We're Not Playing Games Here

What do you do when things don't work out the way you planned? 

You play tiddlywinks!

Just kidding!

Here's the real story.  

I've been making stencils on my sister's Cricut.  I have found that copier transparencies work pretty well but are prone to tearing at weak spots.  So, I was trying out different materials. I had a piece of thicker plastic for which I had high hopes.  I set it all up, using a fairly intricate tree pattern. Fingers crossed, I pushed the go button and watched the cutting arm maneuver back and forth, up and down.  About 5-10 minutes later it was done.

Fail.

What I had at the end was a piece of plastic with a lovely design of groves which didn't go all the way through.  

Of course, if I had tried it out on a sample piece first, adjusting the settings, It might have worked.  

Oh well.

I set it aside and went back to using the transparencies. 

This one left me with a whole pile of little plastic dots which I just couldn't throw away.

 

I tossed a handful on a 12" gel plate, covered it all with pink and yellow paint, and pulled a print.

It's amazing the texture you can get from smooth plastic.

I loved it, but of course, one thing leads to another.  Especially in gel printing.  I thought some larger circles could be fun.  And then I saw that failed stencil laying there.  

I cut that loser into a bunch of circles!

Here you can see the etched lines.  I had a hunch they might show up in the prints.

And boy, did they ever!  So cool!

And the playing of "tiddlywinks" ensued.

A big advantage to putting the stencils down before the paint is not having to hurry; you can think and rearrange to your heart's content without fear of drying paint.

The one down side to this is having to remove all the circles at the end but I think it might be worth it.

'

A Walk in the Park

The last few years have been just that: a walk in the park.  Well, really, my whole life has been.  (warning: philosophizing ahead)

The problem is, the last few years, the weather has been, shall we say, less than ideal.

There's been blazing heat of anger; icy, frigid winds of judgment; the clouds often releasing tears, sometimes in a torrent, other times a steady drizzle; and a fog of indecision.

That's not to say there hasn't been any pleasant weather.  There most definitely has been. 

But in spite of the weather, I must remind myself that I'm still in the park. And it's a beautiful park, full of wonderful and amazing things. While I can't predict the weather, I can keep walking in this park, trusting that my Creator is walking every step with me, always.

Which brings me to the point of this post: my "park" now has a new "bench".

About a year ago, my daughter and her husband began turning their garage into a studio apartment. For me!

I didn't take any before pictures but I'm sure you can imagine the dark and dirty insides of an old garage. This picture offers a hint. 

But look at that view.  I'll have a garden right outside my door!

What a difference some windows and paint can make!

Once the cabinets were in it really started to look like a living space.

During the year long process, the grand and I had many talks about our future adventures: painting, baking, sewing, gardening.

And then, a year to the day, we moved my stuff out of storage and the challenge of finding a place for everything began.

It would be a couple weeks before I could start living here, but when I moved in, the first thing I did was to stock the kitchen with... 

essentials.

And it didn't take long before I received the first floral offering from the munchkin next door.

As I finish up my third week here, I'm finally ready to start working on the studio part. As in art studio. Now, I have no ambition to become a serious professional artist. I just want to have a space dedicated to creating.

And I need a place to store all of these.

So, up on the wall they go.

     

I know it's a hodgepodge. 

But it's my hodgepodge.

In my park.

On my new bench.

It's a lovely day for a walk.

Hiding In Cyber Space

I have had several requests for information on how I created my latest self portrait.  So, here goes.

I had this painting.  

It had been crying for embellishment of some kind.

While I am a sympathy crier, I'm also someone who hates to cry.   Go figure.

So, I just had to make it stop.

Autodesk SketchBook to the rescue.

The following are the steps I took to get the finished selfie.

1.  Upload photo of painting.

This was by far the easiest step in the process.  This became layer one.

2.  Upload selfie photo.

This was the hardest step.  First, because taking selfies is something I hate doing.  Second, lining up the two layers so that my eye was just where I wanted it was tricky and took several tries.  Once I was satisfied with placement, I set the selfie layer at about half opacity; just enough to be able to see both layers.  I erased  the parts of the selfie I wanted hidden behind the... curtain?...  waterfall?  I'm leaving that up to the viewer.

Here is layer 2 alone

3.  Draw in details.

I will admit, this step felt like cheating.  I was just tracing, after all.  But after thinking about it   for a second   for a while  too long, I decided this project wasn't about my ability to draw; it was about composition and combining media.

All three layers together.

I have to say, I find "cyber arting" to be quite satisfying. It lets you have your cake and eat it too. I have a finished piece, but my original painting is untouched, ready for another go.

I've titled this Hiding In Cyber Space, but maybe it should be Thinking Of An Encore. 

A Whole Other Country!

This is a lesson in flexibility.  

The willingness to change or compromise.  The ability to be easily modified.

I love the work of Rebecca Vincent. The perspective she achieves with simple bands of color is wonderful.  I don't know what techniques she uses but I thought pouring and swiping could give similar results.  And the February pouring challenge was stripes.  Perfect.

I started with a landscape I had poured a while back, which hadn't turned out great, but had a lovely sky.  I poured vertical lines of paint on the bottom two thirds and then swiped and manipulated with a pallet knife.

To be honest, at this point I was thinking it was kind of ugly.  And it didn't look anything like what I was going for.  But, I let it dry and then went upstairs for a second opinion.  No, I don't mean I prayed about it.  😇  I showed it to my sister who said it made her think of Na Pali in Hawaii.

So I googled it.

Well, would you look at that!

Okay, time for that flexibility I was talking about.  

Instead of going to farm country, we're going to a tropical island.

Add a few waterfalls.

And sand and water.

And we're in a whole other country!

Lean In

Did you read the previous post?  Did you guess which painting would get the makeover?

When I finished this pour, I was pretty sure I'd be using it as a background or changing it in some way.  While it has an impressive number of cells, it seemed to lack structure or focal point.  So I set it aside until one day I glanced at it, not really thinking about what to do with it, when I began to see something.  Do you see it?

I'll give you a second,

or two.

Okay, time's up.  Here's a hint.

I could have left it at that but I decided I wanted color.

I tried out several ideas on Autodesk.

Using acrylic washes is a bit tricky.  I wanted to be able to see the details of the underpainting, but still have true, even colors. 

I may tweak it a bit more, but for now I'm calling it done.  

Wait, no, I'm calling it Lean In.

I lived in Kansas for about 25 years. 

Kansas, named for the Kansa Tribe, aka People of the South Wind.

I learned the best way to keep your footing in the wind is to lean into it.

Challenges

We all face them from time to time. Sometimes they're welcomed; other times, not so much.

One kind of challenge I welcome is an art group challenge.  It can give direction, boundaries; helpful when the options are vast.

I recently participated in a pouring group challenge:  create a piece, using any acrylic pouring technique, but using only blacks and whites.

First I tried out a technique using string dipped in paint and pulled across wet paint.  A lot of fun. 

Some of the details are so pretty.

Next, a dirty flip cup.  It went mostly grey but I got a gazillion cells. Go ahead, count 'em.

And last, but not least, a puddle pour. Oh the drama!

I'm still amazed at the variety achieved, even when using the same materials.  

Speaking of challenges, this post started out with a different idea but because I find keeping my focus and staying on topic a challenge, it went a different direction.  No worries!  Come back for my next entry when I get back on track.  Hint: one of the paintings above got a makeover.

Test, test, this is a ...

I love it when a simple test swatch produces such fun results. I was just testing some custom mixes for a black and white challenge. I dribbled some of each on a 4 inch square of paper. After a little swiping and swirling, I ended up with this:

I usually take few pictures of the results, just in case. And I'm often rewarded. This time I didn't see it at first. Really.  But once I did, I couldn't not. 

So, I just had to play with it 😉 in Autodesk. 

If only it wasn't the size of a postage stamp!