Playing with Multi Media

I pulled out an old book of mine on creating artists journals in multi media and just had fun for a whole afternoon reading and paging through the wonderful ideas.

(The nice thing about being old is you forget what you have read and so you get to re-discover it all over again! Hahaha).

The author is Lynne Perrella.

I got to thinking about designing a journal cover on some sort of fabric (WAY WAY out of the box for me.)

I had some left over watercolor canvas from a previous project and so I designed a journal cover for my daughter, Julie (who likes to keep journals).

It is planned for a 9 x 9 inch journal but I haven't actually cut the canvas to that size yet. I had some fun with transferring a photo image to the canvas which came out sort of in "ghostly" way but interesting with the texture. It is a photo of Julie and of me and I am really ghostly in the background and she is recognizable. I like the idea that I may be some influence in her life but am in the background.

I coated the canvas lightly with acrylic polymer medium and then lay a inkjet black and white face down on it and using a credit card I firmly drew the card over the back of the inkjet several time and then peeled it up carefully. Black and white seems to work better . I sprayed the image lightly with acrylic varnish and let dry.

Then I just played around with ribbon, fluid acrylic, watercolor, ink, stamps etc and thinking of her and the things she loves like nature, plants, labyrinths, drawing, etc.

I plan to coat everything with the polymer medium at the end for durability. I am thinking that at a later date, I will use a spray-on glue to attach it to the front of the journal and then lay it under some heavy books overnight.

Florida Sketches

We have been highly "on the go" for the last week while my step daughter has been down here in Florida on a visit from Lodi, WI. On Monday of this week I did two little sketches.

The first one is of Racing's North Turn which is a fun bar/restaurant RIGHT on Daytona Beach. We visited and had cocktails there on the chairs facing the water and took time to go down and sit on the beach awhile (where I did the sketch). The salt air smelled so good. It was nice to say hi to the Atlantic Ocean again.

This cozy building is at DeLeon Springs State Park where you can put your feet into the "Fountain of Youth" and then go inside and make your own pancakes! There was a rather long wait to get in and so I set up a chair and did a little sketch.

Outside they were renting tubes (see 3 by the right side) so you could swim in the 30 foot deep pool made by damming up the spring...clear as a bell but only 72 degrees (uh oh). It costs $6 for a carful to get into the park and they have paddle boats to go out on the St. John's River and also a guided tour boat (pontoon). This is just about half an hour south of Daytona Beach. It's a great place to visit!

Ginny with Elizabeth Nelson

It has long been a dream to take Elizabeth's paper painting workshop.

This was taken Sunday March 11 on the final day of the 3 day workshop.

What a treat to get to work with her for 3 days. I highly recommend her workshops!

Paper Painting Workshop with Elizabeth Nelson

You have seen this little toucan before in Yupo paper. (I have become quite fond of him!). This time he is on 11 x 14 wrapped canvas with an acrylic painted background. He himself is made of hand-acrylic painted torn papers. When I think he is done, he'll be varnished.

This was my day one assignment (apples).

Again the background is acrylic (splattered) although this time on canvas board (11 x 14). If you could look closer you could see we use music paper, hand written notes, newspapers, rice papers, etc.

Most of Day one was spent preparing these papers! Printing, stamping, splattering, and using layer upon layer of analogous colors.

The subject is painted first and then the papers added afterwards.

This is one of Elizabeth's paintings...part of a show called The Ark which will showcase 50 of her paintings in April.

(More on that later.)

Her paintings are on wood and are about 3 x 4' .

Day 3 is on Sunday although I only stay for the morning as the Hawthorne Park Art show will be tomorrow afternoon.

If you are in the Leesburg area be sure to drop in. I'll have 5 pieces in the show...1-4. Hawthorne Park is 3 miles south of Leesburg. We had advertising in the Orlando Sentinel today.

Joan Stephens lily from Watercolor Workshop

This is the same watercolor subject painted by my friend Joan.

It's fun to see how different she interpreted the same subject.

Lian Zhen workshop: second painting

Lots more abstract Wednesday.

I had more difficulty relating to the compositional elements in this one.

Each of us placed our water lilies in different places in our compositions...both portrait and landscape.

This and previous one are half sheet of 140# cold press Arches wc paper.

As in the boat painting just before this, the technique involved spraying drying paper with a sprayer..pouring or dropping 3 basic wcs onto the wet paper and moving them with your fingers or with blowing the paint. All background is "brushless". We all used Graham (honey) watercolors in 3 primary colors. He prefers Hansa yellow, Prussian blue, and either Quin Rose or Pyrrol red. (Graham can be found at Dick Blick.) Pyrrol has an orange leaning while Quin Rose has a cooler, bluer cast.

After everything dries then the brush work begins...flats and rounds. Painting the flowers wet on dry and then negative painting around the lily pads. I used a blend of red/blue on the left bottom corner that I am not sure is working. I may wash this down to a lighter level as it is nice color but too dark for a corner of a painting. So I have some tweaking to do on it.

In all the workshop was great fun. And I'll post a few more photos of the teacher applying his techniques soon. Right now I am busy typing the Fine Art booklet for our art show here at Hawthorne park, hosting company which includes two grandsons, and keeping up with my drawing class which will draw to a close next Tuesday.

A day with a Chinese Painter

"A beautiful painting depicts the harmony between nature and imagination."
Lian Quan Zhen

Monday and Tuesday I spent painting this painting in Sarasota, Fl with Lian Zhen. What a happy time. Here is my first painting.




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Drawing Class continues

Trying to get my "homework" done is quite a challenge with all the distractions here in Florida!

For week two class I completed the eggs (as posted in beginning stage). Lucina felt the pencil was better than the ink (I think) only because the dark dark background in the ink draws your eye away from the egg. That can be fixed. She also like my use of texture in the background. I did a rubbing over a rubber stamp.

Also this ink egg needed more "darks" in obvious places. I found the ink cross- hatching to be tedious and would never attempt something this large in ink again! The egg is about 8" x 10".

I am busy now working on some one and two point perspective for Class 3 homework. Challenging also. More on that later.

I am into getting some framing done now for upcoming shows. As you know I whine about that periodically.

But as I read recently on Robert Genn's blog:

There is a deeper reason to express ourselves: just as the author's "journey" is complete when his words are read and possibly taken to heart. For the visual artist, merely creating anything is not the end. Without the creation being enjoyed, shared, observed, it would be like an orator standing in an empty room talking to himself! Betty Billups,

So I am working at how to display a wc on canvas that is not stretched. Now there is challenge. I probably will think twice about doing an un-stretched canvas again. But the arches wc canvas comes in a book of canvas sheets and it was a more economical way to teach the fractured wc on canvas technique. Any idea about that? I am thinking of using a spray glue and glueing to a foam core backing. But am worried about it leaking through the canvas and spoiling the painting. I don't want to get into buying stretcher bars. I could stretch it over another canvas I suppose? Hmmm.

Yupo Demo for Jan 23 Florida class....

It's fun to re-visit a medium you have come to enjoy so much. This is done on a half sheet of translucent Yupo paper with white paper behind it.

One of the positives about the see-through paper is you can do a drawing and then lay it on top and trace so easily. Although this toucan was a pretty easy drawing...I like the objects in Yupo paintings to be fairly simple with lots of empty spaces for me to play and experiment in.

This is a demo I am doing for my Hawthorne Park friends for Monday's class. I am not done...it's so much fun to add and subtract some of the textures in the background.

And it is fun to pick a subject that has bright interesting colors. I am an avid fan of George James and I'll be showing the class about half an hour of the first of his 3 part series called "Mastering Yupo: Techniques for Synthetic Paper." You can find those wonderful foam rollers he uses at WalMart for about $2.50.

Fracturing Clematis

Clematis: (noun) a climbing plant of the buttercup family that bears white, pink, or purple flowers and feathery seeds.

Tip: When you put away paintings that seem to "have no future" be sure to tape the original photo references (if there is one) to the back.

I am in the process of a BIG New Year's cleaning of my studio. My experiment with this watercolor might never have happened without the reference photos...and it has been such fun. After Peg Furlin's workshop (fracturing wc on canvas) I decided to try the technique on regular wc paper.

The downside of this is the inability to be able to get back completely to white as you can with canvas. But I took the painting to the sink and used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge to it and took the painting down to a pale image of it's former self. I let it try overnight. (Left it on homosote board and I did not need to tape it down or staple it and it helps to soak out the moisture. It dried quite flat.)

Then I measured my imaginary mat (just as I did on canvas) and proceeded to draw fracturing lines lightly with pencil. The process of figuring out how to show the flowers and enjoy the fracturing and keeping a center of interest is challenging. I think as I critique it...I may need more of a third contrasting color in the painting which is mostly shades of rose and green. There is some purple in the painting which does not show very well in the indoor lighting. So this painting may not be done. Anyone have any suggestions. I think this is a very feasible way to re-do a painting that has fallen flat for some other reason.

My Drawing Class

I feel badly I haven't been posting very regularly. I can think of excuses...but they are not very creative ones. So I'll skip those.

Instead I will mention that I am in a 6 part drawing class (two sessions) taught by Lucina Roark here in Leesburg, FL.

SO much information! She is is really trying to give us a big general overview and allowing us a lot of freedom in different ways that we can respond through practice. We DO have homework! This one is to draw an egg (two times) in two different drawing media such as ink, pastel, charcoal or graphite. I took on ink crosshatching and right off the bat am in pretty rough territory. Leave it to me. Getting the nuances of shadow with cross hatching is going to be a BIG challenge (and I used a small pen too!). Uh oh. But we do have two weeks before the next class!

Our first drawing challenge included drawing our own hands. These are graphite 4B and 6B using a stump for shading.

Oh boy. These have a ways to go also! But it's a start!

I found some pretty nice Strathmore 400 series drawing paper "buy one, get one free" sale at Michaels up in The Villages on Monday. 14 x 17- 80# which I think will hold me in good stead during the classes.

Happy Birthday Matisse!

It's the birthday of painter Henri Matisse (1869), born in Le Cateau, France. As a child and a young man, he had no interest in art. He went to law school in Paris and never visited a single museum. Had it not been for a case of appendicitis, he might never have become an artist. Bedridden for several weeks during his recovery, he took up painting as a way to pass the time. It was a revelation. He said, "For the first time in my life I felt free, quiet, and alone ... carried along by a power alien to my life as a normal man." At 22, he quit the law to begin work as a full-time artist. He was a revolutionary who dressed like a bourgeois, and he once said, "It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else." Article taken from Garrison Keillor's blog today.

Two Different WC techniques

This is watercolor on canvas.

I am using Peg Furlin's technique of "fracturing". I took my inspiration from a catalog I found showcasing interesting vases. One of my downfalls are vases and "containers". And I also love still lifes. I liked the idea of contrasting the linear painting with a few citrus tossed into the frame. And the flowers help to throw a little something more organic into the painting.

I thought I would try a different triad of color this time. Quin gold, several shades of brown, and aliz. crimson. At first I used a kind of Quin Sienna for the red but my hubby critiqued it and he said it needs to be punched up with RED. I think in this case he was quite right!!! I punched up the center of interest with black.

Originally, in the first wash I went too dark. (I am learning as I go along.) So all the white (slightly stained white) was the same color as the color strips leading out of the interior of the painting. Pretty colors but not what I was looking for. So I used a Mr. Clean sponge to wipe out as much as possible. I got almost back to white and didn't mind a little staining at all. I think one of the things about "fracturing" that pleases my eye, is the "mat" look of having an interior painting. Making the mat too dark makes you lose this. However, there are no set rules about it and there is no reason the mat couldn't be dark and the interior light. To try another day?

This little painting is a demo I started in my wc class a few weeks ago...using a John Lovett video for inspiration and also using one of his paintings for inspiration. I traced my drawing and handed it out to the gals and we all painted the same scene this time. I don't like to do that too much but sometimes it's nice to have a drawing that includes a lot of the techniques you want to teach. This had old bricks and stones to paint and then to "ink" and bleed. And it fit well with that gesso or gouache technique of softening the edges with a hake brush. I used "opera" for the curtains in the window to pop that center of interest. It's a tiny painting...just 7 x 11". (an 8th of sheet of Arches.)

I find this a pleasing little painting. Something nice about the slightly open door too, don't you think? Inviting?

Saving my Lizard Painting

This painting that comes first is the "touched up" version. Scroll down below to the original painting.

I used a John Lovett technique to soften the edges of this too-busy painting (using white gouache and a hake brush).

I also darkened the center of interest and added a little more pizzaz to the redder of the lizards. And a little yellow green to the larger lizard to make him stand out a bit more.

This original painting was "okay" but awfully busy and with no center of interest to draw the eye to.

Watercolor on Arches 140#

11 x 15 (quarter sheet)

Note: These are little gems are actually called

Green Anoles

Ginny on Steve Humes CD jacket

I posted about this once before...but now the album (Exit 32) is out and for sale! My little sketch is on the back.

Steve has a sort of "Jimmy Buffet" sound (in my opinion) and uses guitar, banjo, flute, fiddles, etc. Really a nice sound. What fun!

You can find out how to order here. $10.

Steve manages to capture such diverse human experiences as living out of grocery carts near Interstate Exit ramps, to interpreting the songs of Cuckoo birds on overhead wires. A talented ensemble of musicians are also heard in this artful collection, including his effervescent wife, Leigh, who has an impressive list of accomplishments of her own in the bay area music community. Other familiar names include Rebecca Zapen, Tami Wingard of Hannah's Whirl, the legendary Joe Lala, the nationally recognized songster who "digs rock and roll music" Jim Mason, and Guitar Sal Belloise, who in this case is showing his skills on the Flute. A healthy assortment of other artists also come together to give Steve an easy off ramp at Exit 32. With stories of the heart and human aspiration, this Steve Humes collection of songs should earn him recognition as Tampa Bay's Musical Poet Laureate.

Fun Ways to Share Art

The Seno Woodland Education Center is now offering products to raise $ for the environmental center in Burlington, WI.

All the products feature my watercolor images! How cool is that?!!!

Here you see a kitchen magnet, a tile coaster and a framed tiles. But there are tee shirts, hats, bags, mugs, etc.

Click here to see the array of very nice products at very reasonable prices.

All the sketches were either en plein air or studio paintings from photographs at the Seno Center in Burlington, Wisconsin.

You can find out more about the center by clicking here.

Fractured

Based on Peg Furlin's workshop...I did a demo for my wc class today...watercolor on canvas. We only have about two hours to work together...these gals REALLY catch on fast. I hope to post some of their work in a couple weeks.

Peg has coined the term "fractured wc" for this technique. What I need to work on now are ways to make the colors choices I use more harmonious and interesting. Peg is currently working with a lot of grays, browns and blacks...very limited palette. Hard for me...I LOVE color.

This old truck was photos in Key West and I have painted it before with the bed of the truck planted in lost of wild bushes. The truck itself slowly rusting itself into the ground. It sits outside a restaurant...some old fish shanty type. I call this "The Lemon". I did use some stamping on this. But found it way too distracting for a beginner in this sort of technique. A lot of the stamps got lifted off. I also used a lot of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to lift off the white areas. Peg's tip.

The wc canvas is very forgiving. You can wash it off and start all over if you wish.

I have two others started I'd like to work on this week while it's all fresh in my mind.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

This is the week my hubby has his second surgery to connect the deep brain stimulation to the battery operated pacemaker. Friday morning is the big day! Wish us luck.

Peg Furlin's WC on canvas workshop

We all arrived in a downpour at the Center for the Arts in Leesburg, FL for Peg's class. But by noon it was hot and sunny again!

Many there had not painted on canvas before. Peg talked alot of about using canvas. Several brands are available and they are all slightly different. Fredrix WC canvas got into the game early and have patented the name WC canvas. But there are others now: Paramount, Yes, and Edge were 3 others she mentioned. All are available in the online mail catalogs. She mentioned she gets her's at Jerry's Artarama.

I worked on two different ones. The palm tree was a 16 x 20 gallery wrapped canvas by Paramount.

And the little boat scene was an 11 x 14 YES canvas on board. The Paramount required that I scrub the surface before priming in order to reduce the "puddle" effect of the coating.

But YES canvas on board should not be scrubbed (which I did not know) as it is cheaper and the scrubbing removes all the sizing and then the watercolor "bleeds".

Lucky for me, the subject matter of the smaller painting made the "bleeding" issue just part of the watery look. I have already made some changes to the boats...adding darks and making a connection to the edge at the bottom. More photos later.

Although I have worked on canvas many times before...I learned SO much in this one day workshop.

Peg has been working a lot lately on abstracts. This was one she brought along to show. Check out Peg's website gallery for a variety of subject matter.

She will be showing in the Mt. Dora, Florida Art Show the first weekend in February.

En Plein Air again!

Our hostess today was my friend, Dawn, who has lovely home on Lake Eustis.

8 or so artists gathered there this morning starting out in overcast but ending in beautiful sunshine. Dawn gave up painting to be our hostess making chili and cornbread! Oh yum.

Despite the fact that it was 85 degrees...the chili tasted great (it IS November after all.) and a slight breeze kept the temperature just about right all day and there was SO much lovely shade from her huge trees filled with spanish moss.

We had birds calling around us all morning and butterflies galore. She says they have a wonderful huge owl who sings to them at night. The lake reflected the sky as white which is the way I painted it...but as the clouds cleared to show more blue, then more blue appeared in the water....so I am going to have to go back and touch up the water a little.

This was done in acrylic. And I haven't done anything in acrylic for many many months! Can't even remember the last thing! Surely something back in August up north!

I started with my usual orange prime coat (for tropical scenes). And I worked 16 x 20 which is really too large for en plein air!

But I just felt like working with big brushes today!

I was tired afterwards...4 hours (broken in half with lunch) on my feet in 85 degrees. I'll sleep well tonight!

Susan Lansdown 75 day sketch complete

Susan is one of our Sassy Sketchers...and since we all started together last August, we are all ending together in October!!!

Susan also sent a picture of the first substantial snow fall in Minocqua, Wisconsin (where Greg and I summer).

Susan and Leslie are "holding down the fort" until the rest of us snow birds return.

We had close to 80 today here in central FL.

A slight cool down around 70 tomorrow but back up to 80 by Monday.

I admit her yard looks more like two weeks to Thanksgiving than my yard. But I have learned to adjust!. Over the river and through the woods still applies. Just not a sleigh. We go by golf cart here!