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ashkara2001

Kristine
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I'm Back

1 min read
Well, my absence of a few short days turned into an absence of a couple of months.  My computer troubles turned out to be a little more than I had thought, and finances were not exactly conducive to the problems I've had in the meanwhile.  

However, I am now returned.  I have less teeth than I did previously, more refrigerators, and more washing machine parts.  Not a lot more artwork, only a couple of pieces, but that's only because I've been wrapping my head around medieval cooking, and wasting a good portion of my time watching the entirety of Babylon 5 (all five seasons, seven movies, and the spin-off series Crusade).  I am currently trying to learn how to knit.  This isn't terribly easy, I'm following how-to guides and they don't explain properly.  I've yet to manage two stitches in a row.
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Computer issues

1 min read
I may be MIA for a few days, I'm having a teensy issue with my computer.  As in it won't talk to my monitor.  It's off to get fixed, and I'll be back as soon as it's operational again.
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56 tubes...

3 min read
Last year I decided I was bored with my old acrylics.  You know how it is when you've just had enough of doing one thing and want to break out and do something different?  I never had enough white, and the newsagent down the road only stocked a few colours, and I'd buy it all up, but then they wouldn't reorder white and black until they had to order every colour, and blah blah blah.  

I guess that's a part of the whole "I'm not a serious artist" thing that was happening in my head.

I'm an autodidact.  I teach myself.  I've never done any form of art schooling, I don't belong to any clubs, I've never displayed my work other than here, on Facebook, and on Myspace (although I haven't been on Myspace for quite some time now).  It was easy to tell myself that art wasn't a big part of who I was... I'd displayed no real interest in it as a child, and only took it up after a mental breakdown.  It wasn't a calling, it was a vent.

Last year, someone I worked with commissioned me to paint something for him.  I'd given him something for his housewarming, and he'd gone "WOW!  I want you to paint THIS for me!  I'll pay you $200!"  At that point, I could no longer say I wasn't serious about my art.  I've filled up my house with $5 discount canvasses from the bargain stores that I covered with acrylic paints.  No wall goes unfurnished.  I'm an artist, and I'm serious about my art.

So I figured it was about time for me to actually learn something about painting.   

I couldn't find any books about painting with acrylics.  Not from the discount bookstores I was looking in, anyway.  But they had books on watercolours, and they also had cheap student watercolour tube packs.  So I bought everything I could lay my hands on to do with watercolours.  The first couple of weeks I made some really nice paintings and some really dreadful ones.  I knew nothing about complementary colours, or colour mixing, or even about paint conservation.  I got to find out about all those missing concepts from the books I'd picked up.  
At the same time, I picked up a book on oils and a few tubes of oil paint.  Trying to learn them both simultaneously was a nightmare, so I've put oils aside for the moment.

Today I took a look through my watercolours, as I've recently picked them back up (having for some time reverted back to my old standby of acrylics, which I still know very little about).  I have 56 tubes.  56!  What the hell am I going to do with 56 tubes of student watercolours?  I suppose I'd better go paint some stuff.
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Having somehow rediscovered my watercolours, in the past two weeks I've been in a flurry of activity learning how to use the blasted things.  It's approaching one painting a day now.

I probably won't keep pumping out landscapes after I've figured out how various techniques work, I'll head out into unfamiliar territory as soon as it all gets a little to boring, but for now you get to see me paint clouds and sunsets.  

Because I'm broke.  And I can't afford any more canvasses for my acrylics (for the time being, at least).  And I have a big book of A3 watercolour paper...
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I've been painting on and off for about 12 years now.  Most of my work has been distributed amongst friends and family because I never really thought it was worth selling, but as I get more and more paintings stockpiling in my house, I find I'm starting to run out of space.  A couple of years ago a friend commissioned a painting from me, which started me thinking that maybe there was some talent there after all...

Many of the paintings shown on here are for sale, so if you see a piece you might like to own, drop me a line... if it's not already a part of someone's private collection I'll be able to give you a price and information on the size of the piece.
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I'm Back by ashkara2001, journal

Computer issues by ashkara2001, journal

56 tubes... by ashkara2001, journal

An Everyday Ocurrence by ashkara2001, journal

A little about me by ashkara2001, journal