Summer of Colour Week 4

This week's colours are two reds and a metalic- very sensual.  I used cad red and crimson red and gold paint (the vertical text). 

I used turquoise underneath as a cool complement to these warm colours and allowed it to show through in the shaped areas.  The painting is collage and acrylic, 10" x 10" on canvas.

I learned a lot with this painting and I felt I had a break-through in my quest to be more painterly and less precise.

New Canvas Works

I am continuing to work on the ideas from my mindfulness sketchbook pages.  I am still working on the boundaries in the landscape subject and the sketchbook pages are an extension of that. 

I am specifically looking at the shapes that fields form, I love how no matter how hard the farmer tries, they are never square due to things like hillocks, burns, buildings, pylons, rocks, uneven ground.  The shapes of the fields are endlessly fascinating to me.

So drawing those shapes and expanding on them became a great exercise in meditation and the results are now creeping into my everyday work.

It is harder to go bigger, so I am doing it gradually, from 6 or 7 inch square in my previous post to one that is 10inches square and one that is 16inches square.  I am challenging myself with the square format to see how the shapes work.  I don't want them plonked in the middle, so I am experimenting with the placement of them as well.  I also want to do some long thin formats too.

More ideas than time, as usual!

The first one is more or less finished, it is 10"x10" and very precise.  I worked in a very strict, planned manner, drawing things out before transferring them to the canvas and keeping the paint as even as I could.

The second one, is still in progress, sorry for the slightly fuzzy photo, even though we have daylight until the wee hours here in Scotland, we do have cloud and that has reduced the light quality. 

Here I have worked in a much more intuitive way, applying paint, oil pastel and charcoal and letting the shapes form themselves.  I am also applying the paint in a more textured manner.  Although much harder to work this way, I do find it more satisfying and more painterly.

I still have a way to go with this, but I like how it is progressing.

Summer of Colour - Week 3

Actually finishing earlier this week, here are two pieces completed for the Summer of Colour challenge using two purples and a yellow.  The first one I use the purples with just a touch of yellow and the second one uses a wash of yellow over the entire painting, apart from the reserved shapes, with more layers of yellow in some selected areas.

I couldn't choose a favourite, so I am including both!

Here are the mixes I used:  The darker purple is ultramarine and magenta, the lighter purple is cerulean, magenta and white and the yellow is cad yellow medium with a little white.

Summer of Colour - Wk 1

The colours for this week are two blues and a green.  I was afraid this was a bit unexciting for me, but by mixing my own blues and by making a nice bright green, I felt the colour addict within me was satisfied.

I mixed ultramarine blue with a little paynes grey for the darker blue, then I  mixed cerulean blue with a little white for a contrasting blue.  For the green, I used pthalo turquoise with lemon yellow.

Sketchbook - Finished

I decided to work in my sketchbook and on a small canvas (10" x 15"), the sketchbook is finished, but the canvas has more work to be done on it.

The Canvas - Work in Progress

Boundaries Series - Push it

During my mindfulness sketchbook sessions, I find I spend more time drawing with charcoal on top of previously painted pages.

Liking the results in the sketchbook, I decided to try it out on a prepared canvas (the one in the last post, that looked like a snow scene).

First I painted over the lovely burnt paper effect (it is OK, I now know how to replicate it if or when I need to), with a few layers of acrylic paint.  I always start with darker colours and work towards lighter as I progress.  Well, when I say always, I mean mostly (sometimes I deviate from this).

Now, I rather liked what I had so far and I really didn't want to change it that much, but, you know and I know, that to progress with art, we have to push it - we have to push it real good!

So I pushed it and I am not entirely happy with the result, I overworked it and lost the translucency that I a wanted in the negative space, I was battling with the texture, it was making the drawn and calligraphic lines that I wanted broken and untidy, the tonal contrast is a bit too harsh to my eyes.

But I am happy that I tried and I have pinned this up on the wall, where it will stay with many other experiments until I AM happy with the results!

Serendipity in Art

It is great to let go of the control-freak inside (well, sometimes).  I was prepping some paper ready for painting and just love what happened here. 

What I am trying to achieve is a sense of perspective in this painting.  You have to imagine it upside down for this, I wanted texture of cracks and creases, with finer ones in the distance (top of the painting) and I wanted harder, larger ones in the foreground (bottom of the painting), so I used tissue for the finer ones and dug out an old fax roll for the harder creases.

Pleased with that aspect of the work, I then applied some lettering through a stencil using texture paste.  Now, texture paste takes ages to dry and I am impatient, I wanted to get started asap, so I blasted it with the hairdryer.  (sidenote here, I have managed to blow out one hairdryer in six months by using it in the studio, but it was an old one).

As I moved the hairdryer over the lettering, I noticed that the fax paper was beginning to darken, even after I stopped.

I thought it looked rather interesting like this, but even so, I will be painting over it.  At least I know how to achieve this effect if I ever want to!

Cailleach Bheur

I hope I am not overdoing my talisman chatter.  I have worked very hard these past several days on a number of art projects. I am experimenting with a new idea for goddess brooches, but need to take some decent photos of those before showing you and I have worked on my larger boundaries painting, which still isn't resolved yet.  But I do have new talismans to show!  This one is called Cailleach Bheur, named after the Celtic goddess of winter..

 

Talisman Experiments

I seem to have more ideas for talisman variations than time to make them!  I had an idea that I wanted to do a black one, initially intending for the background and beads to be all black (or variations), but, somehow, colour has crept in.  I have started to name them, this one is named after the Welsh goddess, Cerridwyn.

I have been experimenting with arty photos of the talismans.  I am gradually getting them listed in my Etsy shop at last and I thought the different angles would add a bit of pizzazz to the listings.  Although I have had this Etsy shop for a couple of years now, I have never used it properly, partly because my stock tends to sell before I get the chance to list anything.

Golden Acrylic Paints

From L-R, Ultramarine, Violet, Magenta, Crimson, Azo Gold, Cad Yellow Med

I have mostly painted with watercolours or oils and used to get very frustrated with acrylics.  When I decided to work in mixed media at the end of last year, I had to come to terms with needing to use acrylic paint.  As a compromise, I decided to order in some Golden Opens.  I love them!

I decided to do some paint swatches to get a feel for the colours.  They are all quite transparent, some more so than others, particularly the ultramarines.  This becomes more evident in the second row, where I have added some Open medium and water to thin them.

On the third row, I increased their opacity by adding white, while that works, it does lessen the intensity of the colours.

On the fourth row, I added some ultramarine blue to each colour, which results in some lovely purples and greens.

Finally, I thought I would add some yellow to the original colours, which has resulted in a warm palette of oranges and greens.

I intend to get some more colours when I next place an order with the supplier.  I can see I would benefit from a cooler blue, a cerulean would be good and maybe a cooler yellow.

It is fun and useful, to do swatches when you get new paints, it helps to familiarise yourself with them.

DIY Business Cards - Yes or No?

I have heard it said that it is a big no-no to make your own business cards.  Apparently, it is unprofessional.

Do I listen to good advice?  Well, yes I do, but then I weigh up the information and make my own choices.

I decided to have a go at making my own business cards and I love them!  Here are the results.

So what do you say?  DIY or no DIY?

Works in Progress

I have two large canvases on the go, both 24" x 36" and they take a lot longer to complete, so all I have to show for my hard work this week are some detail shots.

This is the top left of canvas no.1, I love the play of  pink against the green and the pink scribing pulling the two areas together.

This is bottom right of the same canvas, here I am enjoying the play of green and purple.  There is a lot of texture built up in the many layers that I have applied so far.















This is on canvas no.2 and although it seems chaotic, I love the many layers and the lost and found symbols.

This area is the top left of the painting - just a note here, I quite often flip the paintings around and what starts as the top, may not end as the top!

Both these canvases are going to have some experimental work on them, while I try out layering landscape lines and elements.  It may go horribly wrong, but I have to try!

Zooming in with the Camera

I recently posted this large (24" x 36") completed canvas as part of my boundaries series and I think I mentioned that it has texture that wasn't clearly visible in the photo, so I took the time to get up close and personal with the camera and capture some of those textures.  It helps to get raking light from the side and at certain times of the day, this is possible.

Firstly, this is a shot from the upper central area, and here you can see the raised lettering, raised paint and the surface application of hand-scribing.

Here, from the top right, you can see the detail of the raised handwritten text, layers of paint (including buried raised text) as well as loosely woven fabric (scrim) at the bottom.

A photo taken just below the last one, shows some interesting edges of the fabric and complex colour layering.  The orange shows up beautifully here!

Large Mixed Media Canvas Completed

Photographing this piece has been a challenge, the blue has a more turquoise tinge to it, but if I adjust that, the red colour goes too orangey.  Oh the fun of photographing artwork properly!

This canvas is over 2 feet wide and exactly 3 feet tall.  I used scaled up versions of some of my favourite stencils, including text for texture and I thoroughly enjoyed working larger.

One of my artistic influences is Mark English, in particular, his landscapes.  The tree stencils I use really do remind me of his work and I get a little buzz every time I use them in my own work.

I revisited his website yesterday and began to wonder if I could make my abstracts look more like landscapes and I noodled around with Photoshop, trying out some digital ideas.  This is the result of layering some other paintings in places on this larger canvas.  Now I need to experiment to figure out how to do this for real!

More Juggling

I am still working on the larger abstract and I need to get it further along before I can photograph it properly.  It is stapled to the wall in a recess and a large shadow falls down one side of the painting.  I will be able to remove it when it is very near completion and photograph it then.

On my last post, I talked about the projects I have on the go, but I had managed to "forget" about a commission piece I am working on for a yoga studio.  That also is in progress and the deadline is fast approaching!  What is it Terry Pratchett said about deadlines?  "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."  Well I don't, I am terrible at working under pressure.  Fortunately, most of the work is done and it is just the final layer that needs to be done, but of course, that is the hardest one.

Anyway, because I don't like to post without including a picture (we artists like a visual, don't we?), here is another completed talisman.

Juggling Projects

The Liminal Project

I think I have art ADHD, I have so many projects on the go at once - at least there is no time to get bored!

I have more talismans in the works and I started the larger 2' x 3' painting over the weekend and it is coming along great, but needs some more layers.  You can also see in the background of the above photo, there is a board (60 x 80cm, roughly 2'x3') being prepped with texture, ready for another boundaries painting.

As well as the talismans and the large boundaries piece, I sketched out my design for the embroidery piece for the Liminal Project (which is part of a larger work, Embroidered Digital Commons, a long-term collaborative project started in 2002), now I have the fun task of choosing colours.

I rather like the variety of all these projects - they are all different, yet tie in to each other in some way, so although my output may seem scattered, it is, in fact, quite focused.

Goddess of the Night Talisman

I am in the middle of a very busy week, so although some artwork is being done every day, not much is getting finished.

I have plans for a large abstract on the "boundaries" theme and am busily planning some larger stencils so they fill the space adequately and I have stapled a large canvas directly to the wall.   I am looking forward to getting messy on that project soon!

Here is a finished talisman, it feels like night in this one, so I have called her the "Goddess of the Night".

Another project, I am working on is an embroidery section for a collaborative piece based on definitions of the word "liminal".  The section I have chosen to do, sort of fits in with my "boundaries" theme and is:

"the site of the border of any stable system of signs,"

I am at the gathering materials stage and figuring out how to display the words.

Winged Talisman

This talisman has already sold and will be flying off to her new owner tomorrow.  I love the wings (as does my customer).

More talismans (sans wings) are nearing completion, will post them once the finishing touches are made.  I have worked hard on them this weekend and it has been such great fun!

New Talismans in Progress

I have some backgrounds prepared, ready to be assembled into more talismans.  They are very satisfying to make, the whole process employs so many different techniques: painting, stenciling, stamping, collage, scribing, sewing and that is before I get to the really fun part of adding the little figures and their jewels.

When I started on the background sheets last week, I took photos, intending to do a step-by-step of the process, but I got involved this week and totally forgot to take more photos.  I will do this at some time, promise!

Finally! A Talisman or Two

After weeks of work, planning, experimenting, testing and learning new things, I have finally finished some of the little 4"x4" talismans that I have been working on.

I have had to learn how to use polymer clay, I have designed my own goddesses and learn how to make moulds of them, I have had to learn how to solder the metal findings and how to attach the figures to the panels securely, without using glue at all.

So here are two, I have more in the making:

EDIT:  They are both now SOLD.

Little Talismans

Yet more works in progress, these are the starts of a series of 4 inch talisman pieces that shall incorporate a lot of mixed media surface work before they are completed.

 

They are good fun to work on, I hope to get at least one finished by the end of the weekend.