art studio

How to make your art stronger

How to make your art stronger

Getting clear around what your abstract painting is about is vital if you want to make it stand out and attract attention. So often abstract art can be overwhelming and confusing becuase the artist hasn’t decided what the painting is REALLY about. In this video I talk you through what to look for in your work to discover where it’s strengths lie and how to make it stronger and more powerful. How to make it stand out from all the other work on the Gallery wall.

Don’t miss out on my upcoming Workshop. I’ll be demonstrating through guided painting videos and Live Calls, how you can make art you love consistently with a process you can trust. June 24 - 28, 2024 register here: https://www.judywoodsart.com/starts-wkshp-reg-june-2024-soc

,

Reviewing Techniques and Media Used in My NEW Paintings

,
Reviewing Techniques and Media Used in My NEW Paintings

In this video, I reveal four newly finished paintings and talk about the techniques I used and the combinations of media used in each one. I also share how these paintings direct me to new work and what I want to focus on more in these.

This practice of reviewing your work when it’s completed is really important in understanding how your work is evolving and where the clues lie for future work.

I talk about media: paint, ink, and drawing media and how and why I’m using them in my work.

,

Taking A Painting Backwards

,
Taking A Painting Backwards

We all want to finish our paintings, but sometimes we have to take them a few steps backward in order to finish them. This takes courage and big moves, but in my experience always results in a better outcome. In this short Vlog, I demonstrate the process of taking a painting backward to finish it.

,

Choosing Colours

,
Choosing Colours

When choosing the right colour in my paintings I use a simple process of asking questions to establish what type of colour will look best. Once I have established the colour type the options are narrowed and I know exactly what colour to mix in order to create harmony or contrast. This process takes away the guesswork when mixing colour.

,

SHOULD You Use A Sketchbook?

,
SHOULD You Use A Sketchbook?

“How can you call yourself an Artist if you don’t have a sketchbook?” Well, I explore my ideas in the process of my paintings on the canvas. I love trying this and that right there on the canvas. And I love that these explorations become part of the painting and are embedded in the surface.

,

Selling Your Art

,
Selling Your Art

SELLING ART. With the knee-wobbling price of art materials and given that none of us are going to stop producing it’s something that we have to deal with, like it or not. I‘ve learnt that selling Art is a long game. Read my 5 tips for selling your Art.

,

The Power of Pretending

,
The Power of Pretending

Taking doubt and hesitation completely out of our Art Practice is challenging. But what if we pretend we operate with assurance and confidence? The power of pretending can be enlightening and result in lasting change.

,

Finishing Again

,
Finishing Again

How do you know when you’re finished is one of THE most frequently asked questions, and probably the most difficult to answer. Well, you just know – you know? How do I go about deciding that perhaps… maybe it’s possibly… quite probably finished or…. almost done – nearly?

,

My Studio – What it’s REALLY like

,
My Studio – What it’s REALLY like

…when I have my music on, a canvas on the wall and my palette swimming in wet paint the mess, the skinks, the spiders, and the rats are not even a thing – kind of.

,

Building Layers with Mixed Media

,
Building Layers with Mixed Media

How do you integrate drawing and painting techniques in your artwork? Watch how I vary wet and dry media with differences in types of paint application. Working in this way holds my interest in the process and delivers variety to work with going forward.

,

Painting with Total Abandon

,
Painting with Total Abandon

The journey from difficulty and confusion to clarity and joy. That’s the path we are all on with our Art. We are all at different stages of that path – some at the beginning bogged down among the weeds, and others further along emerging into openness where the path widens and the walking is more easy. We can kind of see the way forward – a bit.

,

How to Start a Painting

,
How to Start a Painting

Some people agonize over starting their paintings, which is a shame really because it’s like setting off on an adventure – but the best sort of adventure. You don’t have to scale heights, get wet, lost or hungry, you don’t even have to leave home. But you ARE venturing into the unknown with very little idea of what will result from the experience.

,

Photo Transfers

,

Learn how to do Photo Transfers.

Materials used: Heavy Gel Medium onto Laserjet Photocopy on photocopying paper

Then Soft Gel Gloss to stick the Photo-skin to the painting surface.

,

Perspective

,
Perspective

How do you achieve Perspective in your practice? I’m not talking perspective achieved by ruling lines and identifying vanishing points. I’m talking about how you keep a healthy balance between the good and the not so good that happens along the way in your Art Practice.

, ,

Questions to ask...

, ,
,

New Beginnings...

,
New Beginnings...

I also really enjoyed letting loose with drawing and using dry media a lot more in my paintings when I was working on the large sized paintings. This added a playful looseness which I really liked and prevented me working in a straight-line towards finishing when after each painting session I would draw and scribble over the painting. Coming back into it the next day I would cover a lot of the drawing over but the little remnants that peeped through were really fun suggesting a naivety which I liked.

, ,

Finishing a Painting II

, ,
Finishing a Painting II

Follow the final moves as I bring this mixedmedia painting to it’s finished state. This painting integrates photocopied images with paint and collage.

, ,

Is there ‘Precious’ in your Studio?

, ,
Is there ‘Precious’ in your Studio?

Finally, the insistent call of the outside world drags us away and we close the studio door on that tangled grid-locked mess of paint, hope, and self-belief. As we square up to the dishwasher and the dusting that secret smile is now a nagging sense of dread. Am I good enough? Why can’t I figure this out? I’ve killed my precious ….