lynne hoppe

2012-01-25T22:15:00.000-08:00

untitled ~ watercolors, gouache and casein paint on 3" x 6" kraft tag

i was only going to paint a face but one thing led to another... first i painted the outline of her head with a fairly heavy layer of white casein paint; once that was dry i painted on top of it with watercolors and gouache. it's a lot of fun to do this because you can use the casein to cover up or mute the watercolors and gouache. or, if you don't brush them on too vigorously, they just sit on top of the casein.

i found this when i was cleaning out the closet in my art room a few days ago... i probably painted it in 2006 - every face that i painted then had a hard stare! even though i really wanted to paint faces back then i didn't paint them often. every once in a while i'd sorta sneak up on one from behind to see if it would turn out differently... slowly slowly (2 years?) i began to realize that i could soften the gaze by either raising the pupils or lowering the upper eyelid.

i'm going to take a blogging break...

savor

this winter quiet...

* * *

Henri Matisse in his studio in the south of France, 1948
(thank you artist and studio)

XO

2012-01-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

madeline ~ waterolors, inktense pencil, gouache, casein paint and old wallpaper on book page

madeline turned out to be a wild and free soul...

before she got to be so wild and free... ; )

i thought she was done at that point so i was going to make a pogo print of her.... wow, going to amazon to get the link i see that they have pogo printers for $24.95 today! click on the link if you're interested, although the price may be higher by the time you read this. it can fluctuate a lot but i've never seen the price lower than $29.95 before...

back to madeline! she's one of the few things i've done outside my 'daily book' lately; sometimes ya just gotta get jiggy with the paint... her hair is courtesy of an amber inktense pencil...

XO

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

eleanor ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastels & casein paint in fabriano watercolor book

* * *

“Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk.”

~ Edward Weston via tumblr

XO

stillman and birn sketchbooks

2012-01-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

gouache, prismacolor, inktense, and derwent 8B pencils in stillman and birn 4" x 6" gamma sketchbook

i am teetotally in love with a stillman and birn 'gamma' sketchbook as my new 'daily book'... you can truly do light washes in it, pencil and pen are beautiful on the paper, and calligraphy ink does not bleed through to the other side of the page.

this post is mostly about the 4" x 6" 'gamma', but towards the end i'll also say a few words about the 'delta' sketchbook (extra heavy paper). they make a series of five different books (i.e. different bindings and types/colors of paper).

the info that came with the 'gamma'...

the ivory paper is *beautiful*... a colored pencil face on the left and a watercolor face on the right. most of these pics were taken in full sun when i was out walking/drawing...

the left page is another colored pencil face, and on the right page i used mostly inktense pencils (with water). the rays coming from the heart are ivory mccaffery's penman's ink, which is a dense ink that didn't begin to bleed through (or buckle) the page.

j. herbin's 340th anniversary ink 'rouge hematite' here... my sister just gave me a bottle of it with a glass pen! woo!

the back side of the page with the anniversary ink on it - as you can see it didn't bleed through. if you look very closely you can see a hint of the writing on the other side, but it's faint.

prismacolor pencils and an .005 pigma micron pen... the paper has a bit of tooth, but the pen moves across the page beautifully.

and, maybe the most important thing, the book lays open flat no matter where you are in it! yes!

getting ready to walk home, the book resting on a tuft of grass... i'm using a sari ribbon to keep it closed while it's in my pack.

watercolors, goauche, oil pastels, and inktense pencils in stillman & birn delta sketchbook

the 7" x 7" spiral bound 'delta' is the only other stillman and birn sketchbook i've tried... mostly i wanted to see how watercolors did on the 'extra heavy' paper. i wondered if the colors would be vibrant and if the paper would buckle. the colors were fantastic and the page didn't begin to buckle. you could use plenty of water on this paper with no problem. i think this paper can handle *anything*!

both the extra heavy paper in the 'delta' and the heavy paper in the 'gamma' (my daily book) have the perfect amount of surface sizing for me. you can move paint around easily with little or no staining, and the surfaces are resilient - they don't disintegrate easily.

so yeah, investigate stillman and birn sketchbooks if you're looking for a new and improved journal! for me it's a real joy to work in a book using colored pencils, ink, and watercolors without preparing the page in any way.

you can go to their website to see if there's a retailer near you, or here are a few online sources:

amazon

utrecht

wet paint

jamie williams grossman has written extensive reviews of stillman and birn sketchbooks on her blog hudson valley sketches. here's part 1 of her review of the 'alpha', which is the same as my daily book except with white paper.

please feel free to ask questions if you have them!

XO

2012-01-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

alberta ~ watercolors, gouache, casein paint, and oil pastels in fabriano journal

i was glad the page size was only 4" x 6", otherwise i'd have used my entire paint supply on alberta...

she's in a fabriano watercolor journal that kathy brought back to me from italy. the paper is nothing like the fabriano artistico paper that i've tried (and don't like). it's sort of like khadi paper except nicer, which is saying a lot because i adore khadi paper. a watercolorist would probably croak to know that i'm gobbing paint onto it!!

the binding is equally exquisite. no matter where you are in the book it lays absolutely flat.

the other side of alberta's page... deckle edges!

i've looked for them online and can't find them. if anyone knows where to buy them, let me know and i'll spread the word...

* * *
What is an artist? He's a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in the atmosphere, in the cosmos.
~ Henry Miller

XO

2012-01-06T16:59:00.000-08:00

adelia ~ watercolors, gouache, colored pencils & oil pastels on old paper

adelia is the last gentle soul to grace one of these cards... i've got a few blank cards ready, but i've felt no urge to paint on them. i've painted a few faces in a watercolor journal that are the complete opposite of these, and i got a new 4" x 6" stillman and birn journal earlier this week that i'm working in, but nothing on the cards!

after i drew adelia she seemed so stark - i was seriously tempted to put some hair on her, but the inner voice was not in agreement. as i painted her such a sweetness came into her eyes that it surprised me, lol, the one painting her. it really made me stop and think about how little the analytical (she-needs-hair) mind knows...

the front and back of the pocket moleskine i just finished. i call these small journals my 'daily books' because i usually do something in them every day. and it's where i put all of the pogo prints... that's a pogo print of lunette on the back. it's really addictive to make pogo prints of your artwork... ; )

prismacolor pencils in pocket moleskine

one thing that i'd never done before is draw a face and only color (what i thought would be) the highlighted areas with white. then add color for lips, eyes, cheeks, etc, but not color the skin in all the way. these pics aren't great so you really can't even see what i'm talking about, but in person you can. they have a lot more 'movement' than faces with all of the skin colored in. (obviously this is not gonna work if you're using white paper, but you could do the opposite and only shade the darker areas while leaving the rest white)

prismacolor pencils in pocket moleskine

again, not a very good pic, but more practicing. besides the highlighting thing i fooled around with different kinds of eyes and lips - i learn a lot by doing these faces. they don't take long and if you don't like something you can (more or less) erase it and try a different way.

prismacolor pencils in pocket moleskine

another thing that i really like to do is not draw the outline of the face in until i'm finished with the eyes, nose and mouth. i've learned a lot about the relationship of the mouth, nose, and eyes to each other by drawing them without the hair and outline of the head.

just in case any of that might be helpful to fellow aspiring face painters. i know that i'm always looking for tips that can give me insight into what makes a face 'work'. and now onward to my next daily book, which is the stillman and birn journal...

XO

2012-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

francis ~ watercolors, gouache, and oil pastels on old paper - approx. 2 1/2" x 4 1/2"

what, what? 2012 you say?!!

i'm feeling as quiet as francis here, but there are a couple of things that i want to say...

the first is "thank you" for your love and support this past year. thank you for your comments and questions, the inspiration, and the laughter - which is more valuable to me than even art supplies or new books! from the bottom of my heart i say thank you for being who you are and sharing yourselves with me.

the other thing that i want to say is that i wish you all a positively brilliant 2012.

if i may be so bold as to say so,

this is the time to let our

heart lights

shine...

XO

2011-12-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

pearl ~ watercolors, oil pastels and gouache on old paper

looking at pearl i'm reminded of the words of henry miller in the video 'to paint is to love again'...

i look at it and i say "did i do this or did somebody else do it?" ... i say often about my writing, i read certain passages and i'm impressed and i say "henry, did you write this?"

lulu, pearl and jeweliette

i haven't been able to get a good pic of jeweliette by herself, so i'll show her as she sat near my chair with pearl and lulu. and yes, with jeweliette too, i could say "lynne, did you paint that?!"

hee!

a belated happy birthday to you, henry - born on december 26, 1891.

* * *

XO

2011-12-26T12:37:00.000-08:00

lulu ~ watercolors, gouache and oil pastels on old paper - approx. 3" x 4 1/2"

it looks like lulu might pick a fight with the next person that wanders by! i've painted ten faces on these cards now and they've all been a joy, even feisty lulu...

on december 19th the sun shown in my art room windows illuminating it entirely. the same thing happened yesterday as the sun was in the same position it was in before the solstice. i know, i know, the sun's not actually moving, it's the earth - but it certainly looks like it's the sun! i love to watch the movement of the sun, especially at this time of year...

the wall behind my chair - that red thing is a blanket on the back of my chair...

i snapped a lot of pics, ha! this is what was on the table. it's a 7" x 9" sennelier journal that this lovely person gave to me. i'm really enjoying working on a bigger page... and i'm getting close to finishing another pocket moleskine, and still painting on the cards. i like the diversity of it all...

i don't have a link to the sennelier journal - i'm not sure if they are available online. i've just discovered stillman and birn journals, though, which seem very promising. click on 'paper specifications' (top right on the home page) to quickly see what kinds of papers are used in their journals.

XO

2011-12-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

the golden light girl ~ watercolors, gouache and oil pastels on old paper

i wish you all a joy and light filled holiday season!

* * *

“Art happens – no hovel is safe from it, no prince can depend on it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about.”

~ James McNeil Whistler

XO

2011-12-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

holy dolly ~ watercolors, oil pastels and gouache on old paper

* * *

paul klee was born on this date in 1879. i thank the fantastic tumblr 'ordinary finds' for this quote and image...

“Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour.”

~ Paul Klee

2011-12-15T13:28:00.000-08:00

rose ~ oil pastel, derwent drawing pencil, graphite on old paper

with faces like this i learn so much about the power of line; about darkening parts of the outline of the face, eyes, etc, to pull the eye here or there. in this case i used an 8B pencil for that. i love these pencils - i now have three of them! one for every spot where i might sit down and draw...

everything that i used for rose's face... the oil pastel is a cream caran d'ache neopastel.

* * *

"I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. ”

~ Pablo Picasso

XO

2011-12-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

harriet ~ watercolors, gouache and oil pastels on old paper

taking these pics outside in direct sun makes them appear brighter and harsher than they really are. harriet's a little softer in real life...

those bits of light brown/tan on the inside corners of her eyes are raw sienna. that and raw umber have become two of my favorite colors. her eyebrows and hair are raw umber.

getting ready to cut out a card... as you can see, i'm gluing the bits of paper to pages from 'the merry men'.

XO

2011-12-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

lunette ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastels & matte gel medium on old paper

sunday??? i thought it was saturday until an hour ago...

the faces have come back 'round, as has paint in all its glory!

delight, delight!

* * *

Respectfully— R. Rauschenberg

XO

2011-12-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

prismacolor pencils and matte gel medium on old paper

oh how i do appreciate the simple joy of pencils...

XO

2011-12-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

watercolors, gouache, colored pencils and matte gel medium on old paper

this hexagon is one of the many things that have come from my exploration of hexagons/honeycomb, which started here. at the time i had no idea that synchronicity would present me with so many opportunities to learn more about them! one of the latest things i read is that some scientists feel that it's the frequency (i.e. resonance) of the hexagonal shape that calls bees back to the hive - it's what they hone in on. i don't seek these things out - they just pop up out of (seemingly) nowhere! before this all started i'd never thought about the fact that there is a star tetrahedron inside a hexagon...

in case you're wondering what i'm using for a template for these cards, it's a card from the rumi tarot deck. it's about 2 3/4" x 4 1/2". the artwork is by nigel jackson, and there are a lot of great images in the deck.

XO

2011-12-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

watercolors, prismacolor pencils & matte gel medium on old paper

* * *

shaman today after eating two carrots

XO

2011-12-01T21:09:00.001-08:00

prismacolor pencils and matte gel medium on old paper

* * *

“The creative adult is the child who has survived.”

~ Ursula K. LeGuin via tumblr

XO

2011-11-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

prismacolor pencils on old paper covered with matte gel medium - approx. 3" x 4 1/2"

not long after i did the piece in the last post, i started making cards by gluing down pieces of old paper to pages from 'the merry men'. i've been drawing and painting/coloring on them since.

blank card before i draw on it

i love the idea of cards - i have for a long time, but have never found my way to making ones that i like. a few months ago i saw - and fell in love with - the collages of tom moglu on tumblr, and, long story short, my construction idea for these cards began to form.

below are a couple of example's of tom's work...

Hêtre by Tom Moglu

Soloré by Tom Moglu ~ 180x180mm

he has another tumblr called the bread quilt, and that's where i found this interview with him. here's his answer to question # 6, "can you describe your process?"

"Sift through huge pile of scraps of paper, hack a few large pieces about and glue them down as a ‘background’, drink coffee, find more pieces to shape the composition, cut and glue, destroy/obliterate non-working parts, cut, glue… repeat for hours."

the interview's worth reading...

thank you, tom...

XO

2011-11-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

untitled ~ thread, watercolors and casein paint glued to a page from 'now we are six' by a.a. milne - approx. 5" x 7"

i first stitched and painted the figure on a page from 'the merry men', then i tore the page out of the book, and finally i tore the figure out of the page! the page from 'now we are six' had been beside my art table for months, and when i laid the pieces on top of it so i could clean off my workspace, i knew they'd found their final home.

for now i'm going to work outside of 'the merry men'. thinking of working inside it just stops me cold, so that's that. if you've worked in books you know this happens. in the past i have forced myself to carry on in a book that i no longer want to work in, but it's not pleasant. and i have way too many pages left in 'the merry men' to even think about doing that (not to mention that i'm just about incapable of forcing myself to do something, especially if the muse is in opposition to it), so outside the book it is for now.

* * *

i watched this video in september and the journals in it spoke to me on a very deep level. you probably know how it feels when you see someone's work and all of the sudden what you're doing seems ridiculously insubstantial; well that's how the art in leigh mc closkey's 'codex tor' series affected me. there are links here to the art in two of the 'codex tor' books - once you click on a page, click on the expansion thingie in the lower right corner and the image will get huge.

and so yeah, onward...

Flying Lotus - Inside the Codex: the Art of Cosmogramma

2011-11-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

'maud' ~ watercolors and oil pastels in 'the merry men'

i don't think we should try to pull the wool over maud's eyes... i don't think it would work one bit. ; )

i was going to stitch maud on a page from 'the merry men', but the paper was too fragile and wouldn't hold the stitching. so i took the thread out of the machine and kept going. then she had a perforated edge so i could tear her out and glue her to another page. the page on the left is the one i tore her out of. the paper's darker because i put walnut ink on it first.

* * *

expertenough.com

XO

2011-11-15T18:47:00.001-08:00

'eunice' ~ casein paint, watercolors, thread, embroidery floss and seed beads on painted muslin

eunice is an experiment with thread, paint and beads. it's a combination that's been calling to me for a while but i've been waiting for it to sort of firm up. well, it hasn't firmed up, so i decided to just mess around with it. i especially like her lips, which i stitched with embroidery floss and then painted. the stitching really gave them some nice texture and depth.

unfinished pages in pocket moleskine - flowers colored with prismacolor pencils and an 8B pencil

i was going to put eunice in 'the merry men', but then i remembered some 4" x 6" frames in my closet, so i put her in one of those. that's her in the pogo print on the right. the left page is me drawing with my right (dominant) hand, i think - i can't remember... i just don't think i could've drawn anything that symmetrical with my left hand!

prismacolor pencils and 8B pencil in pocket moleskine

some pale, quiet girls... drawing them is kinda like putting on quiet music... ; )

XO

2011-11-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

'enid moves on' ~ watercolors, casein paint, gouache, oil pastels, colored pencils & beeswax in 'the merry men'

so i did take a chill pill, ha! and our son was here visiting for a few days... i started this early in the week and finished it at the end. i'm not totally happy with it, but enough to leave it alone...

in case you're interested, this is what the wax looks like before i smooth it out with a quilting iron. i like using a quilting iron more than a heat gun because i have more control over where the wax goes.

i also painted on top of the wax - the tubes are some of the paints i used (ignore the soft pastels in the box - the picture just looked better without them cropped out). if you click the top pic you can see most of the places where i painted on the wax. also i used some oil pastels on it - i put the stick of caran d'ache turquoise in the pic because it was one of the colors i used.

i still feel like some new thing is brewing art-wise, and maybe i'm getting closer to it.... two people whose art is inspiring me now are: ani at 8 1/2 x 11: thread reading and marti somers (click on 'galleries' at the top of the page). total love for what these women do!

* * *

neil young ~ photo by henry diltz

happy birthday to one of my favorite people... 66 today!

XO

2011-11-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

'eileen' ~ watercolors, gouache, casein paint, 8B pencil and oil pastels in 'the merry men'

it's taking me a long time to paint faces these days. following my one-thing-leads-to-another approach has me putting down a lot of paint that later gets wiped off or painted over. way more than usual. so i work on a piece for a few hours and then walk away from it. wait for the energy to come back 'round. it's not the easiest way to paint, that's for sure. it begins to feel like work instead of play, and for me that's a big 'ol message to chill. wait 'til things get clearer... which eileen looks like she might be doing, lol!

pogo prints, 8B pencil and primacolor pencils in pocket moleskine

so i mess around in my moleskine more. look at flowers in the dover book 'traditional floral designs and motifs', draw them, and then color them in. i love to color... i've often thought that all i really need is a (very cool) coloring book.

patrice with wax paper over her in 'the merry men'

a couple of people asked about patrice and the beeswax... yeah i did cover the entire page with beeswax, and then i took an awl and carved into the wax so i could put black casein paint in there - that's what the black outline is.

this time instead of spraying the page with PYM II as a way to 'fix' the wax, i just put a piece of wax paper over her. doing a lot of wax pages in the milton book (last summer), i ended up feeling that you really have to start taking extra care of the book once you do it. no leaving the book outside in the sun (which i did with the milton book many times), and no laying it under the woodstove to make pages dry faster - stuff like that. otherwise it seems fine to put wax on the pages...

this is what 'the merry men' looks like now. i haven't taken out many pages, but it looks like i'm going to have to start taking out more. just putting the bits of wallpaper on the pages adds bulk, and the wax pages really do.

* * *

“The hidden harmony is better than the obvious."

~ Pablo Picasso, via tumblr

XO

2011-11-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

'patrice' ~ casein paint, watercolors, gouache, 8B pencil, oil pastels and beeswax in 'the merry men'

* * *

carsten schmidt photography

XO

2011-10-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

'annette' ~ casein paint, gouache, watercolors, 8B pencil in 'the merry men'

annette is what became of the drawing i did (here) while watching amy's video about drawing realistic faces. i'd say she turned out vaguely realistic. the most interesting thing was that i thought her shoulders were proportional until i painted them, and then it was obvious that they were way too small. so i wiped most of the paint off of her dress to play this fact down, lol.

saturday's video was about collage faces, which is a very cool thing to do if you get stymied by drawing faces. just glue some face parts down and then paint them. it's helpful and it's fun! here's a link...

the weather's been nice! i love that and just can't stay inside when it is... if you've never made a tree love flag i highly recommend it. you can feel the tree smile when you hang it...

in case it's helpful, here's where i get my sari silk.

sari silk, piece from old doily and embroidery floss on muslin

XO

2011-10-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

'sad girl with green eyes (gazes at the world)' ~ watercolors, glued down bits of wallpaper, casein paint and gouache in 'the merry men'

XO

2011-10-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

'clementine' ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastels, casein paint,bits of paper glued to page, colored pencil and graphite in 'the merry men' - 5" x 7"

there's a painting underneath clementine that i worked for *hours* on. finally i just said 'bah!' (or something like that, ha ha) and covered it up with white casein paint. you can still see bits of the original painting. what doesn't get fully covered up almost always seems to enhance the final version. i love the legs on the front of clementine's dress, but i definitely didn't plan it so they'd show up.

lately i've been gluing down pieces of old wallpaper before i start drawing. there's something about old wallpaper that i really like. it's the one collage thing i always come back to.

pogo prints in pocket moleskine

i finished the pocket moleskine that i started in late august. in it i messed around with various things, like writing the date in different ways. i decided that my writing gets a lot more interesting if i vary the width of it.

i drew with an 8B (soft lead) pencil a lot. what i really love is smudging it. i did a bunch of pencil smudging...

like here... i'm on a hexagon/honeycomb kick. i don't know why, but i'm happy drawing honeycomb!

this is what i drew today watching amy's video workshop. it's supposed to be realistic, but i did lop a bit off of her lower lip to make her a little wonky. lol, she'll probably be real wonky by the time i finish painting her. even though i don't draw realistically, i do like to try different things... thank you, amy!!

* * *

“What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.”

~ Lucien Freud, via tumblr

XO

2011-10-23T21:04:00.001-07:00

'sylvia' ~ gouache, watercolors, oil pastels, casein paint, colored pencil & soft pastels in 'the merry men'

in the last month or so i've been experimenting... and resting creatively while whatever it is that's brewing gets brewed. i feel like i'm coming out the other end of that now, and one thing that i know more than ever is that i love to draw and paint faces. i just do!

hey! amy is offering free video art workshops!! she is one beautiful human being and very good with words, so i'm gonna paste here what she says on her blog:

Let's pass artiness around and get it to everyone.

Let's make everything arty and awesome and happy.

I will be loading some templates and supply lists for you when they are necessary.
I am very excited.

I will do all that i can to make art and information and techniques available to everyone.

We all deserve art, right?

If you have good information or are not shy and would like to share a tutorial or host a portion of a workshop, please Please contact me via email: amy@amymcdonald.net

I think the best thing we can do is share what we know.

So please. If you know good stuff (and you do)
and are willing to share your good information, let me know.

Let's make a free arty information revolution.

click here for more info...
(can you see me blowing her the most enormous kisses in the world?)

* * *

XO

2011-10-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

'came calling' ~ watercolors, graphite, oil pastels, gouache, casein paint and collage papers in 'the merry men'

well i'm still feeling mighty, mighty quiet, but it seems like time to put something here besides kees...

owl, woodpecker, turkey and blue jay feathers

one thing i am absolutely clear on these days is that nature is mind-bogglingly complex and beautiful.

blowing you kisses...

* * *

"Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led."

~ Louis Kahan (1905–2002, Austria) via tumblr

XO

kees van dongen

2011-09-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

portrait of a woman

i'm gonna to take a bit of a blogging break, see where these fall days lead me... i leave you with paintings by an artist whose work i adore, kees van dongen. if i had to choose one painter whose portraits of women i love best, it would be kees. (and i love his name! even though i have no idea how it's pronounced!)

thank you to various folks on tumblr, where i saw many of these paintings for the first time, and a special thank you to beverley shiller for finding the video...

most of these were painted between 1900 and 1910.

the blue hat

the lace hat

woman and orange vendor

woman with a cigarette

woman with flowered hat

woman with frill

femme orientale

dancers - revel and coco

yellow boots

young mother

gisele

* * *

via nearlya

XO

2011-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

'they know not what they do' ~ caran d'ache crayons, casein paint, oil pastels, watercolors, and graphite in 'the merry men'

'they know not what they do' has to do with my feelings about the execution of troy davis... i worked on it for a couple of nights - there's a lot of stuff covered up on the page, but in the end it seemed to capture my feelings just about perfectly...

my main thing lately hast not been painting, though! it's getting out in the woods to visit the trees (and everything!) before the rain and cold weather get here...

green shrine tree #1, new heart rock

green shrine tree #2 - old heart rock, tidied up!

this is an old 'flag' at green shrine tree #1... i'm showing it because i've been showing how these drawings done with caran d'ache crayons and pigma micron pens (on muslin) are holding up. i'm beginning to lose count now, but i think this one is going into its fourth winter. i'm amazed at the amount of color left!

a flag from this summer - with beeswax... the new version of tree flags, lol

this is me today, stitching some sari silk and rhinestones to muslin. after i tied it to a branch i looked down, and there was

a perfect piece of charcoal...

* * *

“The difficulty of always feeling that you ought to be doing something is that you tend to undervalue the times when you’re apparently doing nothing, and those are very important times.”

~ Brian Eno, via tumblr

XO

2011-09-22T16:19:00.000-07:00

'eugenia' ~ gouache, oil pastels, casein paint, watercolors and colored pencil in 'the merry men', 5" x 7"

* * *

XO

how-to finis

2011-09-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

'charlotte' ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastels, colored pencil, casein paint and graphite on page from milton poetry book - 4" x 6"

it turns out that the face i started below was jeanette's younger sister, charlotte! i had no idea!

i don't think she's changed too much... i added more white gouache and cream oil pastel to her skin, but mostly i worked on fine tuning her eyes, lips, and hair with watercolors, gouache, and oil pastels. her hair is mainly pale yellow oil pastel and gamboge gouache. i like to add oil pastels to hair without blending them in... i messed with her eyebrows quite a lot, seeing which color/s looked best. all the while i was messing with stuff i was trying to figure out what her left eye (as you're looking at her) needed. finally i realized that i needed to lighten the edges of it near the outside of her face, which i did with white gouache. then she popped alive.

if you click you can see the heavy white that i added to her forehead, nose, chin and neck - that's white casein paint. it's easier to get a layer of dense white with casein paint than with gouache. it's just a heavier paint.

the background is entirely covered with white casein, which i then painted on top of. on the right side you can see some faint flowers - i drew those in with a purple prismacolor pencil. a perfect example of the usefulness of colored pencils, i think...

i'll put a link to these posts in the sidebar so they're easy to access...

thank you for your positive responses and kind words!

XO

how to

2011-09-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

'pink messenger #1' ~ watercolors, colored pencil, gouache, oil pastels, casein paint and graphite on old book page - approx. 5" x 7"

paint faces using oil pastels, watercolors, and white gouache

alrighty! i've been wanting to do this for a while... this is a more thorough way of answering the questions that i'm most often asked - how i get the skin to look the way it looks, and how i get watercolors to mix with oil pastels.

i'm going to start by listing the 'ingredients' that i used on pink messenger's face (above), followed by how/where i used them.

1. caran d'ache cream oil pastel - the first layer of 'skin'
2. sennelier brown ochre oil pastel - shading
3. sennelier paynes grey oil pastel - shading
4. m. graham paynes grey gouache - shading and for making the pupils/eyes darker
5. m. graham titanium white gouache - skin
6. daniel smith quinacridone gold watercolor - shading
7. zecchi paynes grey watercolor - shading, the eyes, eyebrows (along with burnt sienna, which i forgot to number!)
8. zecchi vermilion watercolor - cheeks and lips
9. zecchi scarlet watercolor - cheeks and lips
10. yarka golden deep, titian's and claret - cheeks and lips
11. pelikan pale pink opaque watercolor - cheeks, lips, and general shading
12. caran d'ache neo-color II salmon pink - cheeks and lips
13. derwent 8B graphite pencil - drawing the face
14. prismacolor burnt sienna colored pencil - eyelids

you don't have to use these brands, of course; this is just what i use, and the list is ever evolving. the one ingredient that i think is not replaceable, though, is the cream caran d'ache oil pastel. its color and consistency are unique.

brushes

i'll call the ones on the left the 'soft' brushes, and the ones on the right, well i'll just call them what they are - filberts. you'll see below how i use them, but the basic idea is that you put color down with a soft brush so you don't tempt the layer of paint below to move around. this is really important if you're putting watercolors on gouache or white casein paint - do it with a soft brush. use the filberts to put gouache (or casein paint) on the oil pastel - they're nice and stiff and can push the heavy gouache around.

a little word about colored pencils...

here are jeanette's lips, and you can see the lines of the tuscan red prismacolor pencil i used on them. on pink messenger i used the burnt sienna pencil to draw a line that sort of defines her upper eyelid. i use them wherever they seem like they'll be useful, and they're useful a lot... believe me, jeanette's lips were lacking before i put the colored pencil on there. and i am not shy about using them on oil pastels - unless you have very heavy layer of oil pastels down, you can use colored pencils to shade them beautifully.

layers

the piece of paper on the left was the beginning of pink messenger.... i'm showing it to emphasize the fact that a piece can change a LOT before it's done, and i think the layers and changes that go into a piece are what give it not only depth, but also a kind of 'strength'. this goes for faces too...

originally i was going to use this piece as a jumping off point for writing about how i do the faces, but then i realized that that wouldn't be enough, so below i'll go through a step-by-step using another face. but here you can see pink messenger with just the cream caran d'ache oil pastel smeared around, and a little quinacridone gold watercolor rubbed in on her eyelids. that beautiful pink tip on her nose came through from what was underneath and i was careful throughout the process not to cover it up. : )

before i drew pink messenger in, i covered the entire page with a layer of matte gel medium so i could work without having to worry about picking up the color from below.

just imagine the steps below for pink messenger - i always do the same thing/s over and over until i get what i like.
. . .

i've just put the cream caran d'ache oil pastel on and smeared it around. as you can see, i don't put oil pastel over the lips and eyes, and i also try not to cover up the eyebrow area or the outline of the nose.

then i put a little quinacridone gold watercolor on a soft brush and painted it along the top edge of the face and the outline of the nose.

this is what it looks like once i've smeared the quinacridone gold around. to do that, i dip the tip of my finger in the water cup (that i rinse my brushes in) and then quickly smear the paint around. if it's too dark, i dip my finger again and dilute it, or take a paper towel and wipe some off. for shading, a little goes a long ways.

now i've added some red watercolor to her left cheek and some orange to her right and smeared them both in. also i smudged the pencil (the derwent 8B) around with a blending stump.

still using a soft brush i gave her the beginning of some lips, and with paynes grey watercolor i painted her pupils. i also added some white to her eyes with white gouache. the arrows are pointing to places where i put little dabs of sennelier brown ochre oil pastel.

here she is with the brown ochre oil pastel smudged in (with a blending stump and/or my fingers), and some hair. for her hair i used quinacridone gold and burnt sienna watercolor.

that's the end of what i'd call the first layer. of course i could do a lot more shading with oil pastels or watercolors, and sometimes i do. i just whatever seems like the thing to do...

now i'm gonna put some white gouache on her forehead and nose, and i'm just showing the filbert brush and tube of gouache so you can see that this is what i use. i paint right out of the tube. i just scoop the paint out with the brush and put it on the oil pastel. the firmness of the filbert makes this easy. do not add any water to the gouache - if you do it'll bead up.

here she is with more white gouache on her - i put some on her cheeks, chin, neck and a little more on her forehead. also i gave her some eyebrows with paynes grey and quinacridone gold watercolors, and i added a bit more white to the eye on the left.

at this point i could refine her - finish her lips, work on her eyes, add more shading, etc.,or,

i could put cream oil pastel on most of her face and start a whole new layer. when i get to a place like this it's not easy for me to stop and photograph what i'm doing because i'm in a painting frenzy, lol! but i would definitely keep going - smearing in more watercolors, adding more oil pastel - whatever seemed to be called for.

the reason that i'm not more specific about things like first i paint the eyes, then the mouth, or the number of layers i use, is because i don't have a plan like that. i just paint whatever i know/feel to paint next and keep going 'til it looks right. i follow my intuition, and i feel like everyone can do that...

often i have so many alternating layers of gouache, oil pastels, and/or watercolors down that things start to flake off, and i don't mind that. it can add a lot of interest.

one more thing... i've been asked how i get the skin to look like this, and the answer is easy - i wipe off what i've done. i start with a small area and keep wiping until it seems right. then i go back and paint the eyes in again - or whatever... when you paint on matte gel medium a sort of ghost image remains after you've wiped everything off; this will most likely inform what you want to do next...

if you have any questions please feel free to ask! i'll answer them in the comments section so everyone can see...

(click here to see how the face turned out : )

* * *

“The chief enemy of creativity is ‘good' sense.”

~Pablo Picasso, via tumblr

XO

2011-09-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

'ramona arrives in her well traveled heart' ~ wallpaper, gouache, watercolors, casein paint and oil pastels in 'the merry men', by robert louis stevenson

both ramona and jeanette ended up having many layers of paint on the page, so instead of adding paint for more color and interest,

i used this dental tool to dig into the paint to reveal what's underneath.

i mostly use this end - it may be a big gouge-y mark, or just a small scrape to take a bit off of, say, the pupil of an eye...

if you click on this you can (sorta!) see where i scraped the paint off...

the green in jeanette's hair is from the green that was there before i gave her hair. in other places i went right through the paint, past the text on the page, and into the paper.

people have asked if i glue a couple of pages together to make them thicker/more sturdy, and the answer is that i don't. the layer of matte gel medium that i put on the page first provides a lot of protection, but sometimes i even dig through that.... and that's fine, especially since i'm not painting on the back side of the pages in this book.

* * *

otis' cover of ' a change is gonna come' completely mesmerized me today!

XO

2011-09-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

pigma pen and colored pencils in pocket moleskine

a couple of weeks ago, when i was out in the big city, i stopped by barnes and noble and bought a pocket moleskine; i was jonesin' for a smooth, blank page... since i decided to only put paintings in 'the merry men', that left me with nowhere to write, put pogo prints, or doodle. doodling is an essential activity for me...

so now i'm doodling again - and practicing different styles of writing. i adore the work of people like sophie blackall, whose writing style totally sends me...

* * *

'face painter' ~ sophie blackall

sophie has a book coming out soon!

XO

2011-09-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

'jeanette' ~ strip of cloth, watercolors, colored pencil, casein paint, gouache and oil pastels in 'the merry men'

she could well be worried about her hairdo, or trying to remember the name of that salon she heard about last week...

while i was working on her, i was thinking that i could just name all of my paintings "in my own world", ha ha...

XO

2011-09-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

'in my own world 2' ~ foil stars, casein paint, gouache, watercolors, graphite and oil pastels in 'the merry men', 5" x7"

this ended up being the final version,

although i thought this one was, so i took a pic of it. i really liked that tulip behind her head, but i just couldn't get it right. eventually the tulip wanted to be a flame, which just *felt* a lot better even though i really liked that tulip...

on another note... if you leave a comment and don't receive an e-mail reply from me, it's because you don't have an e-mail address associated with your google/blogger account. if you're not sure, go to 'edit profile', and under 'identity', your e-mail addy will be there - or not. if it's not there, then i can't reply to your comments, and others can't e-mail you through your blog (if you have a blogger blog). it's only recently that i figured this out... before that i was replying to everyone, not knowing that many people weren't getting them!

if you have a few minutes and want to gaze at some incredible and colorful abstract paintings, go to micheal madigan's website ...

XO

2011-08-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

'i want to be with those who know secret things or else alone' ~ casein paint, watercolors, oil pastels, graphite, and gouache in 'the merry men'

daniel smith is having a special - a 66 dot sample card of their watercolors, plus 1 ounce of their watercolor ground for $2.99 with free shipping!

* * *

"I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

XO

2011-08-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

'in my own world' ~ gouache, watercolors, casein paint, oil pastels and graphite in 'the merry men'

* * *

photo by james van der zee

I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

~ Jean-Michel Basquiat

via tumblr

XO

2011-08-27T21:33:00.000-07:00

'imogene listening' ~ watercolor, oil pastel, and colored pencil in 'the merry men'

* * *

“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.”

~ Robert Henri

via mary ann wakeley's tumblr

XO

2011-08-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

'lyra' ~ watercolor, gouache, casein paint, oil pastel, colored pencil, and graphite in 'the merry men'

XO

2011-08-24T20:50:00.001-07:00

untitled ~ casein paint, oil pastels, and colored pencil on plaster

whew! i went out of town for five days and figured i'd be able to get a post in while i was gone... nope!

so this is another plaster piece; i worked right on the plaster - no gel medium on the surface first, and i realized this is the way that i want to work on plaster from now on. this is the second image that i did on this surface. the first time i added wax and then didn't like it, so i scraped not only the wax off, but also the top layer of plaster. not an easy thing to do. the more you scrape, the harder the plaster gets. it's like a kind of burnishing, which seems to have all kinds of potential for making a really durable and hard surface.

it's on a piece of wood about the size of my hand... i loved that the wood was so sturdy, and could handle the pressure i applied when carving and scraping the plaster.

thank you all for your kind words about last week's plaster!

alrighty, now i'm gonna do a little blog visiting...

and, i just discovered that lynda barry has a tumblr ...

* * *

renoir ~ self portrait

“I think I’m beginning to learn something about it”

Last words about painting, age 78…

~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir

via tumblr

XO

2011-08-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

gouache, oil pastels, watercolors, and casein paint on plaster covered with beeswax

a few weeks ago, when i made the plaster substrate for 'her wings were invisible', (here) i made another piece to use later; it sat outside for a couple of weeks until i sawed it in half lengthwise a few days ago. i got two long, narrow pieces that i didn't crack, just glued them to some cardboard. i thought they might be the covers for a plaster book...

then i made some more pieces on paper about the thickness of poster paper, and since then i've kind of lost interest in the book idea! now i'm thinking that i'll make a stack of them and then make a box for them. but who knows!

one thing i've learned is that plaster cloth on plaster gets much harder than plaster cloth on plaster cloth. i know, it sounds confusing, but the idea is that plaster cloth stuck to itself is still very easy to carve into (and this is what i've worked on in the past), whereas plaster cloth on plaster is like concrete. it's not easy to carve into.

the reason i put the plaster cloth on there was to see if it would 'heal' the places where i cracked the piece in my impatience to get on with things. the piece was flopping around, broken, so i put a strip of plaster cloth over the cracks, and like magic it was rigid again. now i know that i can 'repair' floppy pieces...

my art table a couple of nights ago... two plaster pieces for me to gaze at while i worked in 'the merry men'. ; )

* * *

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. (…)

Without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless creating.”

~ Pearl Buck, via tumblr

XO

2011-08-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

'alice' ~ casein paint, gouache, watercolors, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

* * *

john and yoko's film 'bed peace' (1969) is here until august 21st... at 51:40 they sing 'give peace a chance'...

: )

XO

2011-08-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

'the flowering tree' ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

listening to 'flowering tree totem' by david and steve gordon made me want to have a go at painting a flowering tree... it looked more or less tree-like (i.e. brown bark) until i got to thinking about the

'self portrait in a felt hat' ~ vincent van gogh

self portrait of vincent

that i saw on tumblr earlier in the day. when i went back to look at it again i thought that i really did need to add some color to the flowering tree. try to bring some light into it...

* * *

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

~C.S. Lewis via tumblr

XO

2011-08-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

'being here' ~ casein paint, 8B graphite pencil, gouache, watercolors, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

XO

2011-08-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

'the angel sender' ~ watercolors, gouache, graphite, oil pastels, sari silk, and casein paint in 'the merry men'

so here i am, working in 'the merry men', by robert louis stevenson. i adore this book... i know, i adored the milton book, too, but i might adore this one a little more, ha!

a very poor picture of it

it's bigger - almost 5" x 7", and i like that. the paper isn't as strong, though, so i'm putting a thin layer of matte gel medium on the page before i start drawing.

the main things that i'm doing differently in this book is that i'm only painting on the front side of the page, and i'm not adding any pogo prints or anything else. it's going to be a book of just paintings. one of the best things about this is that i won't have to take out so many pages to accomodate the thickness of the pogo prints. i haven't decided where i'll stick them yet...

i got the cotton cloth tape here... it is good, strong stuff - with a natural rubber adhesive backing.

* * *

“All the music already exists somewhere. Artists are only the people who translate it… There is a creative force we’re part of. Look, this here is called reality. Ok? This is three-dimensional and this exists. But there are also other worlds, worlds I don’t have to create, but who I can hear. And that I try to translate. In those worlds I live too. Everybody can. But what happens sometimes is that some artists are getting confused and think they create it all themselves. They're getting drunk on that. And then you’ve got a problem. Then people die from drugs. Cause when you’re a translator and you begin to think that everything is coming out of you, then you’re getting burnt alive. You won’t make it.”

~ Tori Amos, Oor magazine, via tumblr

XO

2011-08-09T17:14:00.000-07:00

'simple' ~ gouache, watercolors, derwent drawing pencil, casein paint, soft and oil pastels in 'the merry men', by r.l. stevenson - 4.5" x 7"

* * *

“I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists.”

~ Marcel Duchamp,via tumblr

XO

2011-08-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

'and there came a day' ~ watercolors, oil pastels, gouache & casein paint in milton book

thank you all for your well wishes for the show! i think that it was a success... it's interesting to have people come up to you and tell you what they think this or that piece means - usually something that i'd never thought of in my wildest dreams! but people did resonate with my faces, and that is somehow very satisfying.

since i've come back i've been overcome by a 'silent spell'. i finished the milton book and have started in a new book. just taking it easy though, mostly. see what comes in next... i'm gonna take a small blogging break while everything settles and resettles...

* * *

“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.”

~ Gregory Maguire, via tumblr

XO

2011-07-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

prismacolor pencils on western red cedar branch and creek rock

i drew the heart on the rock and then i thought, hmmmm... i could put this rock in the crook of this stick... and then i was delighted, hee! i've been working on this stick on and off all summer...

a poor pic of some of it... it's leaning near my chair - i like to gaze at it...

by the time this post goes up i'll be in ashland, oregon with the lovely roxanne, and the women in this post. we're getting together for another show, and i really do imagine i'll be laughing and talking up a storm right about now...

* * *

“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.”

~ Robert Henri, via Mary Ann Wakeley's tumblr

XO

2011-07-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

'i know a sensitive soul when i see one' ~ gouache, watercolors, oil and soft pastels,casein paint in milton book

XO

2011-07-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

watercolors, casein paint and pogo print in milton book

the pogo print is of a photograph that i saw on tumblr. i made the image as full sized as it would go, then i took a picture of it and printed it out on the pogo printer. somehow it seems amazing to me that i can take a digital picture of a digital image and then print it out on 'paper'!

colored pencil, watercolors, gouache, oil pastel and pogo print

some people have asked how accurate the pogo prints are, and the answer is, it depends... sometimes they're accurate, and sometimes they're not. it helps to fool around with your camera settings and see what works best. but in the end i try to be happy with whatever comes out - i think of the printer as an artist who has her own mind about the way things should look. ; )

* * *

'curtain call' ~ andrew wyeth

“There are no rules in my work. I don’t really have studios. I wander around — around people’s attics, out in fields, in cellars, any place I find that excites me. I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious. I begin to see an emotion building up in my mind before I ever put it down on the panel… Sometimes I do my best work after the models have gone away, purely from memory. And that’s what makes me laugh when critics say I’m photographic. I’m not photographic at all. Nothing against the camera, but it doesn’t work with me.”

~Andrew Wyeth, via tumblr

XO

2011-07-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

casein paint, watercolors, inktense pencils, beeswax & muslin

* * *

prismacolor pencils and beeswax on creek rocks

XO

2011-07-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

colored pencils, watercolors and pogo print in milton book - 4" x 6"

* * *

wild shasta lilies ~ july 19th

XO

a little

2011-07-18T22:38:00.001-07:00

analyzing the surface of audrey

clarification...

so i don't think that i made it very clear as to exactly *why* i'd be putting a fixative on beeswax except to keep the pages in my book from sticking together... the other reason is that i'm getting ready to be part of a show at the end of the month, and i can't sell these pieces unless they have some kind of protective fixative on them. i typed in all of the stuff that's on the surface of the wax on audrey... she was painted on the teabag too, but then this stuff was added to bring out what was underneath...

yeah, so that's why... ; )

if you're wondering about the buff titanium watercolor of her dress (i'd be!!), it's from daniel smith. it is dense, good stuff. roz has it in her gouache set; that's where i found out about it.

'her wings were invisible' ~ with wax and black casein paint

on another note, i put wax over 'her wings were invisible', and then black casein paint in the outline. i like her better now - she's more interesting to me...

* * *

“It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture.”

Cy Twombly, via tumblr

XO

PYM II

2011-07-17T22:11:00.001-07:00

audrey ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag

a few weeks ago a friend told me about the spray fixative, PYM II... at the time i was using krylon low odor, which in my opinion is anything but low odor, but it was one of the least toxic fixatives that i could find, so i got it. PYM II sounded good... it does not carry a CA prop 65 label and it's 'VOC exempt'. while it smells awful when you're spraying it, within a couple of minutes 95% of the smell is gone, and within a couple of hours there is literally no smell at all. the beeswax smells just like beeswax again...

this is how stiff audrey is with her beeswax and PYM II coating.

i wrote to the folks at PYM II as soon as i got it to ask if it was compatible with beeswax. within hours i got an answer from doug, the man who came up with the PYM II formula. here's the gist of what he said:

"You have given me a very good question....

I had to look up the chemical formula for beeswax. C15H31COOC30H61 that includes oleate esters of long-chain (30-32 carbons). Beeswax is a tough wax formed from a mixture of several compounds. TBAc is CH3COOC4H9 is the solvent in PYM II and is very similar to beeswax (tert-butyl ester) ...Yes it should have a good bond..."

gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book

in case it's helpful, i wanted to pass this on to you... i've sprayed all of the beeswax pages in my book with it.

gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book

it's slightly shiny, but not really as shiny as these pics make it appear.

adele ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book

initially i left a few wax pages unsprayed, and then left my book out in the sun (what was i thinking?). there was no comparison between what happened to the sprayed and unsprayed pages. the unsprayed ones stuck like crazy (i.e. a lot of wax came off on the opposing page), while the sprayed ones were slightly sticky, but the wax was firmly in place.

it comes in an aerosol and a non aerosol (finger pump) version... i just bought the non aerosol to see how it works.

* * *

shasta lily

XO

2011-07-14T21:42:00.001-07:00

'her wings were invisible' ~ oil pastels, gouache and casein paint on plaster, 5" x 7"

i'm still working in the milton book every day, but also outside of it. a few days ago i saw rebecca's painting on cracked plaster and i was tee-totally smitten! i had to try it! so out came my copy of "Plaster Studio: Mixed-Media Techniques for Painting, Casting and Carving" by Judy Wise and Stephanie Lee... much ado later, i had this. i will definitely be doing more. it just felt great to paint on this surface, although i'm having to relearn how to work on plaster since i'm no longer using acrylics. i've got to rethink the order of things... thank you rebecca, stephanie, and judy!!

more stuff outside my journal... teabag on muslin flag and colored pencil on bone. this is what i took out walking with me today to leave as gifts...

it's glorious out there! the shasta lilies are starting to bloom and the indian paintbrush is still blooming!

heart rocks at every turn...

and always, tree love...

* * *

via tumblr ~ thanks leslie!

XO

2011-07-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

prismacolor pencils and beeswax on cedar stick

i've got this stick sitting in the sun so i can see what happens when the beeswax that's on it gets hot... in the late afternoon when it got *really* hot, the wax got shinier and softer, but nowhere near melted. i'm experimenting... it'll be interesting to see how the wax holds up over time outside, and how much it protects the drawing...

watercolors, casein paint & beeswax on teabag and muslin

more experimenting - this time i painted on a teabag, put it over a piece of muslin, and then brushed the front with beeswax. the beeswax holds the teabag and muslin together. again, it'll be interesting to see how it holds up outside - and whether the markings on top of the wax (the black outline of the bird, etc.) wash off in the rain.

janine got me going on the idea of teabags and muslin... i've had some computer kerfuffles lately so i don't have a link to the quilting arts article she sent me a link to, but it got me thinking...

mostly i'm not too focused on any one thing, though. i wanna play and enjoy the sun, the warmth, the creek...

i've found a lot of heart rocks in the creek this summer...

big heart rock, north beach, port townsend, WA; little heart rock, rush creek

XO

2011-07-07T22:34:00.001-07:00

'eleanor' ~ watercolors, colored pencil, goauche, casein paint, oil pastel & beeswax on tea bag glued to book page on box - 2.5" x 3.5"

the box that my last batch of pogo printer paper came in. i'm feelin' the tea bag and box love...

* * *

colored pencils and pogo print in milton book - 4" x 6"

XO

2011-07-06T10:50:00.001-07:00

'thank you cy, you were the best scribbler' ~ gouache, china ink, watercolors, graphite & soft pastels on teabag in milton book

CY TWOMBLY

April 25, 1928 - July 5, 2011

"But Mr. Twombly, a tall, rangy Virginian who once practiced drawing in the dark to make his lines less purposeful, steadfastly followed his own program and looked to his own muses..."

~N.Y. Times

* * *

cy twombly

XO

colored pencil box

2011-07-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

last week i bought enough prismacolor pencils so that i'd have a set that could stay in my daypack. no more hurriedly choosing pencils from the ones spread all over the table; these would be ready to go at a moment's notice. but i needed a box for them, one that fit almost perfectly so the pencils don't bang around when i'm out walking...

i decided to cut up an old box and make one that was the exact size i wanted. i reinforced it with masking tape, then i glued a painting to the top and put packing tape over it to protect it further. the lid is snug enough so that it stays on by itself.

everything i need... a mechanical pencil, my favorite colors (alright well most of my favorite colors), a small bit of eraser, and a piece of muslin for smoothing/cleaning off sticks, stones, etc. i'm using the new pencils that i just got at home, and i put my old ones in the box - i can fit more in that way.

i love this box!! i carry around for the slightest reason! it's my art kit for the woods...

and if you're wondering why i didn't just buy a set of 24 (which comes with a nifty tin), it's because i wanted to choose the colors i like best...

i also got a pencil sharpener for my pack... this is the best 'self contained' and portable sharpener i've found. it's not the greatest design because the shavings get caught between the sharpener and the side of the canister, but it does do a great job of putting long, sharp points on colored pencils. i just shake the shavings down to the bottom often... dick blick sells them here.

left on mt. shasta last week...

* * *

“I am an artist. It’s self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, ‘I know all about it. I’ve already found it.’ As far as I’m concerned, the word means, ‘I am looking. I am hunting for it, I am deeply involved.’”

~Vincent van Gogh, via tumblr

XO

2011-07-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

delphine ~ watercolors, gouache, derwent drawing pencil & oil pastels - 4" x 6", for sale here

delphine said it was time to move on from the tinas...

* * *

XO

2011-07-01T23:16:00.000-07:00

angel tina ~ derwent drawing pencil, watercolors, gouache, china ink & oil pastels - 4" x 6"

angel tina was the last tina that i painted... as you can see i was seriously veering away from the simple china ink and watercolors idea. at one point i wiped about 3/4 of her off and thought (something like) "i can't do this. this is too hard." there are a lot of times when i feel that painting requires me to dig way deeper than i really want to dig. or maybe it's let go way more than i want to let go... it sure isn't always easy. anyway, as is often the case, my favorite things about her were caused by sheer accident in the process of wiping stuff off.

i drew her with a venetian red derwent drawing pencil. that is one sweet pencil...

* * *

prismacolor pencils on a piece of bone - stuck in the bark of a cedar tree

XO

2011-06-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

a tina named lilly ~ graphite, oil pastels, watercolors, goauche & china ink - in milton book, 4" x 6"

* * *

prismacolor pencils on bone fragment

XO

2011-06-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

pink tina ~ china ink, graphite, watercolors, gouache & oil pastel in milton book - 4" x 6"

two more tinas ~ china ink, graphite, watercolors

* * *

XO

2011-06-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

tina #2, savvy tina ~ graphite, china ink, oil pastel & watercolors

i drew most of these with a lyra graphite crayon (9B). they are nice!!

* * *

Film footage of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954).

The beautiful song is “Esa Noche” by Café Tacuba.

via tumblr

XO

2011-06-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

tina #1, elegant tina ~ graphite, china ink & watercolors - 4" x 6"

back to 'the tinas'... : )

i painted most of them on the pages that i cut out of my book... it seemed a good way to use the pages that were piling up. once i got a little stack of them (and i really liked them!) i decided to try selling them for a very reasonable price. so, you can buy most of' the tinas' at a new blog that i've created, 'bird on a wire'.

some people have asked what china ink is, and there seems to be a difference of opinion about it on the internet. in my mind it's the same as sumi ink.
it is lovely, lovely stuff, and it goes a long ways.

XO

wax and tea bags

2011-06-24T20:28:00.001-07:00

solstice butterfly ~ gouache, watercolors, wax & casein paint on tea bag, 4" x 6"

veering back to wax and tea bags briefly (not that i would ever bounce around from one thing to another) so that i can post a basic step-by-step of what i'm doing with them. several people have asked, so in case it's helpful to others, here it is...

i'm using purified beeswax from R&F encaustics - i melt in in my Ranger 'melting pot' (a very handy thing).

* * *

make tea and let soak until you like the amount of staining on the bag

dry the bag and take the tea out (but leave the back seam of the bag closed - just open up the ends). leave all of the little flaps folded when you're done.

iron it

draw and/or paint on the front of the bag with the usual stuff - watercolors, oil pastels, colored pencils, and/or gouache

when the paint is dry, open up the back seam of the tea bag so it's now almost 4" x 6"

brush matte gel medium lightly on the book page and press the tea bag onto it - let dry

heat up the wax and brush it on (all over the page)

take a quilting iron and move the wax around 'til you like the distribution

with an awl draw designs in the wax and rub gouache or casein paint (or oil pastels) into the dug out areas (wipe off the excess, but maybe not all!)

paint with gouache, casein paint, or oil pastels on the wax

* * *

one thing to remember about gouache, casein paint, and tubes of high quality watercolors, is that while they're water soluble, when you use them without adding water they stick beautifully to wax (or to oil pastels). it's only when you add water that they're not so compatible. so i use all of these mediums straight out of the tube a lot. amazingly they still go a long way when you use them like this.

XO

2011-06-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

tina #1 ~ china ink, pencil, gouache and watercolors, 4" x 6"

going back to early june now, i got on a real jag painting 'the tinas'. i'd just gotten tina berning's book '100 girls on cheap paper', and i was swept away by the power and simplicity of her faces. she uses a lot of china ink, so i got mine out and painted a whole bunch of 'tinas'... i'd look at one of her faces and try to paint the eyes (or nose or mouth) the way that she painted it. i feel like i learned a lot, and i highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about painting/drawing faces.

XO

solstice love...

2011-06-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

watercolors, gouache, oil pastel, colored pencil, tea bag & beeswax - 4" x 6"

i'm jumping forward to what i'm working on now in the book because it reflects the energy of these days for me...

watercolors, gouache, oil pastel, colored pencil, tea bag & beeswax - 4" x 6"

i painted on tea bags, glued them to the page, put beeswax on top of it all, and then dug into and painted on the wax...

the pages i did yesterday... thank you, kim, for inspiring me to work on tea bags!

i am sending you solstice love and wishes for an expansive day!!

XO

2011-06-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

a little shrine ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, & oil pastels, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-06-17T21:53:00.000-07:00

ruth ~ gouache, watercolors, casein paint & oil pastels, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-06-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

a young john ~ casein paint, oil pastels, watercolor & gouache, 4" x 6"

young john is on the first page in the book i'm working in now... well, it could be a young john milton. he certainly looks pious enough...

it's a book of milton's early poetry (he was writing when he was a teenager), and the paper in it is fabulous. i can paint with watercolors to my heart's delight and the pages don't buckle. lately i've been putting a thin layer of matte gel medium on some of the pages before i start, but not always. it just depends on what i feel like doing at the time.

i'm taking out every third page (as i go) because i don't want the book to get too thick... i don't think the binding could take that. there isn't a date of publication in it, but i'd say it's at least a hundred years old... there are a lot of old books out there for us to work in!!

sarah is working in 'the saffron sea' now. she's been making me smile for weeks!!

XO

2011-06-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

thank you ~ watercolors, gouache, oil pastel and casein paint

well, dear readers, here we are at the end of the chartreuse book... there were more faces in it than those i showed here - about half the book had paintings in it,

and the other half looked like this - pogo prints, some words, and little doodles. i printed 100 pogo prints on my trip to virginia, and in general i print one or two every day...

the slightly flexible cover of the quo vadis habana was nice in that it accommodated the thickness created by adding paper to the pages that i painted on (not to mention the pogo prints). i probably took the centerfolds out of five signatures, so i didn't take much paper out considering how much i added. i loved the size - 4" x 6.4", but in my opinion the paper is too thin for anything other than pencil, ink, or colored pencil (and the new habanas are made with an even lighter paper).

my favorite things: the color (!), the size (bigger than most 'pocket' journals), and the elastic band - it stays snug against the back of the book while you're working in it. i think it'd be a great book for writing, and pencil or ink sketching. i could hardly make pencil smudge in it, so if you like nice clean pencil lines, this would be a good choice...

please feel free to ask any questions!

XO

2011-06-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

donald raymond ~ gouache, watercolors, casein paint and oil pastel, 4" x 6", chartreuse book

XO

2011-06-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

rosie ~ gouache, oil pastels, watercolors & casein paint, chartreuse book, 4" x 6"

* * *

“Say to yourself, “I want to live a true life”.
Then watch yourself.
Discover the true response you make to life undistorted by others.
Self-knowledge is not social.
Artists, take every opportunity to be alone.”

~Agnes Martin via tumbler (thanks robyn : )

XO

2011-06-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

ima ~ gouache, watercolors & oil pastel, chartreuse book, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-06-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

simon ~ oil pastel, gouache, watercolors & casein paint, chartreuse journal, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-06-09T21:50:00.000-07:00

lola ~ gouache, watercolors, oil pastels & casein paint, 4" x 6"

and today, while out wandering...

grinning at the happy sagebrush

and indian paintbrush...

a hummingbird flew in front of me! i was standing there with camera in hand, all i had to do was snap!

* * *

XO

2011-06-02T14:48:00.000-07:00

doris jean ~ gouache and watercolors on traditional gesso, te's book, 4" x 4"

my trusty computer seems to be on its last legs; i can hardly see the images on the screen as i type this (doris jean looks very strange), so i'm gonna stop posting until a new computer gets here. thank you again to everyone for your kind words about these faces!! i have few more to post and then i'm gonna get on with the book that i'm working in now.

here it is a few days ago at a coffee shop in mt. shasta... it's an old book of john milton's poetry. there's no publication date listed, but i'd say late 1800s or early 1900s. it's a gem...

okay! thank you again, and love!

* * *

Todd: Hi Aaron! Tell me why collaboration is better than competition.

Aaron: Being friends with people is just way better than not. In the grand scheme of things art just means nothing and people who take it seriously have really lost the plot. (It's) more fun to just make things.

~ Todd Selby and Aaron Rose in The Selby is in your Place. Aaron is an artist and director of the film Beautiful Losers, about outsider art and artists (streaming on netflix).

XO

2011-06-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

evelyn grace ~ the same stuff... ; ), 4" x 6"

XO

2011-05-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

violet ~ watercolors, oil pastels & casein paint, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-05-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

casein paint, watercolors, gouache & oil pastel on cotton, 4" x 4" in te's book

XO

2011-05-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

oil pastel, casein paint, gouache, and watercolors on plaster cloth, 4" x 4" in te's book

XO

2011-05-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

casein paint, watercolors, gouache & oil pastel, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-05-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

blonde ~ casein paint, watercolors, gouache, & oil pastels, 4" x 6"

XO

2011-05-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

truth teller with pink hair and pink shoes ~ gouache, oil pastel, watercolors & colored pencil, 4" x 6"

(i got sorta mesmerized by these truth tellers...)

today at 5:30! the snow decides to stick!

XO

2011-05-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

dogwood woman ~ colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolors and gouache - 4" x 6"

thank you all for your kind words about these faces... the main thing that enabled me to paint while i was in virginia was

this little trailer... it was my home away from home and my art stuff stayed on the table; all i had to do was sit down, put the music on and paint. thank you rick and carole... (my brother-in-law and sister)

XO

2011-05-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

watercolors, gouache, casein paint, and oil pastels - 4" x 6"

today i discovered 100 Girls on Cheap Paper by tina berning. whoa! you can click on thumbnails of all of the paintings here ...

XO

2011-05-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

watercolors, gouache & oil pastels - 4" x 6"

XO

2011-05-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

gouache, watercolor, and oil pastel - 4" x 6"

so i'm going to (quietly ; ) post some pages from the chartreuse journal... what i ended up doing was covering the pages that i wanted to paint on with book or magazine pages. glued them down with matte gel medium as i went along... about half the pages in the book have pogo prints and writing on them, and the other half i painted on. most of the faces are heavy on the white gouache!! the skin starts out as cream caran d'ache oil pastel, and evolves from there.

XO

blowing kisses

2011-05-19T20:32:00.001-07:00

truth teller with yellow hair ~ watercolor, gouache, & oil pastel, chartreuse journal, 4" x 6"

and staying quiet in the blog world, for now, at least...

i've done so much, seen so much since my last post. a month in virginia with family and friends, and last week, five days in salem, oregon. the little chartreuse book is almost full! soooo many things that i could write about, but one that i want to mention for sure is the traveling picasso exhibit that opens in san francisco on june 11. i saw it at the virginia museum of fine arts in richmond, and it touched me to the core. i've never considered myself a huge picasso fan, but to be in the presence of his work, of the work of someone who was compelled to paint every day, moved me more than i could ever have imagined. if you're an obsessive painter/drawer, go see it if you can...

if you're stopping by for the first time because you've seen my stuff here or here, welcome! please feel free to ask questions - i'll be happy to answer them!

to everyone, i send my love!

* * *

I paint the way some people write their autobiography. The paintings, finished or not, are the pages from my diary.

~ Pablo Picasso

waving

2011-03-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

next to last page in hand book journal

so here i am, waving goodbye... i know that i like to see what people take with them on their travels, so i took some pics of my new 'daily book' and most of the art supplies i'm taking. not all, mind you, but most... i'm also taking a bag of sari silk and muslin scraps for working in te's book and for making 'tree flags'; and my wood burning tool. i believe that i could do nothing but art for the entire month and i'd have plenty to do...

this time i'm going to try a quo vadis habana blank journal... at 4" x 6" it's a little bigger than most pocket sized journals (i like this). the paper is super smooth, and, i have a feeling, probably too thin for much heavy duty artwork, but i'll find out. it'll definitely be great for colored pencils and pogo prints. i really love that the paper is clairefontaine, which is made without chlorine and from trees grown in a PEFC forest. and, of course, the color... chartreuse!!

this is huge if you click

top left is the one layer from my pelikan gouache set. the set has two layers, and the colors pop out easily so you can rearrange them. these are my favorite colors... on the right is my zecchi watercolor set with miscellaneous crayons/paints stuck in wherever i can fit them. on the bottom are the oil pastels i use the most. i'm also taking white casein paint... oh! and my colored pencils!

* * *

herman hesse painting

“You, too, have mysteries of your own. I know that you must have dreams that you don’t tell me. I don’t want to know them. But I can tell you: live those dreams, play with them, build altars to them. It is not yet the ideal but it points in the right direction. Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world someday remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day, otherwise we just aren’t serious. Don’t forget that!”

~Herman Hesse, 'Demian', via tumblr

XO

play

2011-03-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

gouache, colored pencil and ink

the other thing that i've been doing (besides figuring out what i want to do in te's book) is finishing up my pocket 'hand book'. i wanted to finish it before i leave next week so i can start fresh in a new book on my trip.

'the bard parker' really belongs farther down the post (chronologically speaking), but its bright colors demanded that it go at the top... it's a painting of the tool my dentist used in my mouth a few weeks ago. i may have exaggerated its size and shape, ha! but not much

my thoughts on the paper in the 'hand book' are that it's pretty good for just about all media, and really good for none. i didn't mind the buckling so much when using watercolors (and granted i'm not capable of 'light washes'), but i didn't like that it didn't take much paint before you could see the shadow of it on the other side. it's also a little too rough for colored pencils... oh you can use them, but they don't want to blend easily and tiny details may or may not work because of the subtle bumpiness of the paper.

i did do a lot of light colored pencil pages though, mostly because i liked the way the colored pencils worked on the pages better than watercolors, and they didn't show through on the other side of the page.

i got on a clothing jag... i think there's something really satisfying about drawing clothes without bodies in them.

i drew a lot of pale faces... practicing different things and seeing what happens to the expression when you do this or that.

glued some magazine pages in... i added an old stamp to the page on the left.

finally i decided that i'd just cover the pages up! ha! take that 'hand book' paper! the page on the right is from an old thesaurus that roxanne gave me... first i traced the shape of the page onto the old book page, cut it out, brushed gel medium on the back side and brayered onto the journal page.

i was off and running then!

instead of listing the 'ingredients' below each image, i'll just say here that i used some combination of gouache, watercolors, colored pencils, casein paint, and oil pastels on the rest of the pages. if you have any questions about a particular page, please ask! i'll post the answer in the comments section as well as in an e-mail...

i painted these pages after watching 'jean-michel basquiat: the radiant child'...

i'm painting with watercolors on top of oil pastels a lot on these pages... in the way that i learned to do with the creek people. i'm also using white gouache with wild abandon - it's like miracle stuff... this page was a map from an old atlas.

'alice' was painted after watching a documentary about alice neel's life. from now on the pages are covered with paper from an old wildflower book (pub. 1924).

this page and the one below were done only with colored pencils, and they don't show up well in the pics, but in person they're subtle and some of my favorites.

first i draw some things on the page, then i put down a very light layer of matte gel medium and draw again on that. liquitex matte gel medium creates a wonderful surface for colored pencils...

here i drew on the page with colored pencils, put a very thin layer of gel medium down, and then used watercolors and oil pastels...

same here...

behind each of these faces is the drawing of another person...

here's a page in progress... on the left is colored pencil directly on the page, and on the right is what i drew with colored pencils on the gel medium. then i must have put another layer of gel medium down (heh, i can't remember) ...

then i drew the face and painted it. for new readers, i draw with my left (non-dominant) hand...

this is a page from 'of cabbages and kings' (pub. 1902) that i glued in. the face is a stamp i carved and then painted over (heavily!). a lot of white gouache here... her hair had gone beyond repair, so white goauche to the rescue. she sorta looks like she just stepped out of the shower (except not really ).

this is what i'm working on now - gotta finish the bottom row...

this is the last thing glued into the book; she's on 100# bristol board that i got a few days ago. oh! colored pencil heaven!!

and the book itself! i took out the centerfolds of the last three signatures to make room for the added paper. it's puffed up, but not much... i only have a few pages left...

* * *

It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.

~ camille pissarro

XO

ode to te

2011-03-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

oil pastel and watercolors on traditional gesso and silk

this post is about a package that i got from te willans not long after my last post. i traded a few of my small paintings for one of te's handmade books. or i thought that's what i was trading for! te sent me a package that was packed to the brim with wondrousness - a LOT of fabulous, dyed with natural dyes wondrousness...

this is what the box looked like when i first opened it - there were two of these wool and silk coasters...

after i'd thoroughly dug around... everything is dyed with natural dyes and made by te. here you can see thread, samples of silk and cotton - some ready to paint on with traditional gesso and some without for stitching, and a stitched cloth.

this wool was full of te's ceramic buttons...

this is the stitched cloth - it's so much more gorgeous than this pic shows, but you can see how happy the crystals are on it...

oil pastel, colored pencil, and watercolor on traditional gesso and heavy cotton

this piece and the one at the top of the post are done on two of the sample pieces she sent. one is traditional (rabbit skin glue) gesso on silk, and the other is on heavy cotton. traditional gesso feels completely different to me than acrylic gesso. the energy of everything that te sent is very earthy, and, well, very real.

so the book, yes the book! she sent me an exquisite one! i'm mostly saving it to work in when i go back east in a couple of weeks, but i've been experimenting in it to figure out what i want to do so i know what to take with me. even though i've worked in a lot of muslin books, this is the first time i've worked in a book that has fabric pages without anything on them, as well as ones with gesso on them.

oil pastel, watercolors, and casein paint on traditonal gesso and silk

a poor pic of the first page (and look how beautiful the inside cover is!). basically i've decided that oil pastels, casein paint, and watercolors work best on the gesso pages...

the second and third pages... i used plaster cloth on the second page but decided that was more than i wanted to fool with, so for the rest of the book i'll just stick stuff on the backs of the gessoed pages. i could paint on them, but i don't want it to run through to the other side, and i don't want to put gel medium on to prevent that from happening.

the page on the right is a cotton page (some are silk and some are cotton). i stamped a face i carved on it, colored it in with oil pastels, and then sewed some sari ribbon along the outside edge. i LOVE the idea of mixing up the kinds of pages - some for stitching and some for painting.

another stamped face, but this time i stitched some color in...

stamped face on paper that i stitched to the back of a page.

i've safety pinned pieces of muslin with faces stamped on them to the back so i'll have them when i'm gone.

i think i have a good idea of what i want to do in the book now, so i've wrapped it up and it's ready to travel...

thank you so much, te, for everything...

on another note entirely, i have not come to any earth shaking conclusions re: blogging in the last month. my main impression was that life felt more *spacious* without it. i do know that i'll keep doing it until i absolutely don't feel like doing it anymore. whatever feels right as the days unfold...

and finally...

* * *

Dear friends in Japan,

As we contemplate the great number of people who have died in this tragedy, we may feel very strongly that we ourselves, in some part or manner, also have died.

The pain of one part of humankind is the pain of the whole of humankind. And the human species and the planet Earth are one body. What happens to one part of the body happens to the whole body.

An event such as this reminds us of the impermanent nature of our lives. It helps us remember that what’s most important is to love each other, to be there for each other, and to treasure each moment we have that we are alive. This is the best that we can do for those who have died: we can live in such a way that they continue, beautifully, in us.

Here in France and at our practice centers all over the world, our brothers and sisters will continue to chant for you, sending you the energy of peace, healing and protection. Our prayers are with you.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, via tumblr

XO

love

2011-02-14T22:03:00.000-08:00

watercolor and colored pencil on kraft tag

my tag love continues... i got some large (3 1/4" x 6") kraft tags here, and they are a joy to work on. right away i tried watercolors and they work great - very little buckling.

watercolor and oil pastel on kraft tag

my plan is to put them on book rings, which i found here for a very reasonable price. this is about as complicated as i want to get with book making these days!

watercolor and oil pastel on kraft tag

a big fat stack of them on a ring... and i can make covers if i want.

watercolor, colored pencil, gouache, and oil pastel on kraft tag

the great thing about working on kraft paper is that the brown background does a lot of the shading for you. all you have to do is not cover it too heavily (and this piece is not a good example of that).

gouache, watercolors, pencil, colored pencil, and casein paint in 3" x 5" journal

in my zecchi (aka pen and ink) journal... picking it up and painting another page when i feel the urge...

and wood burning! did you know it's called pyrography? i had no idea! this magazine practically jumped into my hands last week at barnes and noble. if you have an inclination to learn more about pyrography, i *highly* recommend it. it covers everything a beginner (like me) might want to know. it appears to be a one time issue - a supplement to 'scrollsaw' magazine...

you can imagine that i was practically drooling in the store as i looked at these examples of patterns that can be made with the three basic tips (which i now know about). i left this especially huge so you can click and read...

i came home and got my woodburner out (trying not to covet the $200 'machines' - that's what they call them - in the magazine). i filed my fine 'writing' tip so it worked better and burned the lines on the bead (only partially colored in with colored pencils here), her face and clothes... her head is a knob and her body is a sawed off piece of stick. the other side of the knob and stick have another face and body on them. the knobs are 12 to a bag at michaels...

and blocks! also from michaels - 13 in a bag. i was going to burn them but oil pastels, ink, and inktense pencils are so much easier! i got the idea for this from robyn's tumblr... she posted an image of a stack of painted blocks, and i thought it was such a fabulous idea; thinking about how you could switch them up and have a different 'painting' every day. i've slowly been working on them - i added the heart today. these could be a form of journaling...

tim holtz distress inks work great on these. the red behind the heart is the color 'fired brick', and the heart is caran d'ache creme oil pastel. i'm not putting a varnish or finish of any kind on them. i like them just as they are. i do take a blending stump and push the oil pastel in, though, so it doesn't smear as easily...

i continue to go back and forth, back and forth, about blogging, so i'm going to take a break for a month and see if that brings more clarity... i want to leave you with a few links, though... some of my favorite new artists from the last couple of weeks. but before i do that,

happy valentine's day!

dominique goblet

dominique goblet (click on 'peinture' at the bottom of the page to see her paintings)

inez storer ~ a warrior of unknown origin

inez storer

alice leach ~ momentary anger...

alice leach

* * *

"Dare to be naive"

~ Buckminster Fuller, via tumblr

XO

tags and pages

2011-02-06T16:12:00.000-08:00

i don't know which i was more excited about last week - painting on tags or the fact that the thin pages in 'war and peace' can stand up to watercolors...

this is the back side of the page, and, as you can see, there was practically no bleed-through, not to mention buckling. i had stalled out on working in 'war and peace' because i really wanted to use watercolors, but i thought the pages were way too thin. a few days ago i decided to see exactly what would happen, and once again i'm impressed beyond words by the paper that's used in books (at least some of them). it's like magic paper...

big if you click

here's most of what i put on the page - the water bowl is in the shot because i used *a lot* of water. besides using it while painting the face, the last thing i did was dip my finger in it (over and over), and smear everything around. and still the page lays almost perfectly flat. i also used oil pastel and colored pencil. just amazing...

casein paint, watercolors, gouache, colored pencil and oil pastel on mail tags

the other thing i've been delighted with is painting on tags, an idea i got from sarah wallis. thank you, sarah! i believe i have a tag addiction now... i love that they're practically indestructible and useful! perfect for leaving them around out in the world, or for sending with packages. i'm leaving them leaned against the back of my watercolor box because it seems a perfect easel... (and they can talk to me while i'm painting)

on tumblr i found the art of ilka gedo. i don't think there's one piece that she painted in her life that i don't love with every fiber of my being. this sketchbook drawing is from her childhood, and there are many pages of them to gaze at here.

her oil paintings are here...

and 'colour patterns' here...

the quote below seems to me to apply to art making as much as writing.

i love it...

* * *

“Kierkegaard said, ‘Drink from your own well.’ And I like that, taking it to mean that each of us has an individual source for our best work, and that to reach deliberately elsewhere is to neglect something essential in our writing.

So when I get up in the morning and settle down to write, I do not reach for what is timely or in style, but for something that suggests itself to me right at the moment. It can be any trivial word or even syllable, or a sound from the tree outside, or what day it is, or that the sun is about to come up—anything. And sometimes I feel that the more trivial it seems the better, for with nothing to live up to I can relax and catch onto a current within me.”

~ William Stafford, from his brief essay “Reaching into the Well” in Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer’s Vocation (The University of Michigan Press, 2001), via tumblr

XO

alala

2011-01-31T21:00:00.000-08:00

my friend, kathy dorfer, is giving away an alala painting on her blog. alala is the raven, and kathy has painted her many times...

these are my alala paintings, given to me by kathy since 2007. they're beautiful, just like her...

XO