Today we reflect on the life of an extraordinary human being who devoted seventy years of her life to serve tirelessly her people, her nation, her home. This painting is far from being anything worthy of Her Majesty, but she inspired me to express my respect, admiration, and at this very sad moment, my condolences.
Queen Elizabeth II
You can watch the TikTok video of me working on this painting by clicking here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR5j1B1K/ or by visiting my profile @gisele.t_ .
Sending my prayers to all who have been impacted by this tremendous loss, family, friends, and the people of the United Kingdom.
Like I said on my last post, my hand feels rusty. But I keep doing what I need to do. And being thankful for the opportunity of celebrating the imperfections that come out of every stroke of my brushes.
Almost Cherries Dripping Peaches
After all, we’re all here to learn. Live and learn…
I’ve had the chance to touch my brushes and paint this weekend, and I’ve realized how rusty I am right now… It felt like I was wearing a cast while I was painting. Oh well, it is what it is.
‘Bouquet of Hope‘ – inspired by a real bouquet my significant other has given me a week ago. He’d hand picked each one of them and brought them home for me. It made my heart so full of joy. Here’s a picture of it:
The most wonderful flowers I’ve ever received in my entire life.
Here’s a picture of the closeup I used as the inspiration of my painting:
I’ve painted my favorite one by itself:
‘Silky Summer’
I’m not going to be much harder on myself because what’s the point? I’ll keep on painting regardless of how many mistakes I make. Painting adds meaning into my life.
I have been MIA after going through a big loss. That’s a story for another post. But after months without touching my brushes I was presented with an opportunity to resume my work.
My mom had asked me to paint a birthday card for one of her best friends who is turning 60 years old. She said her friend’s favorite color is yellow. So I decided to paint a yellow lily.
You can find more videos of my painting on TikTok: gisele.t_
‘Lírio da Amizade’ – by Gisele T.
I’m happy to be back. Hopefully I’ll be working on some more pieces this week.
I know, it’s been so long, I feel rusty and have a lot of self-criticism when it comes to this card, but I put a lot of love into it so I’ll just be thankful for what it meant to me and to my mother.
As Mother’s Day approaches us I thought I’d share a small inspiration I painted a few weeks back.
I started off with some wet-on-dry shaping the orchids the best I could.
I added the leaves and some details in yellow.
Because the idea of a card sometimes makes me think of sparkles, I used some gold paint to add bright points over the leaves and petals.
With the same gold paint I painted letters and thought the custom word would add a special touch to it.
‘Mãe’ means Mom in Portuguese.
My beautiful and amazing mom and her card! I gave this card to her on her birthday back in February, she said she loved it (…moms gotta be supportive! Lol).
I hope you all are having an amazing time working on your art. I have had some hiccups in life that sort of made me take a break from painting, but I have some more of my work to share in the upcoming weeks and hopefully will be back to spending time with my brushes soon.
I’ve been insisting on the transparency technique. It’s going to be a long way before my paintings look like what I envision them to be, again, for the simple reason that “less is more” hasn’t yet become a constant for me. But when I look at this, I can see a light shining at the end of the tunnel.
Carmelitas – original watercolor painting.
Not much to report on this one other than the fact that the lines are off on purpose and that I love this color combination.
Life has been hard for me lately. I will share more eventually, just not quite yet. I didn’t think I would be capable of painting at all, but I was wrong, thank goodness. Painting is not, in my opinion, an exercise to be forced to, but it should be used as a life vest as much as needed…
Perhaps the problem before was that I went for the whole garden when truly I should have started with one single flower.
Wet on wet freehand watercolor painting. It took me about 30 minutes from beginning to end. Inspired by the blouse I was wearing today. And it put a big smile on my face.
Note to self: less is more, at least for right now.
Yes, I’m sure most of you artists are familiar with this book, and talking about art failures or creative blocks by bringing Pressfield’s title up would be nothing but a sad cliché. That’s fine. I won’t fight it. I’m not a painter, and I’m not trying to be a writer either. Cliché it is…
Here’s what happened: I painted an ugly paint. Perhaps none of my work so far would necessarily be considered “pretty”, but I’ve always felt good about each and every one of them, well, except for this one.
The last time I’ve touched my brushes: March 10th – exactly two weeks ago, I started painting this thing I kind of envisioned, and oh boy…
I swear I took a picture of the blank page because my expectations for this one were high. Why? I have no idea why.
The weather outside was nice and I went for the obvious. “Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking.”
I thought about blue flowers. Again, no idea why.
I should have stopped here and called it a day, this didn’t look too bad. But no. I was thirsty. I was greedy. I wanted more.
And that’s what happened. A total disaster.
I contemplated throwing this painting away many times. I didn’t. I suppose there are a couple drops of sadistic emotions holding me back. Perhaps I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m not good at all at painting… I have no clue. But whatever it is, I’m putting an end to it, and I’m doing it right now, as I share my failure with the world (*drama queen*).
That’s all. I’m not looking for comfort or positivity. I’m over this painting. I’m putting it away and take it for what it is: just a piece of paper and some drops of paint.
Tomorrow is the birthday of my other half, so it was a great opportunity to work on something completely new and challenging to me. He is a nature lover, so the options were endless…
Yes. The options were endless. It took me some time to decided what I wanted to do.
I knew I wanted to paint the skies, so I envisioned a beautiful sunset. I don’t usually take advantage of my flat large brush, but I did use it quite a bit on this one.
As I was working on the colors I thought many times that it would not turn out okay. Insecurities… am I the only one? But I kept on going. I used the flat brush horizontally for the skies and vertically for the field.
It was also the first time I used some help to speed up the process! No, that’s not cheating…Definitely not…!
Black paint for the silhouette – I love it!
Okay, time to paint the silhouette of the buck. I got super nervous, I knew I had close to zero room to make mistakes here. So I picked my 00 brush and began to outline it as slowly as possible.
At this point I was very happy about how its body turned out to the point I asked myself if it would be okay to just leave it headless haha!
Well, he isn’t headless. He even has points and everything. Oh.. And a tail!
After finishing the buck I felt like adding another pine tree, and that was it. Singed it, done!
‘Buck At Dusk’ – original, watercolor
There’s something special about handmade birthday cards, right? This one does not fold, I have a handwritten message for him on the back. I hope he likes it.
Gisele's Gallery 