually stay sharp and not lose it's lead — seriously, it's a massive structural flaw with those pencils. And because the black prismacolors are also notorious for losing their lead when you sharpen them. But also because I own a lot of Zig Millennium pens, and I'm very fond of their quality. So, using them isn't something I fret over.

Anyway, in the event that I was somehow unclear: I love drawing with prismacolors. I would pick them over anything else on the planet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy photography, acrylics, watercolors, pastels, pen & ink, etc., but when it comes to rendering something — get me my prismacolors.

So, when I paint, it tends to be abstract.
Abstract painting is really the kind of painting I enjoy the most. To put it in terms of litotes: it is the least tedious. Yes, I find painting "things" to be tedious. Abstract painting, on the other hand, is one of my favorites.

I'm not single minded, and I don't think there's an exact way that everything must be. That's just not the kind of person I am. So, it's not to say that I don't like or enjoy other people's paintings that render "things," just that it's not my personal preference.

So, anyway, I've been painting a lot recently. And, yes, the paintings are abstract. I think of them as "implicit landscapes" (which, yes, I know, implies that they are not abstract through and through, and yet I don't care). They're the kind of paintings I like making, because there is nothing about them that I find to be even remotely tedious.

These are some outtakes of some of my paintings. My scanner is only 8.5 X 11 inches, so these aren't the whole paintings, just parts of the middle. The actual paintings are 11 X 14 inches. Yes, I know, I could have taken badly lit photos of them that wouldn't really convey the 'details' or the color accurately, those are actually the qualities that I enjoy the most in my own paintings... But anyway, these are some snippets of some of the 20+ paintings I have made in the last week. I hope you enjoy color as much as I do.