New Artwork and ETSY Shop Updates

Hello lovelies!
I haven't done too many DIY projects to share lately cause I've been running around like a crazy lady. I had some issues with our septic tank, a week of fabulous family time, then a week of nasty weather that is just never super inspiring. But one thing I've done a lot of work on this year is my ETSY shop. I did some rearranging, added new sections, and have made some fabulous goals that I can't wait to reach :) I thought I would just do a quick update on the shop to share some of the recently added pretties!



My favorite update has been adding a Painting section. I have always done commissions and larger pieces for friends but was never very confident about adding one of a kind pieces on ETSY. I think all of my work is unique and I hand paint each piece so everything is super personal but doing something that I am not going to attempt to reproduce is really fun. These are mostly pieces that speak to me personally and if I lived in a house with more wall space they would be hanging everywhere :) This Painting section has allowed me to be more creative than the quick gift pieces I've been focusing on for so long. It has been super inspiring and very fun, so hopefully this section will continue to grow!!

I also did some updates to my Watercolor section. I LOVE watercolor and I always have. So by adding some one of a kind pieces I am able to get back in to the medium that really started me on my life as an artist. While my acrylic work is super fun I find watercolor to be so therapeutic. It is a super fluid paint and is so whimsical that its almost impossible not to relax while working with it. 

I did a lot of updates to my Tin Sign section. It is still my largest shop section and where all of my best sellers come from but I decided to build a photo back drop so hopefully the section will be a bit more orderly :) I am still working on this but as you can tell lots of tins have already been re-photographed. 

Of course I still have the Serving Tray section, which is the second best selling section :) It's a favorite because I get to do a little bit a building and painting :) These are often what people buy as gifts for weddings, anniversary, and this past christmas I had an order for TWENTY SEVEN!! Yeah it was crazy awesome!

 And finally what I think is my most unique section, Clocks. Most of my clocks are made from rustic tin and hand painted with all different designs. The tin is so stunning and just perfect the way it is but most clients tend to add a personal touch to match their home decor.

As you can tell the shop is going under some changes and I am loving the way they are going. I can't believe how people have supported me with all of my work. Having a small business is hectic and crazy and not really something I thought I would be doing at 24. But God is blessing me and in just 1 year my sales TRIPLED! I am trusting in God and that He is gently guiding me the way I am supposed to go and I think that direction is towards my passions. I hope this little business will keep growing and that these passions will never burn out :)

I would LOVE to hear what y'all think of the shop so please be sure to visit GraceLangdon on ETSY!!

Vintage Trunk Coffee Table Makeover

I've had this trunk since elementary school, I got it when I went to camp. Yep, I went to a camp that required a trunk not just a suit case. It was awesome!!
But we used it for years as our "dress-up" trunk at home then I took it to college and have used it as storage/coffee table ever since. I painted it brown when I left for school, just a flat brown and it still matched in our current living room. But I just wanted an update. So I felt like adding some legs would give it some great hight and help it feel more like a coffee table and fit our furniture better. And with my little baby Tepe being a white dog that sheds [boy does she shed!] the hair shows up every where and honestly I just wanted to make it a little less noticeable :)
Thats the gist behind the makeover...

I have tons of white paint laying around, well I did. Now I've used it for the studio and this I'm running low. But I didn't want to deal with spray paint, or sanding or anything. I just wanted to get this project done and watch my favorite crime solving shows all at the same time :) So I mixed up some home made chalk paint and set up in the living room with a drop cloth. 

To make the chalk paint I used: 

-3 spoonfuls of cornstarch

-1/4 cup of water

-1 3/4 cup of latex paint. 

super simply and looks great :) 

And to add the legs I got 4 short wooden legs from Lowes and 4 pronged T-nuts.

I painted the trunk with two layers. Honestly I didn't do the best job, there are plenty of little drip spots that I didn't notice. I guess thats what I get for watching TV while working :)
After the paint dried I measured and marked where I would place the holes for the legs. Then drilled out the hole just large enough to tightly fit the t-nut. I then hammered the nut in place so the prongs held on to the meat of the trunk.

Once the nuts were secured in the trunk all I had to do was screw the legs on. They aren't the most sturdy legs, so you can't really move the trunk by pulling it. But now that I like it, It shouldn't have to move often!

I really love the new trunk. 

The white just fits the room 100 times better, even though it does make the rug look a little dingy. But I knew I needed to figure out how to clean it sooner or later... I think the white just opens up the center of our little room. Doesn't seem so cluttered now :) 

Quick and easy projects are the best. I know it isn't done to last forever, but I just needed something new. Luckily this trunk is something that if I decide to take the legs off all I have to do is unscrew them! And like always I can repaint if I decide to. Do you ever just randomly decide on quick little projects that make big statements?

Be sure to check out where I linked up! Party page on side bar >>>

Painting with out BLACK

A few weeks ago I shared how to use the  language of color (if you missed it check it out here) I talked about all kinds of terms and how the color wheel is set up. Now I didn't get a chance to go to deep in to color theory and I don't really think I'm qualified to go much deeper. BUT I did think I should share how all of those terms can be used in an actual painting. 

So today I decided to do a little pet portrait of a precious pup and show you how the knowledge of color can help create a really unique painting. 

Quickly I'll just share with you how I started. You can see that the board I was using had a painting on it before. So I just used some gesso (basically primer) to cover it up and start a quick drawing. I am so not good at sketching so I usually just do a real generic sketch (this one was based off of a photo) and then fill in the details with the paint. 

I then started with my high lights. Based from the image I took the lightest parts of the fur, where the light was reflecting, and chose my light colors. I didn't want to do a super realistic painting so I decided to go with yellow and a bright orange. And I left them straight out of the tube, no mixing. 

This puppy is a dark black with khaki/cream spots on his face, ears and paws. But like I said earlier, to avoid a flat and realistic style painting I decided not use black or white at all. I decided to use nothing but color to create this painting. So by using the knowledge that contrasting colors often create a muddy brown/black when mixed I started at it.  You can tell that there are lots of blues purples yellows and pinks. What you probably can't pick out are the greens. Green and red are one of the best combinations for getting a dark color with out using black. So the dark spots are mostly a forest green mixed with a red. You can see how different areas are shaded with different colors I used that to create the volume of the body and show how the light can cause different temperatures of color just by how it hits the object. 

Painting with out black and white is hard. But often creates a much better painting. By using other colors to create your darks you are actually painting much more realistically than if you only use black as your darkening agent. Just look at an object and really study it. You can see that the shadows are different shades or tones of a color like red, green blue, ect. It takes a minute to notice but once you see it its like light goes off and you will never see white as just white or black as just black again! 

I enjoyed this fun little painting. I wish I had paid more attention to my photography so I could have actually shared the process with you instead of just talking. But I just got caught up in my TV show and painting. Too many things I love happening at once for me to stop and photograph the process :) Sorry 

So this wasn't nearly as informative as the earlier post about color (here) but I hope it helps you get creative with the next little craft or painting you decide to make. Seeing that you can get real lights and real darks with out using black and white will make any project more interesting and dynamic!! 

*I have started some advertising with Passion Fruit Ads and need some lovely blogs to grace my side bar :) Please check out my advertising page and let me know if you are interested!! HERE

The Language of Color

As an art student I took a few painting and foundation classes that focused on the basics of the visual arts. So everything like line, color, form, ect. It was a lot, we had 2 foundation level classes and each subject (painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, ect.) had another introductory level class.




I thought I would share some of my basic knowledge of color after seeing that my language is pretty different than the language that my clients use.
This is going to be a very informative post with some definitions and technical talk but it is something that can help with everything from color schemes for a new room design to a painting hanging on your wall!

**I am NOT an expert on this topic, yes I've had a few classes but I didn't focus in a subject that was too involved with color. So PLEASE just look at this post as an introductory to color theory and know that there is MUCH more to it than what I can hit here. 

First, this is what my "desk" looks like whenever i am about to paint. 

Yes I have a LOT of paint. Mostly craft grade paints but I have some nicer acrylics, oils, and watercolors too. So I pull them all out to make sure I can see all my options :)

 Now lets talk about what categories colors can fall under. I'm gonna keep it basic so many of you probably know this from kindergarten :)

First, there are PRIMARY, SECONDARY, AND TERTIARY colors on the color wheel.
Your PRIMARY colors are, Red, Yellow, and Blue.
SECONDARY colors are the colors made by mixing two PRIMARY colors together. Like orange, green, and violet.

TERTIARY colors are made by either mixing one secondary and one primary or two secondary colors together. So examples are red-violet, blue-green, yellow-orange.

Today I'm going to focus on just the primary colors for showing how TONE, SHADE, TINT, and HUE.

Now to start lets define a few things. Most of these words you have probably heard and used before. But not many people really know  what they mean when referencing a color.

Hue: refers to a "pure" color. So the colors on the color wheel. (Yellow, yellow orange, orange, red orange, red, red violet, violet, blue violet, blue green, green, and green yellow.) Hues are basically what we learn as children.

Tint: Tint is a mixture result of color. Tint refers to the lightening process of colors, so adding white to any color is tinting that color. So pink is a TINT of red.

Shade: Shade is the opposite of tint. Meaning instead of lightening a color you are darkening it by adding black. So taking an original HUE and adding black is referred to as a SHADE of that color. For example, garnet is a SHADE of red.

Tone: Tone is greying down the original color. By some definitions adding any neutral or greyscale to an original hue is considered tone. So you can change the tonal value by how much grey you add to your color.

Now that you have the definitions of some of the language commonly used in art or by anyone interested in paint we can talk about how you actually do those things!

*I know earlier I said I have a lot of paint. And I do, but some how I didn't have my artist grade acrylic red. So bare with me on some of these examples! 

In the picture above I've shown the differences between TINT, SHADE, HUE and TONE using red, blue and yellow. You can see how each tint and shade of the different colors seem to match in intensity or value. That is because of the level of white, black or grey that has been added to the original HUE. You can do this exercise for any color or color scheme. It helps a lot when trying to create a color scheme for a painting or room because you can see all the different tints, and shades of the colors you have chosen.  

Now lets talk about the color wheel. I already mentions the PRIMARY, SECONDARY and TERTIARY colors but didn't get to show you what those where. So when you lay out a color wheel it usually looks like the one above. You can see the rainbow effect that it has because of the blending of each primary and secondary color to create the tertiary colors. 

Color wheels are another awesome tool to use when looking to create a color scheme because you can see the options of your colors and how they relate to one another. 

Now a color wheel is split in two. It has warm colors and cool colors. (This can become much more complicated but I am going to keep it at the surface level of these terms). Typically the yellows, oranges, and reds are considered WARM colors. While the Violets, Blues, and greens are considered COOL colors.  

Like I said earlier, the color wheel is a big tool in selecting color schemes. And part of that is because the language used on a color wheel is already a color scheme.
What I mean by that is you can have a color scheme of ANALOGOUS colors. ANALOGOUS colors are simply colors that are side by side on the color wheel. Our basic color wheel has some of the themes I've shown above. Yellow, yellow orange, and orange or even violet, red violet, and red. Each set of those colors are ANALOGOUS to one another and therefore flow together smoothly.
You can take those schemes and add even more to them by changing the TINT, SHADE, and TONE of each giving you TOOONNNNNSS more options to choose from.

Another color scheme on a color wheel, and the one that is more widely known are the complimentary colors. These are colors that are directly across from one another on the color wheel. The colors listed above are examples of COMPLIMENTARY colors. Christmas colors are complimentary. Most sports teams colors are complimentary. This is because complimentary colors typically have a high contrast which draws the eye quicker. 

Now that is a lot to take in and its is just the very BASICS of color. But now when you are talking to a designer, or artist you can be able to tell them you want your room full of warm red tints and know that you are getting softer/lighter reds and no dark heavy reds. Or that you want a tone on tone color scheme meaning you would like a greyed out theme that remains more neutral with little contrast!
Isn't it cool how color has its own language :)

I really enjoyed writing this post and it helped a lot with making me feel more like an artist again! I think I may do some other posts that go a little further on mixing colors and a few other definitions that I didn't have a chance to talk about. Would any one be interested in that or was this just interesting to me as an artist??? :) 

Another painting I didn't have room for!

Last week I shared with you the second to last painting project from my beginning painting class. 

And today I'm going to share with you my final assignment. 

It also happens to be my favorite :) 

The assignment was based off of 3 sources:

1. object

2. photograph

3. art historical reference

I chose the fall leaves as my object, hoping to mimic their amazing colors. 

A photograph of my dads green truck and our dirt road. I combined the two together in photoshop and worked from there. 

Then finally I used Morris Louis again as my inspiration (also a painting I have of my grandmothers). 

This was so fun to paint, I started with a realistic version of the view I wanted and then abstracted it from there. To give it a kind of whimsy look I decided to thin down my paint and allow it to drip around the canvas. 

I also tried to take large strokes keeping as little detail as possible. 

I only wanted it to be identifiable if you wanted to find an object in the painting. 

This detail shot is my favorite spot on the painting. 

The grill of the truck had a lot of different shapes and colors on it so it was really fun to try and morph in to the road itself. 

I gave this painting to my dad for Christmas. I love it and would have totally found some place to fit it but this was his dads truck and something that I knew he would really love :) 

 

and I just thought this was a cool picture of what my pallet looked like while painting this picture :) 

In my dream house I will have space for all my art!

I never shared my last few projects in painting with y'all!
This one is pretty awesome, but really the one that I can't wait to share is the last project from the class.
I'm gonna try and go in order, so next week you will get the one I'm REALLY proud of.

Just a recap of what I learned in my painting class. 

In beginning painting we are taught how to mix and see colors that are more than just the average blue, green, red or yellow. It is actually pretty intense in the beginning. I had NO clue that white objects really weren't white! (I talked about that process of looking for color in a post here.) 

Now this is our second to last project. It was more geared towards teaching different techniques. 

We were told to choose 2 art historical references. 

1 landscape painting

and 1 abstract painting. 

We would then use the color palate of the landscape and the composition and technique from the abstract painting. 

I chose a Gustav Cailebotte landscape The Bridge At Argenteui

I really loved all of Gustavs paintings and color pallets but this one in-particular "spoke to me". 

Well, maybe not but I LOVE these colors. Those blues are my colors. 

Just go look at my house and you will see that a majority of my projects end with some kinda of blue from this painting :) 

I then chose Morris Louis abstract pouring Delta Zeta 

I hadn't heard much about Morris Louis until I chose this painting. 

I really loved the way it all seemed to have a smooth, soft, light emitted from the canvas. 

I then combined these two pieces to try and create a greater sense of depth. 

It was really fun replicating while also figuring out how color can change so much.

The process that Morris Louis employs is a pouring or staining.
He uses thinned down acrylic paint to pour across a raw canvas. And has multiple different tools to help him manipulate the canvas to ensure he gets the shapes he desires from the colors.

I couldn't use that process so I sorta had to make it up on my own.
I used oil paints and thinned them down with mineral spirits and Galkyd which thins the paint to a point where it is more fluid.
I then used one large brush to keep the shapes from the original Louis painting and very delicately overlapped the many different stripes.

I loved working with this fluid paint and obviously the colors are pretty spot on with my living room :) Right now the painting is leaning against the wall in the guest room.
We just don't have enough space for it on our walls!!
One day. One day... 

Painting Class

This semester I am taking a few studio classes along with art history, art and philosophy  and working with a few Life Science students to add art work to the new science building on campus. 

Because I am taking so many non studio classes I wont have too terribly many projects to share with you other than painting and sculptures. 

So here is my work from my beginning painting class! 

These first 2 paintings are done on 5x7 canvas board using unidirectional mark making. 

Each is of a still life set up in class and we had about a day for each of them. 

I've hardly ever painted with oils and I was very hesitant to learn ( Just love my fast drying acrylics!). 

However, these 2 paintings where a good start. While it was frustrating to mix some of the colors it really taught me so much in how to SEE color! 

In both of these I chose to paint a white eyelet pillow and a white and black pot lid. 

However, for the painting on the left we were not allowed ot use black and we were told to really look for the colors and to not have any pure white or pure black anywhere on the canvas! 

This was hard, but as you can tell I was able to find some color :) 

This was the 3rd painting in the class. We spent about 2 class periods on this 11x14 canvas. 

Again it was another still life where we were asked to not use any pure white or black. 

Even though I was painting a black cloth, black suitcase, and 2 white jars I obviously found some color coming from the warm and cool light that was falling over the space. 

Now this is our first real project. 

We finished it about a week ago.

This canvas measures 18x24 and we had to build them ourselves!

I forgot to document that process for yall but hopefully I will have another chance to share it before the end of the semester!

Basically, we buy pine board cut them to the appropriate pieces nail and clue them together

and then stretch our canvas across it using stables and then finally cover it with gesso. 

Once it was built we moved to a new colorful still life. 

Again, we couldn't use pure white or black but because most of the objects were a bright vibrant color it was some what easier to see the colors through out the objects. 

 Here is the still life I chose. 

Fake sunflowers, 

a champagne bottle

wooden box

fake apple 

yellow table cloth 

and a plastic striped cloth. 

This image is a close up detail of some of the striped cloth and apple (unfinished). 

And the image on the right is the studio!

Its crowded and covered in paint. 

In the bottom corner is my pallet. 

I actually really enjoy using a pallet (mine is just a sheet of glass with taped edges) 

but it makes mixing and saving the colors so much easier!!

TA DAAAA

My finished painting. 

It is now hung in the hallway at home. 

(thats why the lighting is kinda off... sorry about that)

I've enjoyed this class. 

Sometimes it can be relaxing, once I get in to the painting and the stress of the drawing is done. 

I hate that I wont have the chance to take another painting class here at Clemson

but I think I'll continue working in this style at home :) 

PS. I just wanted to say thank you again to all my new followers! 

And to all of the Fabulous blogger ladies who have featured me on their blogs recently! 

You can check me out on Just A Little Creativity 

and What Meegan Makes!