mixin' it up

so much painting going on this past week... painting, wiping off, painting, smudging around... over and over... acrylics and watercolors on the same painting-- i'm loving that.



i started this one last week. many, many, many paintovers here. at this point i liked most of it, but definitely not that swirly stuff in the upper left corner... i liked the beak, but somehow it had to go. i wish i'd taken pictures from the beginning (jeane, you're inspiring me to document the process).



for now i'm settling on this... the upper left will likely change again, but for now this is okay. it looks better in person, and somehow seems like a spot that's holding potential, or possibility.

i used mostly acrylics, but a lot of watercolors (twinkling H20s and caran d'ache crayons) too. the chair was drawn with a caran d'ache crayon. the snake is the black stabilo pencil in my sidebar-- this pencil is so handy because if you don't like what you've drawn, it wipes right off with a damp paper towel. and, it draws on anything, even oil pastels. the flower is crayon and black pencil. a lot of twinkling H20 on the body of the bird/creature. when i was ready to move on from a layer i sprayed it with low odor matte krylon, which is good stuff for people who're sensitive to odors and chemicals. then i put matte gel medium on before painting again. the watercolors don't stick well to the krylon.

a simple little (4" x 6") painting. the tree, the door, the lavender swirlies in the roof are all caran d'ache crayons. oh, and so is that 'ghost' beside the tree. i thought 'hmmmm.... need some white here, so scribble scribble with the white crayon. a ghost! yeah!

more watercolors on acrylic and gel medium. i sprayed her with krylon last night and gel medium-ed her this morning. she needs something but i don't know what. she's just sort of suspended there. maybe i'll go hogwild with acrylics and cover most of it up? sure can't see what right now... if you can see it, please tell me! but, lol, it can't be too complicated!!



okay, here it is wednesday morning and i've started to paint out most of the sky. this morning it seemed obvious that it was overwhelming her... since painting between all of those branches will not be high on my list of things to do, i'm not sure what i'll do there - maybe sort of fade the white into the area.

because i got the gel medium so wet, the yellow started to buckle and raise up here. if you click you can see it better. i love this effect. if there's oil pastel under the gel medium it sometimes comes up entirely, but with paint underneath it just gets all wavy and buckly. the yellows are crayons, and the petals are H20s and crayons. that's my shadow in the lower left-- taking pics on my lap in the morning sun is my latest favorite thing : ).

another painting i was working on this morning... it's more subtle in person and i thought it would stay this way until...

i was messing around with this photo is PSE and saw it here (upper right). there's another bird at the bottom of the page! if you click you can see it easily.



it looks a little different here, but still there (bottom of the tail), so maybe another bird will go there. what a cool way to see what might be hidden in a piece... (in PSE, increase the contrast, click 'filter', 'stylize', 'find edges')



a parting shot taken on our way home from the big city (redding) yesterday. the angle of the sun made the back of this truck glow (we're on the wrong side of the road because we're slowly driving around a wreck). then i started thinking about how united van lines has been around for a looong time, and that their logo's always looked like this. the things that taking pics makes you think about!!!