In some ways I feel like I need to settle down and choose a singular medium. This must come from some rigid thought process held over from college. I don’t know. I am having a lot of fun mixing up materials. However, even when mixing things up, I should probably have some discipline!
I am starting to realize that it is okay to just keep “practicing” and let the mind flow along with the creations. Maybe I need to stop thinking I need to get to something more serious.
Before the presidential election the civility among the people was bad enough, after the election it has not improved. Now the people seem even more polarized. And, of course there is a lot of unknown which can be frightening for everyone. It’s so uncomfortable. Why is it so difficult for folks to be civil? Why can’t we maintain some silence…express your opinion, but silence the mean stuff. You can have a differing opinion of course, but do we really have to be so mean-spirited in the expression of that opinion. Do we have to demean and bully the other side? My thoughts about people that voted for the person that I didn’t vote for may be somewhat judgmental…I think this is a natural reaction. We can’t help but impose some internal judgements on others that might believe something that we don’t. However, I would never in my wildest dreams want to hurt another person’s feelings by letting them know this. It seems better to have a constructive conflict free conversation about the concerns and issues from both sides. Why is this so difficult?
I am going to try and be as civil as I possibly can, for as long as I can. I hope that the people in my world will do the same.
It’s always fun to try something new. Gauche resist with ink. I am not sure where I read about this technique, but it looked like a good way to get some unexpected results. Clearly, the results are unexpected. I think I will try a few of these for awhile…every piece of paper seems to react differently. The great thing is I can use these for #inktober2016!
Flamingo on 5″ x 5″ canvas…totally did not work out as planned.
Bat on watercolor paper 4″ x 6″…totally did not work out as planned!
Well, the 20 minutes a day did NOT work out. Bad choice in terms of timing I guess. I was hoping to keep up with my portraits, but I just couldn’t make it happen.
I have been behind on my art projects. Summer at work is always busy, hoping that the fall will open up a little more time for me. I do have a new project in process, I am thinking of focusing a lot of my art on ocean themes. I love working on the fish, mermaids and beach scenes. It might help me to narrow some subject matters down and try to be disciplined. However, I am going to continue working on faces, because I am really enjoying that.
I must be easily influenced! One of my friends mentioned interest in Horseshoe Crabs and off I went to work on Horseshoe crabs. Never would I have thought to do a painting of this particular sea creature. But, it was super fun! And, I learned a little bit about them too. I am going to do a series of 3. One more to do. I actually love their shape and design. These lent themselves to the encaustic medium as a finish…and the addition of white broken shells. Both of them are done on cradled birch panel, using a combination of oil bar, watercolor and casein, encaustic and the found natural shells. Lots of fun! I just have to decide the color scheme for the last one!
Along with doing quick simple faces I want to be able to do a more finished drawing. This started with leftovers (I hate to waste paint!) I had painted a blue(ish) ground on my strathmore toned paper…then had some left over acrylic paint that I decided to squash on there. Over that I decided to paint some watercolor…which looked interesting…kind of like a stain. I thought, well, this might be a good surface for graphite.
I am not sure about it. The graphite went down smoothly. But, I felt like I couldn’t get the darks as dark as I wanted. Maybe I just needed to control the ground more in areas. I think that the effect is interesting though, will try again!
Taking a break for packing up my art supplies and I must be dreaming of my vacation coming up in the #outerbanks of NC. I took the resource photo for this painting soooo many years ago…I have been looking at it for a long time. Going through my supplies I found this blue paper and the old photo, and well, there you have it. I like the way the casein worked against the blue color of the paper, a little dry brush technique in areas created a nice effect. I will try some more of these. I think that the background needs more consideration, but a fun experiment (and break from packing!)
Looking forward to several days in a row of painting and drawing at the beach.
This new expressive line technique seems so perfect for reinterpreting some of my past sketches. It’s difficult for me to draw the same thing again…even though I feel like that is probably a good approach for refining work. But, I tend not to want to do it. I stumbled onto this idea while looking for a way to “try” out the line technique and have discovered a way to explore the previous sketch in a new way.
I liked the way this turned out, I might try a few more in different color combinations and on different paper stocks. This linen type paper seems to work very well, gives some nice “bleeding” effects.
It’s been a marathon weekend of #sketchbookskool catch up! I got through my last 3 weeks in two days. However, I am still shy of the last weeks homework assignment. The last week is to sketch a “tiny adventure”. Unfortunately, I have run out of time for even the tiniest of adventures, so this assignment will have to wait a few days.
This particular session has really been my favorite one so far, lots of good ideas to carry forward in sketchbooks and finished work. I was kind of suspicious of Penny Dullaghan’s lessons at first…somehow I just didn’t think that they were for me exactly. But, I was WRONG!!! She gave 3 different lessons on how to achieve some interesting line work…creating ways where you have no choice to let the technique dictate the result (to some degree). I only tried one, but I love it. I plan on trying the others as well. I changed it up a bit…but the end result worked out really nicely.
So, this piece was created by slathering some water mixable oil paint onto a plain piece of paper and then placing my “sketchbook” paper on top, and then drawing right on top with an old dental instrument (she used a screw driver). When you pull it up, you have “transferred” the oil paint to the paper, but it reveals your line drawing (and some smudges that work nicely too). I then went back over it with some watercolor and colored pencil. I think this will be a fun way to revive some of my older sketches and turn them into something different.
I have been doing spirographs in EVERYTHING! Time to maybe take a break. They don’t work everywhere. Now that I am getting the hang of them (the spirographs) I need to be more judicious with their use. I tried to do another Cala Lily, but it feel short of my expectations, so I moved on to Darwin’s Orchid. I love the shape of this orchid. Memories of Kauai and the botanical garden.
Art Projects 