Christmas in the Desert

 I painted this when I lived in the Mojave desert. I've always been inspired by the desert, even before I lived there  I went camping there a lot.

This magnet features a cat looking out the window at a Joshua tree. You can only tell it is the winter holiday season because there is a Christmas tree in the house and Christmas lights, so the magnet will look fine on the fridge year-round.

Now that I think of it, having Christmas magnets would be kind of a fun tradition. They could be kept with the holiday stuff, and once a year I would have fun refrigerator magnets. (I don't have magnets on the fridge because they add clutter, and I want the outside of my fridge to be the only uncluttered thing in my house :)

Mojave Desert Christmas Cat Joshua Tree art Magnet
by MelskyArt

Today's magnet of the day - abstract floral plus whimsical

 Describing a lot of my paintings is hard. Are they abstract? Sort of, but almost all of them have some sort of identifiable flower or object. They are not what I'd consider pop art. They are just weird and wonderful colorful paintings with details of animals, flowers, objects, so much stuff. Art Brut is probably the most accurate description, but most people don't know what that is, and  I don't think that people use that as a search term. It means art that is just painted without really planning beforehand.

It is much easier to have a straightforward painting, where I could just say Blue Cat painting, or whatever it is.

Anyway, here is today's magnet, a gem from 2007 in rare landscape format :)

Whimsical abstract floral art cat sun fish magnet
by MelskyArt

Tiger Lily Kitten

Here's another recent painting. This is watercolor and ink. I started by drawing on watercolor paper, then painted it in with watercolor. Then I did the background of the sky with permanent ink marker. That was a long process. I should have made it a bit less detailed but once I start a background I usually will just do the whole thing in the same way. Then I used a permanent ink marker to do the outlining.

I've noticed that a lot of my paintings feature orange cats, goldfish and tiger lilies but I don't think I have a painting with all three of them. I'll have to do one.

1 year ago

I was putting this up as one of my new paintings - well, new since I started updating this blog a lot. I was surprised when I looked at the date. It was painted on August 23, 2010.

This is watercolor and ink on watercolor paper, with acrylic paint highlights. It was painted for an online auction for a cat shelter.

New paintings and techniques

Did you ever have any of those children's activity books where they had pictures colored with dots, and you activated the paint by painting them with water? I had those and I found them very fun.

Recently I started using watercolor crayons. Using them feels like a cross between wax crayons and oil pastels. They are water soluble though, so painting them with water activates the colors and turns them into watercolor.

The fish painting uses water color crayon and colored pencils and then it's painted with regular water colors in the background. The lines are done with black colored pencil.

The tiger lily painting was done with colored pencils first. I did detail pattern work on the tiger lilies and the background. Then I colored them in with the crayons and painted with water.

The tiger lily painting took way to long with that background! It's a learning experience.

Catching Up

I've been painting more, and also doing some digital art. I'm drawing on my Wacom tablet. It's very awkward to draw on it still, but I'm getting better. I plan on doing a line of greeting cards and other products such as magnets, t-shirts, etc.

Otherwise, I'm selling real estate. Yes, this takes up a lot of my time! I'm doing well though. I'm selling mostly to investors and first time buyers.

I am involved with cat rescue- I'm on the board of SANS - Spay And Neuter Syracuse. It's a clinic that provides spay/neuter services for homeless animals and people who can't afford full cost services at vets. Last winter I worked on Pawcasso, an art auction fundraiser.

I am going to post on this blog when I finish paintings. Besides the digital, I've been doing a lot of watercolor/ink/watercolor crayon. Watercolor is easier to do when you don't have much time. Though I like acrylic better, I can take a half hour in the morning and get quite a bit done on watercolors. With the acrylic, I have to use a lot of time for setup and cleanup.

This is one of my more recent paintings, itwas done with watercolor and resist. You paint the foreground first - the cat and fish. Then I covered them with a rubber-like substance and painted the backgrounds. When it dried, I rubbed off the resist. It was hard to get the resist just right, it took several coats. I like the way it turned out. I have cards and products with this image for sale in my Zazzle store.

Cat and Fish Resist by MelskyArt
Create a Post card with zazzle.com

Bright Roses

Bright Roses, originally uploaded by Melsky.

New painting! This is acrylic and digital. I painted with acrylic on paper, scanned it, and then added highlights and changed the background.

I think I will try doing this more often. I want to try the technique with watercolors too.

I have a very nice Wacom tablet - where you can use a pen to draw in paint programs on the computer. I tried doing some paintings just on the computer but I found it very hard and they didn't look so good! But I am finding I enjoy modifying paintings I do offline.

When I paint with acrylics, the black I use to outline comes out with reflections on it when I scan it. I actually went through this one and colored all lines flat black. I deepened the colors and changed the background color to orange instead of yellow. I also added highlights. I'll have to put the original up for comparison.

I like painting with watercolors, mostly because they fit in with my busy schedule! That is, it's easy to start and stop watercolors, you don't need to worry about the paint drying on the brush and you only need a watercolor palette, water and brushes. Also, it's not that big of a deal if you get paint on your skin or clothes, it washes out.

I don't like the washed out colors though! But if I do watercolors and modify them I can get whatever colors I want.

Garden Cat

Garden Cat, originally uploaded by Melsky.

8x10 on Canvas - finished! Will be auctioned off at the PAWCASSO fundraiser to benefit SANS, who provide low cost spay/neuter services.

I'm having an art show!

Roses and Fish, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I decided to have an art show. My show is called September Stream of Consciousness and it will be an online show. The art will all be 8x10 watercolor paintings with pencil and ink. The show will open this Friday, September 20. Artwork will be for sale in my etsy store.

The paintings all will start out as pencil drawings. They will then be colored in with watercolor, and finished off with black ink pen outlining.

This painting, Fish and Roses, is the first one. The rest will be unveiled at the show opening.

I'm having a good time creating the paintings. It's very good to have a deadline to work under. It's fun to create a series of paintings in similar style and materials.

I hope you will join me on Friday.

Summer Fragments

Summer Fragments, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a paining I finished last night. It's 11x14 and done with watercolor, acrylic and ink on watercolor paper.

I started this painting when I was doing the Art on the Porches festival. For some reason I had the idea to do a painting with a woman's face, a guitar and a cat. The painting was going to be kind of serious and somber and have darker colors in it.

The cat and the guitar turned out good but the woman's face turned out horrible. I wish I had taken a before picture of this painting! When I took it out and started working on it again I painted over the woman's face with green and white. Do you see the part in the middle with yellow paint and copper colored stripes with the sunflower in the bottom part? That was part of her hair.

I like how it ended up but of course it's not somber at all. I can never seem to paint things that don't look happy and bursting with good cheer.

Anyway I put it on etsy:

Summer Fragments painting on Etsy.

I'm living in a swamp

Little Paintings, originally uploaded by Melsky.

It's 93 degrees and very humid. Yuck. Can we have winter back now, please?

I bought a chaise lounge so I can go in the basement where it is cool and read. We don't have air conditioning. Our windows won't fit an air conditioner!

This morning I went to yoga and now I have been busy painting all day. These are indoor/outdoor paintings on wood. They have a protective varnish on them. I think they would be fun on a porch, especially the welcome sign ones of course. But since I am doing the Art on the Porches festival next weekend I think these are very appropriate.

Summer Night Sky Cat

Summer Night Sky Cat, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I've finished a new painting. I decided to paint with acrylics today and see what happened. This is the result and I'm very happy with it.

This one is 8x10 on watercolor paper.

Summer Night Sky Cat painting for sale

I'm going to be doing the Art on the Porches festival on June 14th. It's really exciting to be doing a festival again, I have not done one in a long time. I hope the weather is good.

That's one thing I miss about California, the certainty that it would not rain on festival days. It doesn't rain in the Summer in most of California. I do like that it rains in the summer here in New York, it's just that I would like to be able to choose the days!

Summer Day

Summer Day, originally uploaded by Melsky.

A new painting. This one is a watercolor and ink, but with brighter colors.

I've listed it on etsy:

Summer Day Watercolor Painting for sale

I've been working a lot with my Wacom tablet. That's a method of using a pen to draw digitally on a big tablet so you can do drawings that will show up in an illustration program. It's hard to get used to drawing and painting with it but I am getting better.

I plan on starting a new watercolor soon, something with a cityscape theme I think.

I also went horseback riding last weekend which I enjoyed a lot, and to a picnic.

I did some gardening, mostly pulling up weeds. I'm not sure if I'm going to have any sunflowers in my garden though. I found a lot of sunflower hulls where I had planted them. In related news the birds and squirrels around here are looking fat and happy. Maybe I should try again and bury them deeper.

Spring Makes People Happy

Spring Makes People Happy, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Spring even makes me happy, grouchy old lover of winter that I am. But I am enjoying doing some gardening. Most of what I planted is seeds and I can't wait until they come up. I planted four varieties of sunflowers, dill, marjoram, basil, cilantro, chives, mint, cosmos, and a a bunch of packets of mixed flower seeds.

I've also been doing more watercolors. They are coming out great, I'm very happy with them. This one is for sale - Spring Makes People Happy Painting for sale on etsy. It's an 11x14 watercolor.

Orange Sunflower Watercolor

Orange Sunflower Watercolor, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I just finished another painting. It's good to be back to painting again!

Orange Sunflower painting

I've cleaned up my studio too, so it's a lot more pleasant to paint in here.

Today I was walking to the library and I walked into a branch on the sidewalk and it punctured the top of my foot. That really hurt! So now I am trying to stay off it and I will go to the doctor tomorrow if it doesn't get better.

Oh and I quit my job, if I didn't mention that already.

Busy painting today, but not on the thing I should be working on. I have started a painting that I want to enter into a show. It needs to be finished. But here I am finishing up these little paintings I started a couple of years ago.

But at least I'm painting!

Psycho Kitty

Happy for Spring

Happy for Spring, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I've been in kind of a funk lately, about painting. I've been finding it hard to get motivated and paint every day. So I decided to work in some other formats. At first I did some collage/assemblage pieces, and they were ok, but I still wasn't feeling excited about the art.

Then I got out my watercolors and I'm really enjoying them. This first painting turned out very well. I've decided to do a series of spring themed watercolors.

I've already completed another painting in the series but it's not scanning well. It has a lot of variations in the coloring, and these are not coming out in the scan, it's showing up at a much higher contrast than it should be. I may have to use photographs, which will be hard to set up. But anyway, I'm happy that the paintings are coming out well.

This painting shows up very badly in this blog, click on the picture to see it larger.

Another distance in time painting

Woman and Leaf, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a painting I started in 2003 or 2004. I remember I was still living in the desert. I've been going through and finishing up a bunch of my half finished work.

I like doing this, sometimes it's as if the painting was started by someone else.

Syracuse Street Scene

This is an Artist Trading Card (atc). It's the same size as a baseball card. It's my first painting of Syracuse. I don't know what happened with the scan. It's kind of blurry.

I'm happy to be painting some more local things. I started this last fall.

I drove for the first time the other day. It felt very natural and easy, I forgot that I hadn't driven for three whole years. I just need to schedule the actual driving part of the test and take it and I will have my license.

Sky Fish Heart

Sky Fish Heart, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is a new painting, another one in the Sky Fish series. All of the other Sky Fish have sold so far. It's kind of like the Pieces symbol too, so I'm hoping someone might buy it for that.

Pieces Sky Fish Heart painting on Etsy

I just finished a mirror that matches this and I will put it up tomorrow because I'm too tired to scan it right now.

I have a few more things I've put up lately that I haven't blogged. Oh dear, I am being lazy on my blogging!

This is one of them, a collaged card with Frida Kahlo and a deer.

This is a magnet called CALL ME




















Recently I had thought about going back to selling on Ebay. Well, I just read that Ebay lowered their listing fees and now gallery is free. Great! So am I going to sell on Ebay now? No, because they raised their final value fees (that's what they call their commission off the final price) and you can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers, and paypal won't release your money until you get positive feedback! So, no way. My big fear is that ebay will buy etsy. Shudder!

Last week I took a lot of photos of downtown Syracuse and now I'm thinking about painting something based on them. I'm excited about the new project and I hope it will spur me into getting some offline exposure.