Ordinary Days

Just a normal day...one of those days that we forget to appreciate...ordinary.  I continue to play a little with different kinds of toned paper.  I did this little sketch while watching Greg get his haircut.  My hair stylist does this in her home and she had a shelf with a cute doll, a file cabinet and some other baskets behind her.  Fun shapes to play with.  Ink, wc pencil, wc crayon, pastel pencil and white charcoal.  

Lots of signs of spring around now...our bottle brush tree is blooming like crazy...always a March/April event.  The birds enjoy the blossoms and so do the wasps! Although I haven't seen the latter yet.  But we have some 90 degree days coming right up and that'll bring them out too.  It's a fascinating blossom when you look up close.  

Re-imagining the world through an artist's eyes

Fussing around testing materials may not be as interesting to my blog followers.  But it is important.  As you play and create with new combinations, however, it is important to try to figure out what they will do on new substrates and new colors combinations.  If I plan to take some of these materials with me "on site" in outdoor painting I'll need to think about which ones.  One cannot carry a suitcase!  (Well you could but that would severely limit your mobility!) To carry a bit more "dry" color materials with me...I have to figure how which one suit my needs.  Today I played on black paper a bit.  

The 3 toned papers you most often commercially buy are gray, tan, and black.  You can, of course, tone sketching paper with any color you want in watercolor.  Or even in acrylic.  And then draw on top..the possibilities are endless.  That's the fun.

One of the artists I follow who often uses toned paper is Pat Southern-Pearce.  She is from England and considers herself (I think) mainly an urban sketcher.  She has a splendid professional background in art so her abilities are hugely beyond mine.  

What I find inspiring currently is how she can take a scene and re-imagine it so amazingly!  Here's an example:

Here is Pat (looks cold) out with a leafless tree and some sort of little building and fence.  Not a lot of color here, is there?  I wonder how many of us would have found this scene inspiring enough to stop and set up across from it?    

Okay...here is Pat's interpretation.  She seems to think and see in another world, doesn't she?  How fun.  

I am letting that sort of ability she has to re-see the world without totally leaving the actual spot she was in inspire me.   Note how she does indeed use the tree shadows that hit the street but in a magical way.  

General I am a bit more "literal" in my interpretation of scenes...of course, not totally...I  often leave out backgrounds, move trees, shift colors, and  add some shapes or background shadows to enhance my scenes.  Pat takes this to a little more extreme!  

When you see an artist do this it helps you to see "outside the box" a little.  That's why we all share our work on blogs and face book groups etc.  We gift each other with "new artsy glasses" in ways to see the world.  I want to live in Pat's world.  Don't you?

Dry media Experiments

Every now and then one needs to step back and go through techniques and materials and see what you have and what some of your original goals and ideas were.

This little study in "dry media" today is me pulling together (on toned paper) some my ideas about using toned paper for "some" of my sketches and perhaps instead of wc (or other wet media) add color with inks, art crayons, oil pastels, pastel pencils, etc.  Just another technique to spur some new creativity.  I love wc, of course, and am not giving that up at all.  Just enjoying some exploration.  

One reason for the "dry" media is that "most" toned papers are not as heavy as mixed media paper.  That is not "always" true but most often. So then wc is not really useful on that paper.  And by toned I mean warm browns, cooler grays and even black.  I am trying out wc crayons (yes, they are water soluble...not wax) but I am not really planning to add water to them at this point anyway.  I am just enjoying the textures that they make.  And two kinds of wc pencil...these tend to be more intense than regular "colored pencil".  

It's all pretty experimental but that is how artists "play".  I'd like to work up some more whites or bright yellows as working not he darker substrates really begs to use light opaque color.  I have heard that is a "chalk" marker.  I might try to find one of those.  Meanwhile I'll see about putting together a little still life here in the studio so I can begin to play with how to use composition with these materials.  

The Peter Pauper wc crayons are by far the brightest and the pastel pencils are looking nice and bright too.  Even playing with materials is fun to look at.  Practicing sort of "Art Deco" printing too.  

It's been a "coolish" day in central FL but bright sunshine so not a problem.  Back to 80 by Tuesday.