Welcome everyone to another edition of works created by the talented members of Daily Kos. Tonight’s diary is the second in the 2021 New Year’s Day offering. You can find the first one HERE if you missed it. Please feel free to explore and feast your eyes and senses on the wonderful collection and please leave a comment before you go, or just stick around and talk for a while with us. We’d love to get feedback about the pieces you’ve seen.
On with the show!!!
Painting by Ralphdog
This is an oil painting of a country road about two miles from Ralphdog’s home.
🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈
Painting by kaja
Claude ~ In Memoriam
I painted this for a friend’s daughter whose lovely rooster Claude met an unfortunate end this year. It is an 8” x 10” acrylic.
Mixed in with the overwhelming sadness due to the pandemic, we are dealing with other tragedies and events that affect our daily lives. It’s been a very long year.
It’s a small painting but it took almost 6 months as I worked on it here and there. It gave me something to work on while staying at home.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
Political Art by nonnie9999
Let Them Eat Caca, Photoshop Art by nonnie9999, showing the faces of Mitch McConnell, Marsha Blackburn instead of Marie Antoinette and her royal entourage. Original painting by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, official court painter for the Queen of France.
💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢
Paintings by GlastoSara
Paintings that paint themselves … They go two ways: (1) when you don't really know what you want to paint, just splash on some color and see what happens. So, thin washes in primary colors, and then people started to appear and having relationships. This is called The Gathering (and coincidentally, a music festival called that was happening a couple miles away on the day that was painted).
Or (2) start with a photo and see what develops. This is called The Avalon Marshes. None of it is an accurate representation of the original (shot by my other half on a bike ride not far from here). The watery bit towards the middle is fairly accurate (artistic licence), the foreground merely suggested, and there was a blue smudge towards the top that I turned into Glastonbury Tor (q.v.) only pointing the wrong way.
(3) Portraits definitely can take on a life of their own. That certainly happened with my "unfinished" William Blake portrait - featured last spring. (I worked from two of his self-portraits, much younger & much older, and I stopped painting at the point he didn't want it taken any further.) On other hand, this is a Portrait of Rutland Boughton (much revered composer, active in the first half of the 20th C). This was from the same session as the photo I worked from (which I can't find):
💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢
A Poem and Image by 6402193 (RedWoodman)
🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇
Linocut New Year's Card by Marko the Werelynx
The Czechs have a long tradition of sending greetings cards to wish each other joy in the new year. It's called a novoročenka (new year thing) or pe-efko, "pe" being the word for the letter 'p' and "ef" being the word for the letter 'f' with "ko" tacked on the end to make it a thing. The two letters are from the French words pour féliciter. I've been making a pe-efko for my family to use each year for well over 20 years. Some years I'd do a little painting, some years I'd make an ink drawing, some years I'd combine techniques and add text using my computer. Back in 1999 I dug out some of my mom's old linocutting tools and some printing ink that I'd acquired somewhere and made a little picture of Prague for our year 2000 card. I'd done a bit of linocut printing in elementary school and it had been a long time. And it was about another 20 years until I drug out the tools again and made another linocut, again for a pe-efko for 2020. And because I've been spending time around prominent Czech linocut artists I was inspired to do another one for 2021.
Using my computer I switched the color of my black ink to a dark brown before I turned it over to the printers for some inexpensive color copies. I had them print it out on a nice, sort-of rosy cream colored card stock which I've approximated in this digital version of the physical cards we're sending. I suppose pour féliciter literally means "for congratulations" which is a bit odd for use in wishing someone "happiness" or "all the best" and the French don't have a tradition of sending out these New Year's cards— but I think anyone who survived 2020 deserves to be congratulated.
🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼
Art by composernan:
“I have always been fascinated by design, pattern, shape, bold colors, or the impact of black on white. The lantern was copied for the challenge of its intricacy. The colored pencil design was an instruction to cover the paper with as many patterns in pastel or bold hues as possible. The black and white "mirror images" are done with cut paper, and we were to discreetly insert one of our initials. (In my case, an "M.") The watering can, teakettle and mug were an exercise in using "negative space" and background pattern.” — composernan
🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨
Art by Laurel in CA
Whenever we travel, whether for business or pleasure, I always bring a small sketchbook, pens, and watercolor kit. Alas, in this COVID year, conferences in Banff in May and in Amsterdam in July were canceled. Instead, here are a few from past trips. They are all little sketches, about 5”x 7”. But every sketch carries with it a vivid memory of the exact place, the weather, the food, and the people around. Often people will stop to chat!
🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁🎁
Art by Gwennedd:
As I have before, I’m continuing my work with pour paints. I find the immense variety offered by choosing and mixing paints with chemicals and pouring them on canvas or wood in various techniques so satisfying...when they turn out right!! About 1/4 turn out so wrong as to be unusable and I have to start over or just paint over the results. Generally I have a plan when I start my backgrounds and I’ll do 4 or 5 at a time. I begin with a general few ideas and hope for serendipity to work in my favour. It generally does when I’m careful about my mixes, colours, methods and placements.
This one was just a general “underwater” background and it worked well enough to serve as an accompaniment to the doodled nautilus I painted on it.
This time when doing my pour paints, I deliberately wanted a gradual deepening of the colours from very light in one corner to deeper and more complex in the opposite lower corner. It worked out beautifully and I chose an idea I’d seen of branches leaning over a body of water, contrasting between light and dark, and movement vs stability, horizontals vs verticals. I think it turned out rather well:
A close-up:
🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨🎨
Art by Nolana
I haven’t done a lot of finished artwork this year, though I have done a lot of sketching.
I have recently determined to learn how to draw people, a subject which has always eluded me. Here are a couple of studies I have done in the last month. As you can see, I have a long way to go.
Here is a watercolor study of a foxglove flower. The hardest part is leaving little rings of white around the dark speckles in the blossoms’ throats.
I am determined to spend more time on my art in the coming year. Hopefully there will be less doomscrolling and more painting.
🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇
Painting by Trot
Spacious Sands
8x10 Oil
12/31/2020
Pawley's Island "Point" is my favorite beach in South Carolina's Lowcountry. It's wide beach is often sparsely populated except during the hot months of Summer.
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Art by LaPinturaBella
Rustic Kitchen – Custom Finish by LaPinturaBella
The client requested a very cheery, bright and somewhat rustic finish for her kitchen cabinetry. She was bored with the original blonde standard issue cabinets. So I started by creating a rough, woody texture with a thin plaster application that I “grained” for texture. The new texture was then primed and base-coated in Bronze Metallic paint followed by random application of Dark Turquoise, Dark Blue, Red and Green paint mixed with glaze. I then overglazed everything with a Light Blue paint mixed with glaze. Final touch, matte varnish.
Full Fireplace and Fireplace Close Up – Custom Finish by LaPinturaBella
This fireplace was originally cast stone that had been painted a very pale shade of grey. The lines are great, but it completely disappeared into the wall. So, we decided to make it the focal point of the room by marbelizing it! To see how crazy I am, check out the close up photo.
Wisteria Mural – Custom Finish by LaPinturaBella
The pandemic has wreaked havoc on my business this year. My parents, have been very generous in helping me make ends meet once my unemployment ran out. To pay the debt, I painted this mural of Wisteria in their Powder Room. Please note, I have never painted wisteria in my life. After 86 hours of painting, this is the final result. Thank you Mom and Dad!