The lost painting

 Today's post is about a painting I had left in our old apartment while moving out. I did not realize it until a few months later.

 

 While we were living in Tampere , it was the peak of winter and we couldn't go anywhere because of the snow. So, I took to painting. Acrylics have always been a favourite medium for me.

 I started off with this pre primed stretched canvas. I wanted to paint a face, but I had never done it before. Took me a couple of hours to finish this one.

 I started off with tracing out the outline of the face on the canvas, I filled the face with the flesh tint that I mixed (I do not use ready made flesh tints). I used a combination of, white, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, and raw umber for the base colour. MY brush strokes normally don't go in one direction, but this painting required that I run the brush in the shape of the face. Pretty much like applying make up . Once the base coat dried, I mixed a smidgeon of prussian blue in the flesh tint and dabbed wherever the shadows were required (The neck, chin etc)

 Next I painted the lips in a combination of cadmium red and white. Instead of shading the lips, I created an outline with cadmium red, which created an illusion of shading.

 Now the eyes were the most difficult part to paint. The base coat, though looks like it, is not white. It is white with a slight mix of gray. Once the base coat dried, I painted the pupil and the iris with two shades of gray, lighter on the outside, darker on the inside and a dab of the lighter shade on the center. I drew the eyelashes with the tip of a  fan brush and used the same strokes I would use while applying mascara.

Before I painted the hair, I wanted to paint the background as it would be difficult to paint the background after details are in. I painted a gradient of blue and green as the background. Not much care was given to the brush strokes.

 After the background dried, I started painting the hair. I wanted the hair to reflect the coor of the skin and did not want it to look artificially black, So I mixed a little dark brown in what remained of the flesh tone. I wanted the hair to have a flyaway look, so the strokes went down from the top of the head and outward. I did not measure the placement of the eyebrow properly , hence the surprised expression :).

 Finally, I ended the whole thing with a Yellow/blue/ brown frame to highlight the face and some jewelery in the colors of the background.

Painted Coffee mug

 Don't you just love drinking coffee? Nothing beats a warm, comforting mug of coffee on a cold day. I love gifting coffee mugs to friends, they are so utilitarian and decirative at the same time.
One such mug I made for a friend, is todays topic. This one is more on the decorative side.

 I wanted to present a coffee mug to a friend of mine who loved going on looong coffee breaks. His name started with S so I decide to paint his initial on it.

 To paint on a mug, you need to clean it really well to remove finger prints and any traces of grime. I usually use acrylic or fabric paints to paint on ceramic. These days there are also ceramic paints available, which can be baked in an oven to make them dishwasher and microwave proof.

I first painted his inital on the mug, but felt it was too simple. Then i added a few dots to the sides. These reminded me of bubbles and I tried to give it a coral theme. I rummaged through my mom's shell and bead collection and found some really beautiful shells.

 The thing with ceramic is that it is difficult to stick anything to the smooth surface. I used epoxy putty to stick the shells to the mug. You have to be very quick as epoxy putty hardens very quickly. Once the shells were stuck to the mug , I painted them in bright colors. I used pearl fabric paint for this. On the mug I painted a few weeds all around.

I waited a day for the mug to dry , just in case and Voila, a beautiful, coral themed mug. Try not to use water or oil colors because they will not adhere to ceramic. Another technique that I often use is duct tape stencil. I wrap the mug in duct tape to form a random striped pattern. I dip a sponge in color and dab it on the mug. This gives the mug a geometric pattern with a unique texture. You can also use paper, knives or dry brushes to give unique textures. If you want it to look more girly or decorative, sprinkle a little glitter on the wet paint or outline the pattern with glitter.

 Have you ever painted on ceramic? Do share your pictures.