Bigoudi and Fonda Sparks

Some new challenges

2010-07-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a busy spring around here. While the flowers were busy blooming Pascale was busy making a little miracle of her own...sweet baby Theo. And as all new moms (and old moms) know things can get busy with a little one around.

The Sparks household has been busy too (though no new babies!!). Franka finished kindergarten, swimming, soccer and her capoeira lessons all in one week and has now moved on to the land of camps. We have all just been trying to keep up.

My last challenge is almost finished, but in the meantime my sweet (98 year-old) grandmother issued a challenge of her own. She asked for a small painting that she could have for her apartment. I have been wanting to make her a painting for a while but wasn't sure if this would be something she would want or like (as everyone has different tastes in art), so I jumped at the chance.

This is a painting of my grandmother's 3 children, Owen, Muriel and Buck Godlonton probably sometime in the mid 1940's. It was wonderful to paint and I changed the colors a bit to give it a sepia feel that I really love. And as my father passed away about 10 years ago(predeceased by my Uncle) it has some special meaning to me.

Now I just need to make it into Calgary to deliver this painting....so mums the word. Grandma doesn't know yet!!!

Challenge #4

2010-03-02T12:17:00.000-08:00

I've recently purchased a new camera and as I've been fooling around with the settings I started thinking about doing a painting using the zoom function. So my challenge is to do a regular painting and then do another one that is zoomed in on one small spot of the first painting. Sort of a "Where's Waldo" approach. Sorry Pascale, as you're getting closer and closer to having that baby I give you a challenge that is not one, but two pieces!

Very cool!

2010-02-25T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hey Fonda!
Good work my dear! Your painting technique is a perfect match for portraits... Dan must be so proud of this very cool rendition of him looking relaxed and 'hip'!
What is our next challenge?

Last but not Least

2010-02-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

My painting of my second half (Dan) is finally finished. It's been a bit of an epic journey getting it done which has involved: Dan's crazy work schedule in the last little while, a child who has had both strep throat and mono in the last month, plus all the other things that come and go with regular life in a family. But finally it's off the easel and I can move on to new projects.

I love this painting because it is Dan on vacation, which is a much more relaxed Dan than we usually see at home (note: that there is no cell phone present!). I took the photo of this while we were on vacation in Jamaica last winter and I loved the sky and clouds behind him. We had stopped at a great rest stop by the ocean when I snapped the photo.

One of the great side effects of this project is that I'm starting to learn how to use photoshop a bit more effectively to clean up my photos of my paintings (which I'm sure Pascale will be happy about, as she was my go-to girl about this kind of stuff). This is my first post that I have done the editing myself! Got to love the photoshop manual!

My hubby!

2010-02-05T10:31:00.000-08:00

This is my painting of Jeff, my man. He will be a father in three months and lately he has been caught up with renos and work and has had no time to climb at the gym or ski. The photo used for the painting was taken in November at the end of our last kid-free road trip. Now only God knows when he will have the time to work on these muscles again!

Yess!!!

2009-12-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

I love the new challenge. I literally laughed out loud. I'm sure that my husband (for all those who know him) doesn't need a whole lot of help in the attention department, but I'm super excited to try this challenge.

Great idea Pascale. And i didn't get a chance to post about your last challege painting, but I totally love it. We had been talking about trying to get a lot more freedom in our paintings and I think you totally hit the nail on the head. It's beautiful.

Challenge #3

2009-12-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

Ok... I have a good one... how about painting our second half?! They are part of every day of our lives, but never on our paintings! This is their chances to be famous! So the challenge is to paint (in a figurative or non-figurative way) our husbands!
What do you think Fonda?

Let it Rain!

2009-12-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is it! After months of hiatus! This is what I am doing these days! Encaustic on top of a charcoal drawing.
And in this new piece, the drips of the wax creates an effect of 'wetness' or rain... This was a hard challenge for me that triggered a lot more thinking than doing!
I am glad that I can move on now and get something else on the go.. and it is my turn to choose the next challenge...
I am thinking of a snow storm... or the crisp cold, or something like that! Funny how the weather influences our moods! To be followed...

Beautiful work!

2009-11-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

Hey Fonda,
This is a great piece! I love the light in this piece and the way you have used more detail for the drops. Personally, I just got back from 4 weeks in the desert so I will have to use some imagination to create water...this could be interesting!

The End of the Rain

2009-11-12T12:57:00.000-08:00

Fonda: Well this challenge has been a bit of a long go for me, as I've mentioned in the previous posts there were a lot of distractions to getting this one out. However, it's finally done. Actually I've had it finished for a while now, but haven't had the time to post to the blog. But I've finally got my whole family out the door to school and work and I'm sitting here with a tea at long last.

I'm pretty happy with this painting. It's in the standard style of painting that I usually do but definitely a little bit more abstract than normal. I took a section from a picture of some lilies in my garden after a rain and cut out just a part of the leaves and raindrops. I really liked the dark shadows and the light colors of the colors of the sun on the leaves that were highlighted by the very white/blue rain drops. The water was pretty hard to paint and if you look closely I did some shading in the water (the rest of the painting is just blocks of solid colors) with some blue and some iridescent copper, which I felt is needed to give it some depth. This technique of mixing two painting style in one painting is something I haven't really done a lot of before (I'm a bit obsessive that way) but I think it's something that might be worth exploring a bit in the future.

Good luck on this one Pascale! I can't wait to see what you produce!

Oh how the time flies.

2009-10-23T20:12:00.001-07:00

Fonda:
Don't worry millions of readers we're still here. It's been a long time since postings anything and unfortunately on my end, the business of life has got in the way. My husband and I took a wonderful trip to Europe for 17 days at the end of September, which obviously made painting a bit hard. However, I did get tons of wonderful photos that I can't wait to turn into paintings. And just when I was getting back in the swing of things our family has been hit by the flu, so progress has ground to a halt.

On the upside, I am almost finished the 2nd challenge and I can't wait to post my thoughts about it. I am doing this painting in my usual painting style, though it's a bit more abstract than usual. I'm liking the results. Ohhh, to just have a few minutes to finish it! Hopefully soon.

As for Pascale, I know she's on a grand road trip right now, hopefully getting some wonderful images for inspiration for new paintings. We'll be back with some art soon.

My my! It is October 3rd!

2009-10-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hey Fonda... what is going on?! Have we already lost track?!!! How about our million readers... we need to give them something don't you think?
Personally, I have been in a dry spell big time for the summer and now I am on a road trip trying to find my way to art again... hmmm... how about you?

Challenge Two

2009-08-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Fonda:
It has been a rainy summer in Canmore Alberta this year, so that is the inspiration for our second challenge. Incorporate rain into an art piece. Obviously this could take many forms so I'm excited to see what we produce.

The First Finish

2009-08-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Fonda: So I've just finished my first challenge. As you may gather already, I'm a bit of a slow painter. I'm a scientist by training, so I always seem to gravitate to more detailed, precise painting styles. And this challenge was no exception. It took me far longer than Pascale to complete this challenge. I think she completed about four paintings to my one (though to be honest a small child in my house may have had something to do with that as well).

This was a hard project, not just because it made me analyze my face way too much, but it made me step out of my safety net a bit. I chose a totally new painting style, which was very fun and I'd love to work in this style some more. I was trying to paint details but also keep lots of white space because I wanted to have the dark contrast between the background and my skin. The only seriously detailed part of the painting was the eye, which was what I did first. While this might not be my finest work, it did intrigue me and left me wanting to explore more techniques and styles, and allowed me to step outside the box. And so on that note....cue Challenge 2!

Take two... not so good!

2009-08-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

(Fonda, Not to worry about the sketch, we will write up the challenge before we start next time!)

Ok, so after finding that my first pose was pretty boring, I tried a second painting with a mirror on top of my head... It was a little hard on the neck to look up and down for more than two hours as I was painting... but here is the result. My first intention was to do it as seen from the bottom but it made me look like if I had a GIANT double chin!

Also, I am not sure about the colour choice... I think I liked the green better! But this is not about creating a beautiful artwork every time, this is about the process! Fonda, I am glad that you had the time to write your impressions, keep painting those dots! Can't wait to see your piece!

I've Already Cheated

2009-08-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Fonda here...and I have a confession to make. I'm a cheater. But to be fair I didn't mean to be. When doing the project I sketched first, then started painting. And because Pascale and I had just talked about the first challenge verbally, I sort of forgot that was against the rules. But I don't think it matters because the challenge is FREAKIN' hard anyway.

Here are some of my thoughts as I have been working on it. Firstly, how did I get so old, and why hasn't anyone told me that I have jowls! Seriously I have no idea when that happened. I sat down and started sketching, which actually went pretty good as I was thinking about the angle I wanted to work from for a while (which is usually all the time I want to be painting but am doing laundry, cooking and cleaning for the family). Then I attacked the painting, which immediately started looking like something from a junior high art class...maybe even elementary school. The perfectionist in me cannot handle this so I had to paint the painting white and start again. I had been reading an art book and wanted to do a technique using pointillism (otherwise known as little tiny dots!). It's great and looking fantastic but not a speedy process. Sooo rather than write more now, I going to get back to the grindstone and dot my heart out so we can post our paintings.

On that note, Pascale and I have been talking about trying to get other artists to participate along with us in the challenges so we're working on having a place for folks to post their painting and thoughts as well. So stay tuned!

My impressions

2009-08-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

Bigoudi:
Now that I have done it, I see why I wanted to do this... This is NOT easy!But this is FUN!
First, there is you: which angle you will choose so you will be able to have the same pose when you return from messing around with your paint (wax, saucepan and hot-plate in my case)? After a test of a quick painting, I realize that I will have to be serious because any attempt to smile will look fake. (Maybe after all, Van Gogh did not have the choice to look like a serious guy when he painted himself? Maybe he was a very jolly guy?! Embracing life and the fact that people would spend millions of dollars for his paintings after his death? Jolly no?) Second, seen from the front, a face shot looks boring so I go for the classic (and also boring) 3/4 angle. This is why I choose to paint mostly with my favorite green... And as I am doing this and adjusting my strokes, I have these thoughts:
I do look like my grandmother Anita a little bit. I do have my Mom's nose and my dad's eyes. Should I paint my age spots or no? Working on paper is fun, I can just mess around and throw it if it does not work. I need to buy some giant sheets of paper and do more. I don't feel like I need as much paint on paper then on canvas. I am dong this exercise in a loose way, I am curious to see Fonda's approach.
I need to do a less-boring angle, I will try again with the mirror under my face...
Fonda, how is it going?

The First Challenge

2009-08-08T14:43:00.001-07:00

Bigoudi:
For some reason, I managed to choose the first challenge... And here it is: Our challenge is to paint a self-portrait without a photo or a sketch.
The reason for this challenge is that Fonda and I always start from photographs for our paintings and we think of our paintings in terms of composition, light and colour... pretty much like a photographer. So I wanted to force us to just paint to paint, without the grid or any idea of what it would look like before. Masters have been doing that kind of self-portrait for centuries and I have done this in school but this was a very long time ago so I think that it is time to give it a try again.

This is it! A new artist challenge...

2009-07-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Bigoudi:

OK, I am starting this right now... a new blog about two artists who needed to challenge themselves to get out of their comfort zone...
Here is the deal as of today: Bigoudi (Crazy French Canadian encaustic painter http://www.bigoudi.ca/) and Fonda Sparks (Crazy English Canadian acrylic painter http://www.fondasparks.com/) both living in Canmore Alberta, are embarking in an adventure, slowly but surely, to challenge themselves at least every month to paint stuff that are not part of their regular production.

What is the deal? The deal is to do it. Stop talking about what we could do, and just do it. ... And see after the fact if it was a good idea!