It has been a wild month...

...what with doing the 21 Day Challenge with Jesse Elder.  It's been quite some time since I've done a personal growth course, and this one was beyond amazing/engaging/deep/challenging.  The energy was palpable, which led, of course, to a new painting.  It started here with a plastic wrap start on a long narrow canvas, and morphed to this:

21 Energy Rising© Win Dinn    Acrylic on canvas 8" x 24"  

It's like trying to photograph quicksilver with all the foil bits in there (Meg, I'm blaming that on you!), but I thought you might like to see some closeups anyway.

And sometime this week I tore into making another quick video tutorial that demonstrates a couple of ways (smooshing and cheesecloth painting) to use up those bits of leftover paint on your palette at the end of your painting session:

While you're watching it, please subscribe to my channel and encourage all your friends to do so...I'm on a mission to use up all the leftovers in the world (I can hear my mother talking; can you?).  

Just in case you're looking for some more tutorials, I encourage you to check out my tutorial page at the top of the blog.  There are links to videos and other tutorials that can get those creative play juices trackin' like a freight train.

That's it for me this week - what have you been up to?  Let me know in the comments below, and feel free to share a link to your post to do a show and tell.

It's that time of year again...

...when the trees burst into their flames of autumn splendor.

They tango in red,

 orange,

 gold,

green, 

and every possible combination in between.

They chat over the back fence with their neighbours

and whisper secrets to the sky.

They congregate in groups

as they strut their autumn wardrobe

before they hunker down for the coming winter.

May your autumn be as colourful as ours, and may the texture and glory make your heart sing.

It's been haywire...

...this week (perfect for an autumn theme, right?), what with Canadian Thanksgiving falling on the weekend and visitors here to celebrate.  That means that there was very little creativity happening in the studio.

I did get a chance to melt some wax on a pumpkin, though, and add it to the front - it rather makes up for all the tomato plants gone missing...John retired them all for the year this last week.

And naturally, there's always colour in the kitchen, especially when Thanksgiving is involved.  Thanks to Cartwheel Farms for this gorgeous produce!  There are no words to tell you how fabulous they tasted...

And in lieu of more creative photos and because I'm so grateful for your presence here,  I'm going to confer you all with honourary Canadian citizenship for the rest of the week, just so you can enjoy our Thanksgiving.  And no, Blogger, that is not the incorrect spelling of honourary in Canada!

Thank you all for stopping by, and please let me know how your creativity is bent this week in the comments below! 

  ♡💛💚💜💗

It's drip, drip, drool...

...in the studio this week as I do some more playing with the plastic wrap technique.

I was stunned, sheepish and downright disturbed (yup, more than usual!) to see that I'd not yet done a video on the technique, so that was part of my week as well.  And the editing elves returned from vacation,to ensure it was both edited and uploaded to YouTube.  Check out the process tutorial - it's very short, and give my channel some love while you're there please!  And who doesn't love playing with ArtFoamies on a background?!!!

This technique is one of the most versatile ones for a background, and can be subtle or sassy - it's your choice.  

You can do it layer by layer or do several colours at once.  I did a triple layer one this week (wrapped/dried in between the layers of quinacridone yellow, quinacridone red-orange and quinacridone burnt orange):

First and second layer

Third layer

Same method, three layers with drying time for each

Some softer examples that utilize the granular properties of some paints:

What's your favourite background technique? Let me know in the comments below and perhaps we can trade secrets!