We have had 2" of rain since last night around 11:30 pm. Whew. This has put me into the studio for a few hours this morning, however. That part was good. Decided to work on the collage or as Elizabeth calls it "paper painting". I decided to go with the teddy bear theme full out! Probably a tad over the top. So the chair is "quilted" in teddy bear story books. Sorta busy, huh? The pillow (once flowered) is now full of teddy bear stories and poems and bits of music. Remember, this is my first paper painting. I want to try EVERYTHING! Hahahaha.
So here is where I am at right now. Time to sit back and look and think. I can go back over things and add. You can't subtract but you can cover over things. I put in a close up of the pillow and of the story book quilted "chair".
The last image is "where I am at" right now. I think the brown bear's face needs a little more work (from a distance). The shadows under the bears jump out and bite. I need to soften their edges and maybe go to a lightly lighter blue. One thing I learned straight off is that if your painting will have red in it, you need to paint your collage papers in at least 3-4 shades of red and perhaps some textured red. I did pretty well with the browns because I knew I would need browns in this painting.
This is a time-consuming art form. I think I'll bits of tissue paper under my nails and floating around the studio now for weeks!
I love what you are doing with this, Ginny! Love the pillow and the bears and I don't think it's too busy yet - keep the bg plain and you'll be fine, I think. I agree with the shadows under the bears - I think this does make you think a lot about value changes and how subtle or strong they should be. Makes me want to try it but I can't think of anything to paint - when I get my next idea, I will do it! What are you using for glue?
ReplyDeleteGlue is gel gloss medium. Because Elizabeth recommends working on this project on an easel or an upright angle she says that a thicker medium is better than a runny one. I did like working on it upright. She uses a lot of birds or groups of fruit etc. for her subject matter. Check out her website on one of the previous posts a day or so ago to see what she does. I took a lot of photos in an antique store last week. The bears were there. Painting your own papers is easy...but I did learn that using thinner papers is best (rice papers and tissue papers and newspapers, etc.) She really recommends "tearing" rather than "cutting" but I did decide to cut the quilt pieces for the back of the chair. Today she posted that she also uses Inktense watercolor pencils sometimes to highlight an area. So once you get into it...there are a lot of variations.
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinating...i visited her website and am entranced with her work. How beautiful...I think your teddy bear is coming along very well. Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteThanks Barb...It is an interesting technique, isn't it? Just a little twist on what we normally think of as a "collage". Her "paper painting" is really more what it is. 2010. How did that happen. Imagine that! Sounds like science fiction. 2011 will be my 50th reunion of my undergraduate college class. 50? Oh my Lord.
ReplyDeleteWow Ginny - you are starting the year with a bang! Your painting is very cute, but think that "paper painting" is more than I could handle!
ReplyDeleteIt is VERY labor intensive. The trick is to paint lots of shades of one color in the preparation so that you have some shading options. If you choose your subject first, then paint your papers, you are more apt to get the correct colors. Elizabeth has you paint the acrylic painting first...very simply so you have ideas of wheres lights and darks will be and your composition is pretty much set. I would NEVER do anything bigger than 11 x 14. But I do have some ideas for another "paper painting" and Elizabeth is getting ready for a one woman show in Maitland in the fall.
ReplyDeleteGinny, you are right that you need to soften the edges of the shadows of the bears, and lighten them. they would be that dark only at the very thin point where the bear meets the ground, and then lighten as it comes away. you can always go over it. I love your shadows on the pillow case. you can tone down white printed material by painting it with diluted gesso. you will still have the readable print, but less contrast. Speaking of contrast, look at your underpainting, the chair really stood out more when the back of it was lighter than the bears. I stress value a lot, you have to choose what will be your middle, dark and light value, simplify your values. your underpainting showed your bears as middle value, the chair back and pillow case as light and your background as dark. this is good, all are separated. in the collage your chair seat is headed to middle value and the bears are not standing up off it as much as they were when it was light. The top part of the chair is very fun with all the stuff in it, where it meets the brown bear their values are very much the same, see how the light pillow case against the medium bear and the dark chair back really separates them? you might consider lightening the chair back as it comes down and meets the bear. And did you say tissue paper? :) I hope you painted it and are not using art store colored paper, it fades! You are doing great, a very nice first piece and love the tie and shadows on the brown bear!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh...how wonderful that you took time to critique this, Elizabeth...I am SO flattered. I so appreciate it!!! I will hard copy this and then sit down with bears and enjoy a little finishing up. No I didn't use tissue...meant to say rice paper although I did see that Eric Carle paints on tissue paper. Takes white tissue paper and paints it. I wouldn't have believed it would hold up to acrylic paint!!! He does his in layers similar to yours. Amazing. Let me know what you do about framing sometime. Do you put glass over this?
ReplyDeleteps. I think the title of this should be "Overbearing", don't you?
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