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!

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!

Greetings and Salutations

And thank-yous and thinking-of-yous.

I made cards!

My supplies:
Plain notecards, gel medium, sharpies and gel pen.

My pallet:
Little snippets of paint skins.

My process:

 I started by selecting coordinating pieces in varied sizes and adhered them to the card stock with gel medium.

Next came the doodling:

 sometimes penciling in ideas first, 

sometimes getting a little help from Autodesk Sketchbook.

e-sketch

Finally, it was time to commit and pick up the permanent markers.

Most were flowers.  Some had borders.

And then some mushrooms sprouted!

Finished Before I'm Done?

To be honest, sometimes I feel that way about life.  I would imagine everyone feels that way once in a while.  However, that's a little too deep and serious and not really the direction I was going with this post.  

I was thinking more along the lines of how do you know when an art piece is done.  I mean, you can't just stick a fork in it!  Well, of course, you can if that's the look you're going for.  But you know what I mean!

I've debated this question with just about every piece I've ever done.  It seems there's always more that can be added, tweaking that can be done. But how does one know when to quit?  

Good question!

This is just the beginning, so obviously, not yet.

The sky and ground were poured on and moved around with my hand.  The middle is a mix of orange yellow and red dirty poured into puddles.

A little tipping and tilting to spread the puddles and a little blowing with a straw to mess up the straight edges.  Now, at this point, I suppose I could have called this Autumn Abstract and been done with it but that wasn't the look I was going for.

The grass is always greener if you paint it that color!  You may be asking why I didn't use green in the first place, instead of purple.  I was playing around with the idea of dappled shadows under the trees, knowing that I'd probably do a green wash over it.

After playing with some ideas in Autodesk I used a sharpie to doodle on the leaves and create the trunks and branches. I also used a white gel pen on the sky.

At this point, I was considering it done and it could have been.  But every time I looked at it it seemed something was missing.

So I did what usually do: I asked someone else to tell me what to do.  Well, not exactly.  But I did ask my daughter to offer her opinion.  Sometimes having fresh eyes look at what you've been staring at can help.

Is it done?  It could be.

Am I finished? Maybe.

Suffering for your Art

Those that know me, know how I feel about having my picture taken.

And selfies?  Just, no.

Yep, the pain is real.

But, a couple years ago, I really wanted to do a portrait quilt.  And so many artsy people do self-portraits.  Time to bite the bullet.

I used Roxio photo editor to simulate the fabric I had in mind to use for the hair.

Oops. It wasn't until I had applied the fusible web to the fabric that I realized I forgot to reverse the image.

Trying out border ideas.

In the end, I went with a simple, straight border.



Okay. That wasn't toooo bad.

Fast forward to the present.  Let's try this again.

This time I used acrylic paint and a digital drawing program called Autodesk SketchBook.

For this picture I poured paint on freezer paper and let it dry, creating paint skins that can be peeled off and used as collage material.  I laid the pieces over the selfie printout and took a picture.  In Autodesk, I traced over the face and glasses and then erased the photo underneath.
The finished product is only in digital form at this point.  For now.

Mighty Oak Tree

Back in September I came across this photo.  I love it for its color and perspective.  I could see it as a poured painting.

So, when a fall painting was requested, this was what I had in my head.

Time to gather the supplies.


I keep a variety of colors of acrylic paint on hand, pre-mixed with mediums and water to a pouring consistency.

A 16x20 inch stretched canvas and
a small butane torch.  The torch is used after pouring to warm the paint, which aids in the creation of cell patterns.

Colors chosen and silicone added.  Silicone also aids in the cell formation.




Let's pour!

I decided on a three-cup flip technique. Each cup was layered with random amounts of all the colors.   The negative space of white and grey was poured after inverting each cup of color onto the canvas.

There's no way to know exactly how much paint you need.  You can only approximate, so at this point, one crosses one's fingers and hopes for a Goldilocks experience. Not too much, not too little, just right.

After lifting the cups, the canvas is tilted this way and that to spread the paint.

Every pour is a surprise!

Another hope that is commonly heard among paint-pourers is "Please let it dry like this!"
A lot can happen after pouring. The paint can continue to move and shift. Unwanted objects can land and stick. The surface can crack.

I'm please to say that this dried nicely.

I love closeups.  As Dorcus Lane would say, "They're my one weakness!"

I decided to create the trunk and branches using paint skins.  I poured the paint onto freezer paper and let dry.

The paint peels off easily and can then be adhered to the canvas.

Let's grow!

And grow!

And of course, some more closeups.

Finished and signed!