Painting A Day Archives - Page 16 of 17 - Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

Painting a Day – Week 3 – Animal Paintings

January 27, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

Here are all the paintings I completed in for my daily painting for my third week:

I picked an animal theme for most of the week starting with this portrait of our yorkie Max:

Then I painted my friend’s cat Furgus. Furgus passed away a few weeks ago at the age of sixteen and I wanted to paint a memorial for my sweet friends Sarah and Matt:

Mid week I had to take my car to Asheville for an oil change. I took my paints with me and painted a turkey I found in the pages of a Field and Stream magazine:

Then I painted this cute little piggy:

Tiny feather paintings:

A seagull:

And a teeny tiny hedgehog:

These paintings have already sold on Etsy but you can see when I post them real time on my Instagram account here. You can view all my daily paintings here. Thanks for checking them out!

Also here is the progress on my daily button/embroidery stitch:

Painting A Day – Week 2

January 15, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

It feels good to be back in the studio. It’s so true about the importance of establishing a practice for painting but I never know what I’m going to paint each day…it just kind of comes to me when I sit down at my little work table:

Here are all the paintings I painted last week:

A watercolor with a quote:

“Wandering Planet” (Sold)

A winter birch tree scene in watercolor (although a few people said they see elephants):

“First Snow” (Sold)

These tiny watercolor scenes of the Smoky Mountains in lockets:

“Mountain Midnight” Lockets (Sold)

A layered painting with vintage embroidery stitched onto the canvas:

“Enjoy the Little Things” (Sold)

Another watercolor scene of the Smokies:

“Mountain Midnight” (Sold)

Another layered painting with vintage embroidery stitched onto the canvas:

“Sunshine” (Sold)

Yesterday I decided to paint on something other than a flat surface and made this little ceramic steer skull:

I’ve been working on these two reclaimed wood pieces for a while now. I ended up finishing them this week (outside of the daily paintings)…finally stitching up the cracks. I love the Japanese practice of Kintsugi…the art of repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold. It treats the crack as part of the history of an object rather than a defect. I painted these paintings on reclaimed wood knowing that existing cracks would only get larger as the paint dried and pulled. Instead of filling the cracks with gold I used gold thread to “stitch” them back together…highlighting the cracks instead of trying to cover them up or fill them.

“Grow” 15.75 x 20 on Reclaimed Wood

“Bloom” 15.75 x 20 on Reclaimed Wood

And one last layered painting with the vintage embroidery:

“Wild and Free”

I think I might try a theme next week: animals. We’ll see how that works out! I’m still stitching a button/bead a day too…here’s how that looks as of today:

Who else is doing a 365 Challenge?

Painting A Day – Week 1

January 7, 2017 by Ashley Hackshaw

I decided on January 1st to try and paint at least one painting a day this year. I’ve never lasted more than two weeks on a 365 project but I hope to make this one last! I think if I post a roundup of all seven here each week maybe that will help keep me accountable. I’m also posting them on Instagram each day here.

Here are all the “daily” paintings I made this week:

A mixed media painting with a quote:

“A Work of Art” (Sold)

A collaboration with Boo. She drew the chicken for me and I painted the designs onto the shape:

“Kaleidoscope Chicken” (Sold)

A floral watercolor:

“Peonies” (Sold)

An abstract landscape of the Smoky Mountains. Painting on reclaimed barn wood:

“Smokies” (Sold)

A floral watercolor with a layer of pen illustrated on top:

A watercolor and colored pencil rendition of Foshizzle as Frida Kahlo:

“Fo as Frida” (Sold)

An acrylic painting with vintage embroidery stitched on:

“Open the Window” (Sold)

Every few days I’ll be listing some of the paintings in my Etsy shop along with other work I’m working on simultaneously. I’m always complaining to myself that I can’t find time to paint but I’m determined this year. When I’m painting I’m at my happiest!

I also started this other project inspired by Hannah Claire Somerville…a stitch a day for an entire day. Instead of an embroidery stitch though I thought I’d add a button or a bead to this fabric and see what it looks like once it’s filled. Here’s what it looked like yesterday (since I haven’t added my button for the day yet).

It’s never too late to start a yearly project! You only have just one week to catch up with the stitching or button!